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Com Theory Test 2 Study Guide

This document provides summaries of various theories of interpersonal communication, relationship development and maintenance, influence, group communication, and media effects. It discusses how humans act based on meanings and how language allows for thought, self, and society. It also explains how people co-construct social realities through coordinated management of meaning in conversations. Finally, it notes that media can influence what and how people think about issues by setting the agenda and framing attributes.

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201 views

Com Theory Test 2 Study Guide

This document provides summaries of various theories of interpersonal communication, relationship development and maintenance, influence, group communication, and media effects. It discusses how humans act based on meanings and how language allows for thought, self, and society. It also explains how people co-construct social realities through coordinated management of meaning in conversations. Finally, it notes that media can influence what and how people think about issues by setting the agenda and framing attributes.

Uploaded by

api-272912183
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Interpersonal Communication: Interpersonal

Messages
Symbolic Interactionism (Chapter 5)
Humans act toward people, things, and events on the basis of the
meanings they assign to them. Once people define a situation as real,
it has very real consequences. Without language there would be no
thought, no sense of self, and no socializing presence of society within
the individual. (Socio-cultural tradition)

Coordinated Management of Meaning (CCM) (Chapter


6)
Persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are
shaped by the worlds they create. Communication is a two-sided
process of making and managing meaning and coordinating our
actions. What we say matters because we get what we make. If we
get the pattern right, the best possible things will happen. (Sociocultural and phenomenological traditions)

Expectancy Violations Theory (Chapter 7)


Violating another person's interpersonal expectations can be a superior
strategy to conformity. When the meaning of a violation is ambiguous,
communicators with a high reward valence can enhance their
attractiveness, credibility, and persuasiveness by doing the
unexpected. When the violation valence or reward is negative, they
should act in a socially appropriate way. (Socio-pyschological tradition)

Interpersonal Communication: Relationship


Development
Social Penetration Theory (Chapter 8)
Interpersonal closeness proceeds in a gradual and orderly fashion from
superficial to intimate levels of exchange as a function of anticipated
present and future outcomes. Lasting intimacy requires continual and
mutual vulnerability through breadth and depth of self-disclosure.
(Socio-psychological tradition)

Uncertainty Reduction Theory (Chapter 9)


When people meet, their primary concern is to reduce uncertainty
about each other and their relationship. As verbal output, nonverbal
warmth, self-disclosure, similarity, and shared communication
networks increase uncertainty decreasesand vice versa. Information

seeking and reciprocity are positively correlated with uncertainty.


(Socio-psychological tradition)

Social Information Processing Theory (Chapter 10)


Based solely on the linguistic content of computer-mediated
communiction (CMC), parties who meet online can develop
relationships just as close as those formed face-to-facethogh it takes
longer. Because online senders select, receivers magnify, channels
promote, and feedback enhances favorable impressions, CMC may
create hyperpersonal relatonships. (Socio-psychological tradition)

Interpersonal Communication: Relationship


Maintenance
Relational Dialectics (Chapter 11)
Social life is a dynamic knot of contradictions, a ceaseless interplay
between contradictory or opposing tendencies such as integrationseparation, stability-change, and expression-nonexpression. Quality
relationships are constituted through dialogue, which is an aesthetic
accomplishment that produces fleeting moments of unity through a
profound respect for the disparate voices. (Phenomenological tradition)

Communication Privacy Management Theory (Chapter


12)
People believe they own and have a right to control their private
information; they do so by using personal privacy rules. When others
are told, they become co-owners of the information. If co-owners dont
effectively negotiate mutually agreeable privacy rules about telling
third parties, boundary turbulence is the likely result. (Socio-cultural
and cybernetic traditions)

The Interactional View (Chapter 13)


Relationships within a family system are interconnected and highly
resistant to change. Communication among members has a content
component and a relationship component that centers on issues of
control. The system can be transformed only when members receive
outside help to reframe their metacommunication. (Cybernetic
tradition)

Interpersonal Communication: Influence


Social Judgment Theory (Chapter 14)
The larger the discrepancy between a speakers position and a

listeners point of view, the greater the change in attitudeas long as


the message is within the hearer's latitude of acceptance. High egoinvolvement usually indicates a wide latitude of rejection. Messages
that fall there may have a boomerang effect. (Socio-psychological
tradition)

Elaboration Likelihood Model (Chapter 15)


Message elaboration is the central route of persuasion that produces
major positive attitude change. It occurs when unbiased listeners are
motivated and able to scrutinize arguments that they consider strong.
Message-irrelevant factors hold sway on the peripheral path, a more
common route that produces fragile shifts in attitude. (Sociopsychological tradition)

Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Chapter 16)


Cognitive dissonance is an aversive drive that causes people to (1)
avoid opposing viewpoints, (2) seek reassurance after making a tough
decision, and (3) change private beliefs to match public behavior when
there is minimal justification for an action. Self-consistency, a sense of
personal responsibility, or self-affirmation can explain dissonance
reduction. (Socio-psychological tradition)

Group and Public Communication: Group


Communication
Symbolic Convergence Theory (Chapter 18)
Dramatizing messages are group members expressed interpretations
of events other than those in the here-andnow. Message content
becomes a group fantasy theme when it spontaneously chains out
among members. The sharing of group fantasies creates symbolic
convergencegroup consciousness and often cohesiveness. Fantasy
theme analysis across groups can reveal a rhetorical vision. (Rhetorical
and sociopsychological traditions)

Mass Communication: Media and Culture


Semiotics (Chapter 26)
The significant visual sign systems of a culture affirm the status quo
by suggesting that the world as it is today is natural, inevitable, and
eternal. Mythmakers do this by co-opting neutral denotative signs to
become signifiers without historical grounding in second-order
connotative semiotic systems. (Semiotic tradition).

Agenda-Setting Theory (Chapter 30)


The media tell us (1) what to think about, and (2) how to think about
it. The first process (agenda setting) transfers the salience of items on
their news agenda to our agenda. The second process (framing)
transfers the salience of selected attributes to prominence among the
pictures in our heads. (Socio-psychological tradition)

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