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36 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
What is Theory?
• an abstract statement that provides an understanding or explanation of something observed in the social world.
o Developing a theory:
• Specific, concrete observation --→ Abstract Statement
What is communication
• The relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response.
Objective (Deterministic)
• looking for the ultimate truth, hard date, want to explain as well as predict
• Empiricist: facts based on numbers
• Quantitative
o Experiment
o Survey
Interpretive (Humanistic):
• free will, multiple meanings or truths, symbolic (we argue)
• Rhetorician: knows how to use language (good speaker)
• Qualitative
o Textual analysis
o Ethnography
• Objective Approach: how do we know what we know
o Truth is singular
o Objective reality
o What is real is known through the senses
• Interpretive approach: how do we know what we do
o Assume multiple realities
o Objective reality is questionable
o Truth is largely subjective
o Meaning is highly interpretive
Human Nature:
• Objective Approach:
o Objectivists → Determinists
o Stress the forces that shape human behavior (biology and the environment).
Human Nature
• Interpretive Approach
o Interpretivists → Free Will
o focus on conscious choices made by individuals.
Highest Values:
• Objective Approach:
o values OBJECTIVITY
• They want empirical evidence.
o seeks effectiveness
• Effectiveness = effectively communicating the message/ideas
Highest Values:
Interpretive approach:
o values EMANCIPATION
• Seek to liberate people from all forms of oppression.
o focuses on participation and understanding.
• Participation = equal representation of all points of view.
Purpose of Theory:
• Objective approach
o seeks for universal laws
o To predict
Purpose of Theory:

Interpretive approach
o seeks for deeper understanding
o To understand
5 criteria for evaluating an objective theory:
1. Explanation of the Data
2. Prediction of Future Events
3. Relative Simplicity
4. Hypotheses That Can Be Tested
5. Practical Utility
5 criteria for evaluating an interpretive theory:
1. New Understanding of People
2. Clarification of Values
3. Aesthetic Appeal
4. A Community of Agreement
5. Reform of Society
Seven Traditions
1. The socio-psychological tradition:
2. The cybernetic tradition
3. The rhetorical tradition
4. The semiotic tradition
5. The socio-cultural tradition
6. The critical tradition
7. The phenomenological tradition
1. The socio-psychological tradition:
i. Communication as interpersonal influence
ii. Discovers truths by careful, systematic observation.
iii. Searches for cause-and-effect relationships.
iv. Source → Message → effect
2. The cybernetic tradition
i. Communication as information processing
ii. Emphasizes how feedback makes information processing possible.
iii. Communication connects the separate parts of any system.
iv. Source → transmitter → NOISE SOURCE → receiver → destination
v. Channel Capacity = Information + Noise
1. The best communication is the one that maximizes information while minimizing distortion
3. The rhetorical tradition
i. Communication as artful public address
ii. This was the predominant theory from Greek-Roman times until the present.
iii. Six Features:
1. Speech distinguishes humans from other animals.
2. Is more effective than rule by decree.
3. Is one-way communication.
4. Oratorical training is the cornerstone of a leader’s education.
5. Rhetoric is more art than science.
6. Used to be male dominated
4. The semiotic tradition
i. Communication is the process of sharing meaning through signs.
ii. Semiotics = the study of signs
iii. Meaning resides in people, not words or symbols.
iv. Many in this tradition are fascinated with non-verbal communication.
5. The socio-cultural tradition
i. Communication produces and reproduces culture.
ii. Language shapes our perceptions of reality.
iii. Persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social worlds.
6. The critical tradition
i. Communication = a reflective challenge of unjust discourse.
ii. Challenge to 3 features of society:
1. The control of language to perpetuate power imbalances.
2. The role of mass media in dulling our sensitivity to repression (HEGEMONY)
3. Blind reliance on the scientific method and uncritical acceptance of empiricism
o A common ethical agenda and solidarity with the oppressed.
7. The phenomenological tradition
i. Communication = the experience of self and others through dialogue.
ii. Phenomenology: An intentional analysis of everyday life from the standpoint of the person who is living it.
iii. Emphasizes people’s perceptions and interpretations of their own subjective experiences.
Fencing the field
• In position with one another: socio-psychological is the most objective, the phenomenological is the most subjective.
• Hybrids exist across the traditions. Scholars glean from all points of view.
• The traditions are not all inclusive. Other traditions may still need to be represented.
Expectancy Violations Theory:
• EVT tries to establish a link between surprising interpersonal behavior (expectancy violation) and attraction, credibility, influence and involvement (outcome).
o The meaning and outcome of the violation depends upon
• The degree of violation (Violation Valence)
• And the reward power of the violator (Reward Valence)
• EVT offers a soft determinism rather than hard-core universal laws
Expectancy:
• What we believe an interaction should be like.
o Context: Cultural norms
o Relationship: similarity, familiarity, liking, relationship status.
o Communicator characteristics: age, sex, appearance, personality.
• Deals with actual behavior within the interaction (not mental constructions of the behavior)
Violations:
• when behavior deviates from the threshold level of expectancy.
Violation valence
• The positive or negative value we place on a specific unexpected behavior—regardless of who does it.
Communicator Reward valence:
• the results of our mental assessment of likely gains and losses
o The sum of positive & negative attributes of the violator.
o The violator’s potential to reward or punish.
Social Penetration theory:
• proposes that, as relationships develop, interpersonal communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more intimate ones.
• Depth: Degree of intimacy
• Breadth: Range of areas
Axioms of social penetration:
• Peripheral items are exchanged more frequently and sooner than private information.
• Self-disclosure is reciprocal—especially in the early stages of relationships.
• Penetration is rapid at the beginning but slows down as more intimate information is disclosed.
• De-penetration means gradual withdrawal from each layer of intimacy.
Social Exchange Theory:
• Relational outcome
• Evaluating outcome
o Relational satisfaction
o Relational stability
Social information processing:
• Relationships grow following this pattern
o Interpersonal information → impression formation → relationship development
• Lack of nonverbal cues is not necessarily injurious; On-line and face-to-face relationships can develop just as effectively
• Verbal cues
o Computer-mediated Communication (CMC) users can develop fully formed impressions of others based on text-only messages
o Verbal and nonverbal cues are interchangeable
• Extended time
o Impressions through CMC are formed at a slower pace
• Hyperpersonal
o CMC relationships that are more intimate than off-line relationships
Four types of media effects: Sender-receiver-channel-feedback
• Sender: Selective self-presentation
• Receiver: Over attribution of similarity
• Channel: Communicating on your own time
• Feedback: Self-fulfilling prophecy