face-negotiation theory

Stella Ting-Toomey developed face-negotiation theory, discussed in Chapter 31. Griffin begins the chapter by discussing a model of negotiation that includes techniques such as brainstorming and performing a reality check, noting that this type of third-party mediation doesn't work across cultures. In exploring conflict, Ting-Toomey uses "face" as a metaphor for the individual's public self-image. Ting-Toomey's research is based on the notion of individualistic (about one-third of world's population) and collectivistic (about two-thirds of the world's population) cultures. Individualistic cultures have an "I" identity and collectivistic cultures have a "we" identity.

Ting-Toomey defines face restoration as facework used to preserve autonomy and personal freedom. Face giving is facework that supports another's need for inclusion.

In Ting-Toomey and Oetzel's cultural map of eight conflict management styles the obliging approach to conflict management is associated with a very high concern for others' face and a very low concern for one's own face. The dominating approach to conflict management is associated with a low concern for others' face and a high concern for one's own face. The integrating approach is associated with a high concern for others' face and a high concern for one's own face. The passive aggression approach demonstrates a high concern for self-face and a moderate concern for others' face. The emotional expression approach is concerned with letting feelings show. Ting-Toomey found in her research that the third-party help approach to conflict management is used in both individualistic and collectivistic cultures, but defined in different ways.

In applying Ting-Toomey's work in face-negotiation theory, the author of your text argues that knowledge is the most important dimension of facework competence. Mindfulness involves seeking multiple perspectives on the same event.

In her interview with Em Griffin, Stella Ting-Toomey defines a(n) independent self-construal as emphasizing personal initiative, achievement, and accountability. She also explains that an interdependent self-construal emphasizes relational harmony and cooperation.

~ Professor Cyborg

intercultural communication and communication accommodation theory

Blogging is optional for students this week, but not for me. Today I'll cover intercultural communication and communication accommodation theory.

In the introduction to this section of the text, Griffin notes that Gerry Philipsen defines the basis of culture as a code. Griffin then goes on to discuss Hofstede's four dimensions of culture. Power distance refers to the extent to which less powerful members of a society accept the unequal distribution of power. Clearly defined sex roles are associated with Hofstede's masculinity dimension of culture. Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance dimension refers to the degree to which people feel threatened by ambiguity. Group loyalty is associated with Hofstede's individualism dimension of culture. Individualistic cultures tend to rely on message content in their interactions with others. In contrast, collectivistic cultures tend to rely on message context in their interactions with others.

Howard Giles' communication accommodation theory, associated with the socio-psychological tradition, was originally called speech accommodation theory. According to Giles, the process of adapting behavior to be more similar to the other person is convergence. The desire for social approval provides the main motivation to converge. Divergence occurs when you accentuate the differences between yourself and another person. When communicators use overaccommodation their talk is demeaning or patronizing.

Griffin using the context of intergenerational communication to illustrate communication accommodation theory as much of Giles' work has been in this area of communication. Rigidly held stereotypes contribute to the impression of a communication encounter being an intergroup experience. For accommodation, what is ultimately important is not how a communicator converges or diverges, but the other person's perceptions of the behaviors. Giles relies on attribution theory to help explain the process of interpreting another’s behavior. Listeners who interpret convergence as a speaker’s desire to break down cultural barriers react favorably.

In critiquing communication accommodation theory, Griffin notes that relative simplicity is the criterion of a good theory that's most problematic for Giles' work.

~ Professor Cyborg

spiral of silence

The spiral of silence theory of media effects posits that people feel increasing pressure to not voice their views when they think they're in the minority. The scholar who developed the theory, Noelle-Neumann, defines public opinion as the attitudes that people feel they can express in public without isolating themselves. She suggests that people have a sixth sense or a quasi-statistical organ that provides trustworthy information about what a society in general is thinking and feeling.

Solomon Asch is the researcher whose group conformity studies with different length lines provides support for the notion of a spiral of silence. Noelle-Neumann recommends that two questions should be asked to sample an individual's perception of the climate of opinion: questions about the present climate and future forecast. Pluralistic ignorance refers to the mistaken assumption that everyone thinks like us.

Still, some people will speak out even when they think they're in the minority. For example, research has found that middle- and upper-class people find it easier to speak out. The most important factor that determines if people will voice their own opinion is whether they are in the majority or minority. Hard-core nonconformists are the vocal minority of outspoken believers who continue to speak out in defiance of threats of isolation because they have nothing to lose. Dietram Scheufele found contemporary support for the spiral of silence by asking people their opinion toward and willingness to speak out about biotechnology. However, the spiral of silence theory has been criticized because of an over-reliance on hypothetical scenarios.

In spite of its shortcomings, the spiral of silence provides insight into why people speak out or are silent. For example, consider all the people who remained silent before the Iraq war--when being against the war put people in the minority--who now have spoken out when public opinion changed.

~ Professor Cyborg

agenda-setting theory

Chapter 28 discusses the agenda-setting theory of McCombs and Shaw. These researchers have developed a model of media effects that is structured as Media Agenda —› Voters' Agenda. Griffin provides support for McCombs and Shaw's argument, noting that newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times get over 50% of what they print from press releases and press conferences. Tankard defines framing in agenda-setting theory as how the media supply news contexts through selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration.

In agenda-setting theory, interest aggregations refer to clusters of people who demand attention for their single concern. Research in agenda-setting theory has found a media malady effect, which refers to links between negative economic headlines and negative consumer sentiment. If you've been following the current economic crisis (who hasn't?), you've likely observed this media malady effect. Consumers are definitely expressing negative views of the economy--and spending less--in light of the downturns in the stock market and housing market along with increases in the price of everyday goods and services.

In the section on ethics, Griffin notes that Clifford Christians views mutuality as forming the essence of humanness. Christians' communitarian ethics views a reporter's primary goal as facilitating a morally literate and active citizenship. In critiquing agenda-setting theory, Griffin states that recent developments in agenda-setting theory have been criticized because framing may be irrelevant to agenda-setting research.

In the interview with Em Griffin, Max McCombs states that elements emphasized in the media become regarded as important by the public provides the core idea of agenda-setting theory. McCombs also stated that the starting point of agenda-setting theory was the observation that the media focus people's attention. McCombs argued that about 2-3 issues are most frequently included in the public's agenda. He also argued that most journalists are message producers.

~ Professor Cyborg

media effects

The two chapters for this week provide quite a contrast to the two from last week. Whereas the chapters that focused on media and culture stemmed from the work of postmodernists and took an interpretive (or critical) approach, media effects research takes an objectivist approach.

The section in the text on media effects sets the stage for agenda-setting theory and spiral of silence. In this introductory section, Griffin discusses earlier views on media effects. A very early model, the hypodermic needle model, depicts a direct media influence on audience members. In the two-step flow of communication model, opinion leaders are posited to pass on and interpret messages to others in face-to-face conversations. In contrast, the excitation transfer theory suggests that fear, anger, humor, and love produce the same physiological state. Bandura’s social learning theory model is probably the most famous as his research with children has been widely reported in the media. His theory predicts that violence on television leads to antisocial behavior when children get older.

The two theories for this week, agenda-setting and spiral of silence, provide a more sophisticated view of media effects than the ones I’ve mentioned here. Still, all these theories have in common an objective approach, which assumes that there is one truth accessible through unbiased observation. In addition, the theories seek to identify a cause-and-effect relationship between media content and human behavior.

~ Professor Cyborg

cultural studies

Chapter 26 discusses Stuart Hall’s cultural studies approach. Similar to Deetz’s critical approach to organization, Hall has developed a critical perspective to examine media.

Hall argues that cultural studies is valid if it deconstructs media research that fails to address ideology. Like all critical theorists, Hall is suspicious of research that ignores power relationships. Hall believes that mainstream mass communication research in the U.S. supports the myth of democratic pluralism. In his view of cultural studies, Hall places his emphasis on resistance. He argues that media hegemony results in the production of consent. In hegemonic encoding the dominant accepted discourse rules out alternative ideas.

In his discussion of cultural critics whose work is related to that of Stuart Hall’s, Griffin observes that the Frankfurt School theorists were the first to examine the failure of Marx's prediction that capitalist economies would decline. Another cultural critic, Roland Barthes, argues that mythic signs, such as the yellow ribbon, reinforce a culture's dominant values. Michel Foucault, a cultural critic Griffin discusses, provided the impetus for a "discursive turn" in cultural studies. Foucault's research on mental illness found that the definition of insanity changed a great deal over time. Kellner, another cultural critic, argues that during the first Gulf War, the major television networks effectively portrayed war as theater. From Hall's perspective, in framing opposition to the 1991 Gulf War as not an option, the media engaged in ideological discourses of constraint.

Hall argues that the primary function of discourse is to make meaning. From Hall's cultural studies perspective, an ideological fight is a struggle to capture language. According to Hall, the powerless may resist the dominant ideology using their own decoding options: operating inside the dominant code, applying a negotiable code, and substituting an oppositional code. So like Deetz, Hall holds out the possibility that people who are oppressed will not necessarily participate in their own oppression (hegemony) and instead will find ways to fight back.

This is a somewhat complex chapter, so read it through several times, take notes, and review it again before taking the quiz.

~ Professor Cyborg

media ecology

Although you might think that Marshall McLuhan was a communication studies professor, he was an English professor at the University of Toronto. You probably know him best for his pronouncement that "The medium is the message," which suggests that the channel is more influential than the content it carries. McLuhan argued that media environments are invisible to communicators because these environments are so ordinary to us. According to McLuhan, accounting for the complexity of the media environment means considering both incremental and sudden changes.

McLuhan proposed that changes in media technology determine the course of human history. The figure on page 315 is helpful in understanding how McLuhan viewed the media map of history—the four ages he identified (tribal, literate, print, and electronic) and the technological development and the dominant sense receptor associated with each age. For example, the dominant sense receptor associated with the literate age was the eye and those associated with the electronic age are the ear and hand. As another example, the invention of the phonetic alphabet was the catalyst for the literate age and also led to a linear approach to thinking.

McLuhan described people of the tribal age as having more passion and spontaneity than we have today. The literate age was when human beings developed a civilized private detachment from each other. Although the printing press brought with it the ability to widely distribute written materials, McLuhan argued it also led to a sense of separation and aloneness for people of that era. More recent scholars have suggested we’re now in the digital age, the next epoch in human history.

Neil Postman, founder of NYU’s media ecology program, continued McLuhan’s work, although not always in the same trajectory. For example, Postman argues that any new technology always presents a Faustian bargain and the primary task of media ecology is to make moral judgments.

~ Professor Cyborg