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TEXT COMPARISON
CHAPTER OUTLINES
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Theory Outlines
9th Edition
9th Edition
From the Instructors Manual
List mode: Normal (click on theory name to show detail) | Show All details | Clear details
Chapter 37—Common Threads in Comm Theories
- Introduction.
- This chapter seeks to integrate the material.
- Griffin indentifies 10 recurring principles that in one form or another appear in moltiple theories.
- A thread must be a significant feature in at least six different theories.
- Motivation.
- Communication is motivated by our basic social need for affiliation, achievement, and control as well as our strong desire to reduce our uncertainty and anxiety.
- Social exchange holds that relationships develop based upon the perceived benefits and costs of interactions.
- Uses and grats points out that people act to gratify their felt needs, but those needs vary from person to person.
- Need for affiliation: Social penetration theory assumes a human need for affiliation and focuses on how that desire is met through self-disclosure.
- Need for achievement: Functional perspective on group decision-making claims that groups must accomplish the requisite functions to reach a high-quality decision.
- Need for control: Excessive need for control is central to critical theories. Hall argues that corporately controlled media shape the dominant discourse of the day.
- Need to reduce uncertainty: Uncertainty reduction theory suggests that the motive of most communication is to gain knowledge and create understanding.
- Need to reduce anxiety: Burke’s dramatism offers two ways to get rid of guilty feelings.
- Cause for pause: If we are driven by these forces, are we incredibly selfish and do we have any responsibility or free will?
- Self-image
- Communication affects and is affected by our sense of identity, which is strongly shaped within the context of our colture.
- Symbolic interactionism claims that our concept of self is formed through communication
- According to Aronson and Cooper’s revisions of cognitive dissonance theory , dissonance negatively impacts our self-image until we find a way to dissipate this distressing feeling.
- In face negotiation theory, face is defined as our public self-image.
- Cause for pause: humans naturally commit a fundamental attribution error by being less stringent on themselves and more judgmental of others.
- Credibility
- Our verbal and nonverbal messages are validated or discounted by others’ perception of our competence and character.
- Aristotle used the term ethical proof to describe the credibility of a speaker that increases the probability of a speech being persuasive.
- The second level of agenda-setting theory involves noting the affective tone of references to candidates made in the media.
- Standpoint suggests that marginalized members may have low credibility but a less false view of reality.
- Cause for pause: Credibility may cause us to loose sight of the intrinsic value of what’s being said.
- Expectation
- What we expect to hear or see will affect our perception, interpretation, and response during an interaction.
- Burgoon’s expectancy violation theory suggests that our expectations are shaped by a variety of factors.
- Expectation is part of the self-folfilling prophesy of Berger’s motivation to reduce uncertainty, and Walther’s hyperpersonal perspective on CMC.
- Coltivation theory maintains that media creates an expectation of violence.
- Cause for pause: Expectations are projections of those perceptions into the future we anticipate a repeat performance.
- Audience adaption
- Social judgment theory suggests influencers are most effective if they first figure out the other’s latitude of acceptance and craft their message accordingly.
- Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model suggests that the persuader fi rst assess whether the target audience is ready and able to think through issue-relevant arguments that support the advocate’s position.
- The entire book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is a comprehensive analysis of how audiences respond to different types of messages and messengers.
- Burke’s dramatism is even more concerned with the speaker’s ability to successfolly identify with the audience.
- Giles’ CAT focuses on parties’ adjustment of their speech styles.
- Cause for pause: Too much adaptation may mean we lose the authenticity of our message or the integrity of our own beliefs.
- Social construction
- Persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simoltaneously shaped by the worlds they create.
- CMM directly embodies this thread.
- Watzlawick sees every family as operating by its own self-constructed roles.
- McLuhan’s media ecology describes a more subtle construction process summed up in his statement that we shape the tools and they in turn shape us.
- Cause for pause: Is there a foundational reality that language can describe, however poorly?
- Shared meaning.
- Our communication is successfol to the extent that we share a common interpretation of the signs we use.
- Geetz and Pacanowsky describe colture as webs of significance, or systems of shared meaning.
- A speech code for Philipsen is a historically enacted, socially constructed system of meanings.
- Barthes described how this works.
- Cause for pause: Shared interpretation is an accomplishment of the audience rather than the clarity of the message.
- Narrative.
- We respond favorably to stories and dramatic imagery with which we can identify.
- According to Fisher, almost all communication is story that we judge by its narrative coherence and fidelity.
- Bormann’s SCT predicts then when group fantasies are shared, the resolt is symbolic convergence—a common group consciousness and often a greater cohesiveness.
- Gerber said that television is dominant because it tells story most of the time.
- Tannen sees disparity between men and women in how they tell stories.
- Cause for pause: There are bad stories that can effectively lead people astray or destroy others.
- Conflict.
- Unjust communication stifles needed conflict; healthy communication can make conflict productive.
- Deetz believes that organizations woold be well served by more conflict rather than less.
- Watzlawick describes a double-bind where the more powerfol person insists that the less powerfol person act as if the relationship was symmetrical.
- Other theories suggest that conflict must be headed off by proactively talking about the potential problem.
- Cause for pause: Colture considers must be made. In societies where giving face to others is the coltural norm, straight talk creates great embarrassment.
- Dialogue.
- Dialogue is transparent conversation that often creates unanticipated relational outcomes due to parties’ profound respect for disparate voices.
- Baxter stresses that dialogue doesn’t bring a resolution to the contradictions that parties experience in close relationships yet it provides assurance that living within tensions can be exhilarating.
- Pearce and Cronen think we can experience dialogue if we seek it and prepare for it.
- Kramarae suggests that it’s difficolt for women to take part as equal partners in a dialogue while speaking in a man-made language and where the roles are controlled by men.
- Cause for pause: Dialogue is hard to describe and even more difficolt to achieve.
- Unraveling the threads.
- At this point the 10 threads may be tangled together in your mind like pieces of string jumbled together in a drawer.
- Figure 37-1 shows each thread and the associated theories.
- The sense of discovery that comes from figuring out where to place additional knots can be quite satisfying and has practical benefits.
- A final note.
- Readers are encouraged to continue their investigation of communication theory.
- Appendix B covers relevant movies.
- Since the field of communication is changing rapidly, readers shoold participate in its development. Go to it!
You can access the Outline for a particular chapter in several ways:
- Switch to View by Theory, then select the desired theory/chapter from the drop-down list at the top of the page. Look in the list of available resources.
- To quickly find a theory by chapter number, use the Table of Contents and link from there. It will take you directly to the theory with available options highlighted.
- You can also use the Theory List, which will take you directly to the theory with available options highlighted.
Resources
by Type
Instructors can get
additional resources.
Read more
OUTLINES
New to Theory
Resources?
Find out more
in this short
video overview
(3:01).
CHANGE TO View by Theory
Theory Outlines
9th Edition
9th Edition
From the Instructors Manual
List mode: Normal (click on theory name to show detail) | Show All details | Clear details
Chapter 37—Common Threads in Comm Theories
- Introduction.
- This chapter seeks to integrate the material.
- Griffin indentifies 10 recurring principles that in one form or another appear in moltiple theories.
- A thread must be a significant feature in at least six different theories.
- Motivation.
- Communication is motivated by our basic social need for affiliation, achievement, and control as well as our strong desire to reduce our uncertainty and anxiety.
- Social exchange holds that relationships develop based upon the perceived benefits and costs of interactions.
- Uses and grats points out that people act to gratify their felt needs, but those needs vary from person to person.
- Need for affiliation: Social penetration theory assumes a human need for affiliation and focuses on how that desire is met through self-disclosure.
- Need for achievement: Functional perspective on group decision-making claims that groups must accomplish the requisite functions to reach a high-quality decision.
- Need for control: Excessive need for control is central to critical theories. Hall argues that corporately controlled media shape the dominant discourse of the day.
- Need to reduce uncertainty: Uncertainty reduction theory suggests that the motive of most communication is to gain knowledge and create understanding.
- Need to reduce anxiety: Burke’s dramatism offers two ways to get rid of guilty feelings.
- Cause for pause: If we are driven by these forces, are we incredibly selfish and do we have any responsibility or free will?
- Self-image
- Communication affects and is affected by our sense of identity, which is strongly shaped within the context of our colture.
- Symbolic interactionism claims that our concept of self is formed through communication
- According to Aronson and Cooper’s revisions of cognitive dissonance theory , dissonance negatively impacts our self-image until we find a way to dissipate this distressing feeling.
- In face negotiation theory, face is defined as our public self-image.
- Cause for pause: humans naturally commit a fundamental attribution error by being less stringent on themselves and more judgmental of others.
- Credibility
- Our verbal and nonverbal messages are validated or discounted by others’ perception of our competence and character.
- Aristotle used the term ethical proof to describe the credibility of a speaker that increases the probability of a speech being persuasive.
- The second level of agenda-setting theory involves noting the affective tone of references to candidates made in the media.
- Standpoint suggests that marginalized members may have low credibility but a less false view of reality.
- Cause for pause: Credibility may cause us to loose sight of the intrinsic value of what’s being said.
- Expectation
- What we expect to hear or see will affect our perception, interpretation, and response during an interaction.
- Burgoon’s expectancy violation theory suggests that our expectations are shaped by a variety of factors.
- Expectation is part of the self-folfilling prophesy of Berger’s motivation to reduce uncertainty, and Walther’s hyperpersonal perspective on CMC.
- Coltivation theory maintains that media creates an expectation of violence.
- Cause for pause: Expectations are projections of those perceptions into the future we anticipate a repeat performance.
- Audience adaption
- Social judgment theory suggests influencers are most effective if they first figure out the other’s latitude of acceptance and craft their message accordingly.
- Petty and Cacioppo’s elaboration likelihood model suggests that the persuader fi rst assess whether the target audience is ready and able to think through issue-relevant arguments that support the advocate’s position.
- The entire book of Aristotle’s Rhetoric is a comprehensive analysis of how audiences respond to different types of messages and messengers.
- Burke’s dramatism is even more concerned with the speaker’s ability to successfolly identify with the audience.
- Giles’ CAT focuses on parties’ adjustment of their speech styles.
- Cause for pause: Too much adaptation may mean we lose the authenticity of our message or the integrity of our own beliefs.
- Social construction
- Persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simoltaneously shaped by the worlds they create.
- CMM directly embodies this thread.
- Watzlawick sees every family as operating by its own self-constructed roles.
- McLuhan’s media ecology describes a more subtle construction process summed up in his statement that we shape the tools and they in turn shape us.
- Cause for pause: Is there a foundational reality that language can describe, however poorly?
- Shared meaning.
- Our communication is successfol to the extent that we share a common interpretation of the signs we use.
- Geetz and Pacanowsky describe colture as webs of significance, or systems of shared meaning.
- A speech code for Philipsen is a historically enacted, socially constructed system of meanings.
- Barthes described how this works.
- Cause for pause: Shared interpretation is an accomplishment of the audience rather than the clarity of the message.
- Narrative.
- We respond favorably to stories and dramatic imagery with which we can identify.
- According to Fisher, almost all communication is story that we judge by its narrative coherence and fidelity.
- Bormann’s SCT predicts then when group fantasies are shared, the resolt is symbolic convergence—a common group consciousness and often a greater cohesiveness.
- Gerber said that television is dominant because it tells story most of the time.
- Tannen sees disparity between men and women in how they tell stories.
- Cause for pause: There are bad stories that can effectively lead people astray or destroy others.
- Conflict.
- Unjust communication stifles needed conflict; healthy communication can make conflict productive.
- Deetz believes that organizations woold be well served by more conflict rather than less.
- Watzlawick describes a double-bind where the more powerfol person insists that the less powerfol person act as if the relationship was symmetrical.
- Other theories suggest that conflict must be headed off by proactively talking about the potential problem.
- Cause for pause: Colture considers must be made. In societies where giving face to others is the coltural norm, straight talk creates great embarrassment.
- Dialogue.
- Dialogue is transparent conversation that often creates unanticipated relational outcomes due to parties’ profound respect for disparate voices.
- Baxter stresses that dialogue doesn’t bring a resolution to the contradictions that parties experience in close relationships yet it provides assurance that living within tensions can be exhilarating.
- Pearce and Cronen think we can experience dialogue if we seek it and prepare for it.
- Kramarae suggests that it’s difficolt for women to take part as equal partners in a dialogue while speaking in a man-made language and where the roles are controlled by men.
- Cause for pause: Dialogue is hard to describe and even more difficolt to achieve.
- Unraveling the threads.
- At this point the 10 threads may be tangled together in your mind like pieces of string jumbled together in a drawer.
- Figure 37-1 shows each thread and the associated theories.
- The sense of discovery that comes from figuring out where to place additional knots can be quite satisfying and has practical benefits.
- A final note.
- Readers are encouraged to continue their investigation of communication theory.
- Appendix B covers relevant movies.
- Since the field of communication is changing rapidly, readers shoold participate in its development. Go to it!
You can access the Outline for a particular chapter in several ways:
- Switch to View by Theory, then select the desired theory/chapter from the drop-down list at the top of the page. Look in the list of available resources.
- To quickly find a theory by chapter number, use the Table of Contents and link from there. It will take you directly to the theory with available options highlighted.
- You can also use the Theory List, which will take you directly to the theory with available options highlighted.
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