Motivation (ch. 36)

Motivation is a very important aspect when it comes to communication. It helps us to fulfill basic needs of affiliation, achievement, control, and reducing our uncertainty and anxiety. The need for affiliation is a good example of our motivation in communication. We always have a need to form close relationships with others and we force ourselves to do this. This theory can kind of tie in with group communication, and how we sometimes adapt to the beliefs and attitudes of the groups we associate ourselves with. It almost makes me think that because we have a need for affiliation, we may adapt to the beliefs and attitudes of others simply so that we may feel that we belong to a group. I like this idea because not only are we fulfilling a need that we have, we also learn new things from the people around us. If we surround ourselves with people who are different from us, we learn things about different beliefs and how other people think. Knowing things like this helps the communication between others. This idea ties in with the need to reduce uncertainty, and how we motivate ourselves to communicate so that we may gain knowledge and create understanding. We communicate with others so that we may be able to learn new things, understand them, thus creating a nice flow of communication.

Credibility (Ch. 36)

Aristotle believed that it was important for a speaker to clearly show their competence on the topics they speak about. The audience has to be able to relate to the speaker in order for the speaker to grasp their attention. This kind of helps the speaker build a relationship with the audience, building trust between the speaker and the audience. When the speaker, or really any communication source, proves to be invalid and untrustworthy, the audience will no longer listen to that source, and find another source to get their information from. In politics, when the public finds out that the government lied, or rather didn't give all of the information about a certain issue, you can see how the public start to not trust the information they provide to them. They see this as a violation of the trust that they had for the government. With any communicator, if they are not seen as a credible source of information, they are not going to be taken seriously. Once the credibility is put into question, the source will always be viewed in scrutiny because at one point or another, it was seen as dishonest.

Unfulfilled promise of the internet (ch. 35)

Kramarae believes that with the coming of the internet, women still are closed off from certain forms of communication. By the year 2000, while half of the Internet users were female, those within the technological circle predominantly male. While there are still opportunities for women to be able to communicate freely with each other all over the world, many of the websites, search engines, even content appeals to a large male audience. She goes further to discuss four metaphoes (new frontier, democracy, global community, and information superhighway) to explain how women are continuously muted as a gender group. Although Kramarae brings up many interesting points, I do not feel that I can completely agree with what she says. I think that a lot of her theories are too personal and make it seem like men have ultimate control no matter where we go. I think I am more of an individualistic thinker, and I feel that if a person wants to enhance their intelligence beyond what society says they're supposed to, or play the specific role that society gives them, then it is their fault and not the fault of another gender. True, there are times when women feel that men have to be the dominating force, and allow them to be such, yet at the same time I feel that it is mainly up to the person to decide how they want to live in their life.

Men as Gatekeepers (ch. 35)

Women have been excluded from society for many many years. Feminist Dorothy Smith blames this on men's "closed-circuit scholarship." She claims that the reason why men have kept women out of the loop was because for the longest time they only talked to men about things men would only either understand or care about. Because of women's long-term role as the housewife, they assumed they just automatically cut women out because what they discussed never fell under the umbrella of what women were supposed to care about. Obviously nowadays, things are rapidly changing in our society. Women are no longer kept out of the loop (well not as much) because you now see them taking more high profile jobs, more masculine responsibilities on top of their feminine responsibilities. I think because of our rapidly changing society, a lot of the theories presented within this chapter are either outdated or finding a way to adapt to this rapid change. Men are no longer the "gatekeepers of comunication." Communication between genders is now open for everyone.

Women being marginalized (ch. 34)

Standpoint theorists see the differences in communication between both men and women. They notice how men's communication is mainly used for accomplishing tasks, being assertive, and gaining power, while women's communication is used to build relationships, include others and show responsiveness. I started to wonder if these communication differences blend a littlle bit. I know that in the business world, both men and women use communication as a way to build relationships between other people and their companies. A connection is still made regardless of the sex. I know for mothers use more assertive forms of communication when deal with misbehaving children. It kind of makes me think that the idea of there being differences between communicative styles of the different genders is not entirely black and white. There are many times when they blend together. Even whhen the text talked about how these differences were seen not from a biology standpoint, but from a cultural one, it still has changed because women aren't seen as the ones staying home with the children and looking out for the house (as much), and men aren't always seen as the ones working and "bringing home the bacon." A lot of things have changed, and I think the point I'm trying to make is that this theory might be a tad outdated.

Pluralistic ignorance (Ch. 29)

Professor Noelle-Neumann brings up an interesting point about pluralistic ignorance. Although many of us say that we are all individuals within our society, and that we all think differently, when I actually sat down and thought about it, I realized that I did not think the same as many other people. This is probably why sometimes we say or do things that we think is okay, however, may offend others. This is simply because we assumed that others had the same sense of humor as us, or the same opinion on a topic and so we do things without realizing that this is very unlikely. I like how Noelle-Neumann puts the blame on the fact that the media picks and chooses what to present to society. It is not a very well-rounded view of the news, which causes print media's ability to change attitudes to be very limited. Even though this occurs frequently, I still wonder how we can avoid this with the media. How can the media cater to the individual thinkers of our society and present the news catering to this individuality?

Spiral of Silence (Ch. 29)

I found the spiral of silence theory to be completely accurate. Society's views are forever changing. We don't really notice this until the media brings up a particular issue. An example of this could easily be the debate on gay marriage. One minute it wasn't something people thought about, and then the next minute it's all over the news. In opinion, I only really year the negative aspects of the issue more than the positive ones. I know that because of this, I personally do not share my opinions on the issue simply because sometimes I feel as if I am in the minority. This is a problem for people within society, simply because we are based on the idea of freedom of speech. People should be able to say and think what they choose, and have the freedom to voice their opinions. If they cannot do this, then they are only allowing themselves to be bullied by the media as well as others. It is either this idea, or the idea that people feel that because they are in the minority, they feel their opinions don't matter, so they conform and think like the majority. This only concerns me in the height of the upcoming election. When it comes to voting, or expressing any form of opinion, people should not feel as if they are the minority simply based on what the media feeds them. It only leads to people being silenced and their voices not being heard.

Agenda Setting (ch. 28)

Having worked with the media myself, I do agree that it is the editors that are the agenda setters for society. They are ultimately the ones who tell society what to think about. I have pitched ideas to many editors and in the end, it doesn't matter if your pitch is amazing, if it doesn't interest the editors, then the story won't get told. Even though editors primarily get most of their information given to them from public relations professionals, they can still pick and choose what they want to print. I can kind of see this from both sides. As an editor, I understand the pressure they are in and realize that they get hundreds of story pitches each day. However, what if they are missing a story that is actually something society needs to know about? We do rely on the media to tell us what's important, so what if they miss a story that could actually benefit us to know?

Semitoic theory (Ch. 25)

There was a quote in the beginning of this chapter that caught my attention right away. It was from Umberto Eco. His definition of semiology describes it as being the study of everything which can be used for a lie or to tell the truth. If things cannot be used to tell either a lie or a truth, then it has no value at all. I found this definition so interesting because it is so straightforward. If something has no use to either tell a story or at least stand for something else, then it has no use whatsoever. It just makes it so much easier for us to pay attention to the things that actually matter. This is definitely why mass media has such a power over society. Mass media knows and understands the things that matter to society. That is why the mass media are so good at mannipulating us to think certain ways.

Media Analysis Over Time (Ch. 24)

It's interesting how much has changed throughout human existence when it comes to communication. We went from relying on sound which, at the time, helped us be more aware of our surroundings, to relying on both sound and our sense of touch to help us connect to one another on a daily basis. With the electronic age, it is amazing how we can stay away from the tv, internet, or phone for only a short amount of time without feeling that we "don't know what's going on in the world." I myself, since I don't have cable or any form of network television in my house, don't have easy access to the news or plain tv shows and often feel out of the loop. I'm even out of the loop when people talk about certain commercials. We rely on that ability to have information literally at our fingertips and for a way to be constantly connected to others. I am one of those people who have to always be connected to email, just in case I get an "important" message. It's on my phone, and I always carry my laptop with me between classes and at my internship. It's my way of staying connected with the world. I haven't decided whether it's a good thing or a bad thing to be this connected...

The importance of Pathos (Ch. 21)

Aristotle said it best when he came up with the idea of pathos. he felt that it was important for a speaker to be able to appeal to the emotions of an audience in order to help fuel civic decision making. Again, I am glad that the author used MLK's famous speech as an example to explain Aristotle's theory of rhetoric. Throughout the entire speech, MLK does nothing but appeal to the emotions of his audience. He continuously spoke of equality and change within the nation, and that is the very thing that the audience was looking for in a leader at the time. But what is good is that MLK greatly helped fuel a lot of the changes that occured after this time period. He was heard not only by the black community but obviously policy makers who were obviously predominantly white. MLK followed Aristotle's idea of Love/Friendship vs. Hatred. He constantly pointed out his similar goals that he had with his audience in order to show his audience that created an idea of warmth about his character. He showed that he generally cared about what was happening within the commmunity, and that something needed to be done about it. I think this is one of the more important of all the three appeals for a speaker, only because a person's emotions is very strong. Although sometimes we say it is more important to think with our minds and not our hearts, at the end of the day, we make a lot of decisions based on how we feel more than how we think. If a speaker taps into an audience's emotions, the audience will feel warmth from that speaker, and that will make them listen to the speaker's message more.

Aristotle and Enthymemes

In Chapter 21, we learn about Aristotle and his idea of rhetoric. He described rhetoric as "discovering all the available means of persuasion." By this, he meant that we use rhetoric as a way to make the truth more probable when speaking in front of audiences. Examples of this could be the presidential speeches, or lawyers defending cases in courtrooms. Aristotle went further and described the three proofs that a speaker must achieve the logos, pathos, or ethos is what the speaker must use in order to reveal the speaker's character. I liked how the author used Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech "I have a dream" because it is a very good example of what Aristotle was trying to convey in his writings. Although there were certain parts of the speech that he may have not been successful in fulfilling one part of the proofs, he would use one of the others in order to make up what was missing from the other ones. An example of this when a speaker uses an enthymeme, or leaving out an obvious premise because it is already accepted by the audience. Aristotle says that if you use the enthymeme, it is important that you know your audience well and that a specific idea is already accepted by them. Therefore, if Martin Luther King, Jr. were to go to an predominantly white audience and gave the same speech to them, the powerful words that he used that moved members of a black audience would be lost. I have seen some speakers use certain words, phrases, even jokes that don't move the audience at all, because the speaker did not take the time to properly analyze the audience. To fully capture the audience with your speech, you must be able to analyze them and recognize what is important to them, otherwise you are just wasting your time and your words.

Two Approaches to Organizational Practice (Ch. 20)

Stanley Deetz's idea of there being two approaches to organizational practice discusses the decision making process with in corporate organizations. The first approach systematically exclude the ideas of other members of the organization who are mostly the ones being affected by these decisions. Deetz calls this "managerial control." Then he goes on to explain the idea of codetermination, where there is collaborative decision making promoting democracy within the organization. In the organization that I work for, we do more collaborative decision making rather than managerial control. Being an arts institution, we try to come up with different ideas, and often ask each other for their opinions with certain issues. It helps promote creativity and trush between the members of the organization. We always have some sort of say in what goes on. I don't think I would be able to handle the idea of a corporation making all of my decisions for me. I don't think that it is fair for a small group of people to be the only ones allowed to make decisions for a large group of people. I feel that makes the company "un-human", not taking the time to care about how their decisions affect others. I feel that there is little communication among the members of an organization when a small group is making all of the decisions.

Corporate Colonization (Ch. 20)

I found Stanley Deetz's theory of corporations colonizing their values into every life very interesting. Deetz believed that large corporations had the ability to shape people's beliefs, and then went further and examined how the decision making process was conducted within these large corporations. Deetz discovered that as long as society thought of communication as the "transmission of information" we will only continue to allow corporations to have dominion over society. When people use corporation jargon as a way of expressing certain decisions or ideas regarding various issues in daily life, they are unaware of the fact that they are using corporate language. I find this interesting because I'm sure none of us realize how much power large corporations have on us. Even if they are known for a famous phrase that is immediately picked up in our society, we are still allowing them to have some sort of power over us. Because of this, corporations can feed us certain bits of information that we will accept because we have kind of blocked our own rational thinking. I can kind of understand where Deetz is coming from. For the company I work for, one of our "quotes" if you will is "Empowering the Maverick." What we mean by this is empowering the maverick by producing an annual film festival for independent film makers, and also by giving them the opportunity to have their films distributed with our ongoing distribution label. We pride ourselves in finding filmmakers with an original vision that's fresh and provocative-not something you would normally see. I can now see that with the various pieces of information I have learned fromthis company, I now apply it to my life when I make decisions on what movies to go see, or when I consider different relationships with people, because now I look for originality within a person's personality, and not just the same old thing.

Corporate Culture (Ch. 19)

Each company has a different type of culture. The company's culture could be determined on many factors, including job performance. With each group of workers within an organization, there is a set of rituals, or daily tasks that they may do that may seem strange to another group of workers. But all of this can make up the company's culture as a whole. Within the reading of this chapter, the idea of "lattice organization" popped out to me the most. Lattice organization is a system of communication where no one needs permission to talk to someone else. Someone down at the bottom doesn't need permission to talk to their manager or even their CEO. One-on-one communication is very important within a corporation of this nature. It stuck out to me because I work for a company that is like this. We have a very laid back culture, and no one needs permission or an appointment when they need to talk to one of the directors. Everyone is always available to everyone else, which only proves the idea of the importance of one-on-one communication. We need this availability within this company in order to grow and become more successful. This idea got me thinking of the importance of communication within any company. Perhaps the way the company communicates contributes to the company's culture. In the company I work for, we have a very open communication policy, therefore, we have a very laid back culture. In other companies, I know it is a bit different with communication being a little more closed off, and people not being as accessible. Perhaps that is why those companies are more formal and "business" minded. It is just something interesting for me to think about after reading this chapter.

Production and Reproduction (ch. 18)

The whole point of group communication is to find a way to promote some kind of change, or at least to find a way to reinforce ideas that are already in place. It is all based on finding some form of change within your group or community. In my sorority, we constantly try to find new ways to either promote a new change or reinforce the rules that are already set in placed in our rules and regulations. Every fall, a selected few get together and go over these rules and regulations to see if there is a way we can change certain things or find new ways to reinforce the rules that are already set in place. There have been many instances where we have had to create new rules because of certain events that had happened or because of changes we wanted to see happen. There was one rule on how we should regulate community service hours for the girls in the organization. For a long time we used the honor system which I'm sure you know doesn't always work, which is why we needed a new way to regulate these hours. Some girls wanted to keep it the way it was, but many of us wanted to change it. We decided to create a log-in system each month where girls would go to their community service site, get their hours signed off by a supervisor, and then turn them in to us at the end of the month. So far, it has worked splendidly, with some kinks that need to be worked out in time. It is just an example of how we produce and idea in order to promote a change within our organization.

Prioritizing the Functions (ch. 17)

Hirokawa and Gouran both believed that as long as a group successfully accomplished each of the four functions, then the group would maximize its ability to reach a good decision. They believed that none of the functions was better than the other, and should not be prioritized as such. Although it is important for the group to use each of the four functions in order to achieve a decision, the main importance is that the group communicates with each other in order to reach this decision. Working in groups in the past, I have learned that communication is the ultimate important function when it comes to decision making. If the group does not have good communication among each other, then it will be very difficult for the group to come up with a decision. For example, I was planning an event for my organization, and as an officer, it is requested that you bring forth certain ideas or details you may have to the entire executive board. The point of this is to make sure everyone is on the same page, and to offer help or other ideas when needed. This event I was planning was not particularly difficult, so I took it upon myself to just go ahead with the planning without consulting anyone or telling anyone when I was having trouble. I would make decisions solely based on my judgment, and eventually it almost cost us the event. I had to bring it to the attention of the executive board that I needed help with fundraising, delegating, etc. before everything got out of hand. Had I only done that in the past, I could have saved myself and the entire executive board a lot of time and worry. But unfortunately, there was littlle communication between myself and the executive board, thus preventing the entire board from achieving all four of the functions. Even though it is important for a group to achieve all of the functions, you must still remember the importance communication plays when a group tries to achieve these four functions.

Four Functions of Decision Making (Ch. 17)

Researchers Randy Hirokawa and Dennis Gouran came up with the idea of there being four functions when it comes to effective decision making. They came up with these functions in response to group decision making, saying that these four functions help the group decision-making. The four functions are (1) problem analysis, (2) goal setting, (3) identification of alternatives and (4) evaluation of positive and negative consequences. Despite the fact that theo ther functions are very important in their own right, I somehow feel that the third function is of the utmost important. I assume I believe this only because I personally like to evaluate a situation and figure out all of the possible outcomes despite what my choice of action may be. In the book, Hirokawa and Gouran stress the importance to find the different alternatives to give the opportunity to find an acceptable answer to their problem. For people who simply give up on an issue without sitting down and thinking through all of the various alternatives, they are only limiting themselves from finding a possible solution that could actually be the better solution compared to others. I know that I do this best when I am in a group setting, only because it is much easier to brainstorm your ideas while hearing the ideas of others. As a leader in my sorority, we have come across many different issues whether it be an event we are throwing, or an issue with the girls in the house breaking rules. Coming up with different alternatives in a group setting instead of each officer doing it on their own proved to be very beneficial because we were all able to express our own concerns and ideas, and even picked up on things that we may have missed.

Contraduction within relationships (Ch. 12)

Baxter and Montgomery came up with a brilliant theory when it comes to the "tug of war" theory. I'm sure it is something no one every really realized, but relationships need some form of balance. They cannot survive without it. For a relationship to work, there has to be some form of contradiction. A couple needs both interdependence and independence from each other. If a couple is too dependent on each other, they will not be able to survive very well when they are away from each other. They may develop some anxiety or what some of us like to call "needy tendencies" without their partner. I know for me, it makes me go back and wonder what happened to all of my relationships. Was I the one that couldn't be independent enough, or was it my partner who couldn't be interdependent enough? Did it really not work because there was no balance within the relationship? It really makes me wonder. It also makes me think that if I had taken this class any many years ago, I think I would have been able to avoid a lot of breakups.

CMC and online dating ( Ch. 11)

After reading about CMC and how it affects relationships when it comes to online dating, I decided to kind of compare the theory to my friend's online dating experience. With face-to-face communication, it gives a relationship a chance to develop vivid interpretations of each party and form a more personal connection. One reason why Walther may feel that face-to-face relationships build faster is because these people have the ability to form these personal relationships with each other. With online communication it makes sense why someone would be able to develop a relationship at a because all of the nonverbal cues are missing. People have to wait to form their personal relationship because they are waiting on e-mail or instant messaging communication. They cannot develop interpersonal impressions until they have all of the information they need. One of my girlfriends recently tried out e-Harmony to find a romantic connection with someone, she agreed with Walther's theory. She found that when she would go on actual dates with men, it was a lot easier to communicate with them and form a certain impression of them after long conversation. Information was passed a lot easier and quicker. However, when she would communciate with men through e-Harmony, she found that it was a lot harder to form a cerain impression about these men just based on the information they gave her. She had to continually communicate with them in order to get the information she needed in order to form an impression and decide if she wanted to continue in the relationship or not. I do not feel that either form of communication is better. It does seem that they both help relationships develop, just at different rates.

Theory of depth and breadth of self-disclosure

I particularly found this theory interesting because it discussed many of the communication patterns that happens within different kinds of relationships. It was interesting to see how people in different relationships use different levels of communications to exchange information. Obviously, in the beginning of a relationship it is very impersonal, and not much important information is exchanged. However, once the relationships builds, the level of communication increases, making the relationship more personal because of the exchange of personal information. I like how you can apply this theory to different kinds of relationships, whether they are friendship or romantic. I think I understood it more when it was applied to a friendship relationship, because I know I have personally been in friendships where communication was lost because one of us stopped sharing certain things with each other, stopped inviting each other to certain places, or whatever.

I know that when people start to develop a relationship, it is both exciting and difficult because you want to be able to have open communication with this other person, however, it is difficult because you do not want to share too much too soon. What was interesting to find out, was how natural the development of the relationship is. Eventually both people will reach a certain openness without much effort from either person in the relationship. The only problem, is that eventually the relationship will lose its steam and communication becomes a little harder.

Theory of Community and its effect on others' expectations

The idea of the generalized other within the sense of community was interesting because it made me realize how much all people really care about what others think of them. Sometimes, certain decisions are made only to maintain a certain image in other people's eyes or because someone else made the same choice. It makes it almost seem as if people do not make their own decisions like we always thought they did. Mead's argument said it best because he explained that those within the community do make their own choices, however, depending on what others are doing within this community, people will make their choices that are aligned with the other individuals within this community. This can be true whether it's buying a new pair of shoes, what classes to pick for the semester, or simply what movie you want to go see. We all tend to make our own choices, but sometimes they are shaped based on what everyone else is thinking, what they're expectations are of us. I found this theory particularly interesting because even though we all partake in this form of communication and decision making, I don't think we realize that we are doing it. I think that even though we make some of our decisions based on what others will think of us, or to fulfill a certain expectation, we are exercising our independent thinking by making that choice to do so. We do not have to make our decisions to maintain a certain image in other people's eyes, or based on what the latest fashions are. I think with a lot of the theories that we are learning so far, it seems like it would be common sense, but it is amazing to think that we all actually behave the way that these scientists have been watching us behave.

Concept #2: The idea of language as a source of meaning

I know it is a pretty obvious concept, but using language as a way to convey meaning is very important. Certain things don't really mean anything until we interact with others and develop our own meanings. After reading the Language: The source of meaning section of chapter 5, I was able to get a much better understanding for how we use language as a way to create meaning of the things we have frequent interaction with. How we use language to create names for things because by creating names automatically creates meaning for us. That is something I did not even realize prior to reading this section. It makes a lot of sense. When you walk on campus, or if you are just out somewhere, and you see a person, you don't really register anything about that person mainly because you do not know who they are. However, once you meet that person, or once you recognize that person, your brain triggers the emotion for knowing this person, and knowing that some how this person has meaning to you.

Concept #1: Communication as an Art form

As I was reading chapter 4, one of the concepts that jumped out at me was the idea of having communication serve as an artful way of speaking with people. Perhaps this appealed to me simply because it made me think of the theater, and how actors use their characters in a play as a way to communicate whatever theme the play is based on. So far within this class, what I found interesting is how rhetoric is described as being more of an art form rather than an actual science because of its emphasis on the beauty of language. Language itself is a very powerful tool when it comes to public speaking. In my opinion, a good public speaker has the ability to stir the emotions of his/her audience, since we are guided mostly by our emotions. It makes me think of powerful speakers such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and even Senator Obama with the current election. The reason why they got such a huge following was because of how they were able to capture the hearts of their audiences through their speeches.

When I think of public speakers I don't imagine someone who can read what is on a piece of paper. I think of someone who is poised, audible, and can get me to think about something I may not have thought about before, or to start thinking more about something I already felt passionate about to begin with. Someone who stirs my emotions and makes me feel like I matter. I think of public speaking more as a performance than anything else because when you think about it, that's what public speaking is. You're using every form of communication, whether it's your words or your body language (which can also be a form of communication) to engage people. I know when I have to give presentations at my internship or in class, I kind of like to pretend that I'm a performer and I'm excited about the information I am presenting. It just helps me to get people to engage more, and it also helps me be more comfortable in front of them. :)