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.