Comm Theory Exam #2

Front 1

Central Themes

Back 1

• Every relationship is filled with contradictions and tensions.
• Personal relationships are indeterminate processes of ongoing flux.
• The dialectical tensions are opportunities for dialogue and growth.

Front 2

Three Relational Dialectics

Back 2

Integration – Separation
Stability – Change
Expression/nonexpression

Front 3

• Integration – Separation

Back 3

o Connectedness/Separateness
o Primary strain in a relationship
o Sacrifice of personal autonomy is necessary.
o BUT too much connection may destroy the relationship.

Front 4

• Stability – Change

Back 4

o Certainty/uncertainty
o While we want the stability of relationship, we also like mystery and spontaneity.
o Conventionality – uniqueness

Front 5

• Expression/nonexpression

Back 5

o Openness – Closedness
o Self-disclosure and privacy operate in cyclical patterns

Front 6

Three Attitude Zones

Back 6

latitude of acceptance
latitude of rejection
latitude of non commitment

Front 7

• Latitude of acceptance

Back 7

o The range of ideas that a person sees as reasonable or worthy of consideration.

Front 8

• Latitude of rejection

Back 8

o The range of ideas that a person sees as unreasonable or objectionable.

Front 9

• Latitude of noncommitment

Back 9

o The range of ideas that a person sees as neither acceptable nor objectionable.

Front 10

Ego Involvement

Back 10

• The importance or centrality of an issue to a person’s life, often demonstrated by membership in a group with a known stand.
o How crucial is the issue to our lives?
o The greater the ego involvement, the heavier the anchor point.

Front 11

Contrast Effect

Back 11

• A perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitude of rejection as further from their anchor than they really are.

Front 12

Assimilation Effect

Back 12

• A perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitude of acceptance as less discrepant from their anchor than they really are.

Front 13

boomerang effect

Back 13

• Attitude change in the opposite direction of what the message advocates; listeners driven away from rather than drawn to an idea.

Front 14

Theory Essence

Back 14

• Sharing group fantasies creates symbolic convergence.

Front 15

Dramatizing Message

Back 15

• Creative interpretations of there-and-then
• Imaginative language to describe past, future or things outside the group
• Must paint a picture or create an image

Front 16

Fantasy

Back 16

• “Dramatizing messages that are enthusiastically embraced by the whole group”
• Shared interpretation that fulfills a group’s psychological or rhetorical needs

Front 17

Fantasy Chain

Back 17

• The group’s (common) response to a member’s dramatizing message

Front 18

Fantasy Theme

Back 18

• The content of the message that sparks a fantasy chain reaction.
• Reveals group members’ meanings, emotions, motives, and actions.
• Indexed by symbolic cue that ignites the reaction.
• Fantasy type: A cluster of related fantasy themes

Front 19

Symbolic Convergence:

Back 19

• When two or more private symbol worlds grow close and/or merge.
• Results in group consciousness.
• Can lead to heightened group cohesiveness
• Sometimes the group climate could be negative

Front 20

Rhetorical vision:

Back 20

• Private group fantasies are shared in public speeches or messages.
• This forms a rhetorical community.

Front 21

Cultural Approach Introduction

Back 21

• Clifford Geertz
o Cultures are webs of shared meaning, shared understanding, and shared sensemaking.
• Michael Pacanowsky
o communication creates and constitutes the taken-for-granted reality of the world.

Front 22

Cultural Approach

Back 22

• Cultural studies of organizations are a soft science; not experimental but interpretive searching for meaning.
• Culture is not something that organization HAS but what an organization IS.

Front 23

Cultural Elements

Back 23

Metaphors
Stories
Rituals

Front 24

Metaphors

Back 24

o Widely used metaphors offer a starting place for assessing the shared meaning of a corporate culture.

Front 25

Stories

Back 25

o Stories provide windows into organizational culture.
o Pacanowsky focuses on the script-like qualities of narratives that line out an employee’s role in the company play.
• Three types of organizational narratives.
 Corporate stories reinforce management ideology and policies.
 Personal stories define how individuals would like to be seen within an organization.
 Collegial stories: are positive or negative anecdotes about others within the organization that pass on how the organization “really works.” -- usually unsanctioned by management.

Front 26

Rituals

Back 26

o Rituals articulate multiple aspects of cultural life.
o Some rituals are nearly sacred and difficult to change.

Front 27

Introduction to Critical Approach

Back 27

• Stanley Deetz’s theory seeks to balance corporate and human interests.
• The issue of power runs through all communication

Front 28

Corporate colonization of everyday life

Back 28

• Deetz views multinational corporations as the dominant force in society.
• Corporate control has diminished the quality of life for most citizens.

Front 29

Communication in organizations

Back 29

• Communication practices distort decision making improve workplace democracy
• Corporate communication is usually undemocratic

Front 30

Two Models

Back 30

1. Information Model
2. Communication Model
----see review sheet

Front 31

four types of decision making

Back 31

1. Strategy
2. Consent
3. Involvement
4. Participation

Front 32

• Strategy: overt managerial moves to extend control

Back 32

o Managerialism values control above all else.
o The desire for control can even exceed the desire for corporate performance.
o Employee resistance

Front 33

• Consent: willing allegiance to covert control

Back 33

o Consent is developed through managerial control of corporate culture
o Systematically distorted communication operates without employees’ overt awareness.

Front 34

• Involvement: free expression of ideas, but no voice

Back 34

o Free expression is not the same as having a “voice” in corporate decisions.
o Knowledge of this difference creates worker cynicism.

Front 35

• Participation: stakeholder democracy in action

Back 35

o Deetz advocates open negotiations of power.
o Managers should mediate, rather than persuade