Interpersonal Communication Exam II
What did McLuhan argue?
"The medium is the message" --> the form of the medium embeds itself in the message.
What model is used for analyzing metamessages?
- "Radial" Model --> rarely delineated as an analytical model
What does the Radial model offer?
-A radial model provides a more complex approach that allows us to analyze simultaneously the communications context--which always shapes meaning--and the formal properties of message articulation--which also plays a fundamental role in shaping meaning. --> This prevents us from thinking of any one element as being "it" and drawing a straight--and static--line to interpretation.
Cellphone
-A telephone call makes a connection, but it is also an intrusion, and the control is lopsided. -The caller initiates contact; -the person called can answer the phone or not, but in either case, the person is reacting to someone else's initiative. -Because response is simultaneous, a degree of connection is recovered
The relational dynamics of the speaker and listener
-All the social roles that constitute their relationship -Their specific history in enacting and performing those roles.
What features make social media so appealing, encompassing, and powerful?
-Availability/Accessibility: the distribution channel is free -The technology or means of production are cheap and getting cheaper. -Ease of use --> The Authors, unfortunately, ignore: 1. Mobility 2. Immediacy and persistency 3. Productivity
Why are metamessages so complex in family relationships?
-Because identities are being negotiated -Because response patterns are being maintained and repeated -Because individuals are trying to evolve
Share your facts
-Begin your path with facts -Facts are the least controversial -Facts are the most persuasive -Facts are the least insulting
Feeding back on to itself?
-Closeness and harmony builds more closeness and harmony -Misunderstanding and dissatisfaction creates more misunderstanding and dissatisfaction. -Quality relationships like close friendships, develop an "end in themselves" quality and become self-sustaining
What are the characteristics of communication?
-Collaborative, creative, and regulatory -Arbitrary, meaning must be negotiated and maintained -Always involves constructing Identity
What is the message of the cellphone?
-Convergence -Bring everything—all digital media—to the phone so that you can produce efficiently, rapidly, CONSTANTLY
What are degenerative spirals?
-Degenerative Spirals are mirroring images of generative spirals; the process is identical, but the results are opposite. --> In a degenerative spiral, misunderstanding and discord create more and more relationship damage.
Digital media makes you stupid
-Digital media reduces higher-order cognitive abilities like mindfulness, abstract reasoning, reflection, critical thinking, problem solving, and imagination. -Digital media culture is massively remodeling our brains -Rocchio: digital media emphasizes horizontal thinking devalues vertical thinking
-E-mail apportions control more evenly: -One person initiates a message, but it does not intrude into the other person's life until the recipient decides to get it. -Likewise, the receiver controls their own response--there is no specific mandate for response time
How are Connection and Control a dynamic tension?
-Electronic/Digital Media provides more opportunity for connection but at the same time, control can diminish the connection. -Three different mediums illustrate this dynamic tension.
What have you lost from mass media?
-Increases in mobility and the demand for mobile production decreases: leisure time, face to face communication, authentic community -You become tethered to a production network -Boundaries between work and leisure become much less defined -You are "on the hook" constantly -External contestation found in diverse community -Digital technology encourages "self-selection" and "identity confirmation"
How has digital media radically altered these distinctions?
-Individuals can create and access blogs, podcasts, video, and text-based technologies that make content available to the world. -Content can migrate easily across platforms.
Digital media has radically changed the distinctions between interpersonal, small-group, and mass communication.
-Interpersonal characterized by privacy, ability to say what you wanted -Small groups characterized by less privacy, expectations about staying on topic, not making inflammatory statements, levels of evidentiary facts. -Mass Media characterized by its lack of access and centralization of power to communicate.
Letting the Other happen to me
-Known as experiencing the otherness of the Other. -You let someone happen to you when you allow who they are—especially their differences—to touch, connect with, and influence you. -When we can experience other persons as unique individuals with opinions, beliefs, and values that are not simply extensions of our own, then we have the opportunity for genuine dialogue. -Experience as an event over which no one has control and which is not even determined by the particular weight of this or that observation: like experiencing a homeless person as a person.
What does media affect?
-Media use affects how we THINK and INTERACT
What is the paradox of technology?
-Overwhelmed by the volume and velocity of our lives, we turn to technology to help us find time. -But technology makes us busier than ever and ever more in search of retreat.
How to improve Family Communication
-Talk about and work through meta-messages—not messages -Understand, and talk about, the double meaning of control and connection -At every moment we are struggling for control AND for connection: for love, approval, and involvement. --> That dialogical tension overdetermines meaning -Recognize that family discourse is rarely, if ever, only about one: it is always about both simultaneously. --> Talking about it brings evolution—control and connection for each party.
What happened to using the pronoun "I"?
-Technology? It's difficult to type on a phone so the less the better? -Reflection of a culture of self-effacement? -Conflict avoidance? -Self-absorption? --> Too time-starved? i.e., "pushed" to communicate rapidly
Text Messaging
-Text messaging is different from the other two technologies in terms of the dynamic tension. -One person initiates the message, and because of connectivity, that message is an intrusion. -Likewise, because the metadiscourse of the cellphone is "hurry" there is now a mandate to respond immediately. -Control has thus shifted back to the sender. -Because response is immediate, but not simultaneous, connection is diminished. -Likewise, because the LENGTH of response is more limited--again, because you need to hurry--connection is further diminished.
College-age students in the US have a different relationship to digital technology than other generations
-That they are more intensive "users/producers" is not solely the domain of the unconscious, but rather, a condition of, and a strategy (called networking) for a high-stakes and competitive social domain known as "the professions" (which for this generation will change three to four times). -Moreover, its not "false-consciousness" for this generation to believe that a productive career in the professions is the only defense against the marginalization that this hierarchical society, with increasing economic disparity, produces.
What does that mean in terms of change?
-The individual has shifted from consumer to producer -The paradigm has shifted from restricting content to finding content -Hence, the importance of net-neutrality--of not going back to the powerful controlling the dominant media form: of setting up barriers to access and distribution of content
Context of the Communication
-The location of the communications situation -The specific cultural aspects of the communications situation -The historical aspects of the communication situation
Principles for Discerning Metamessages in Interpersonal Communication
-The metamessage is always in the form of a message -Metamessages are simple statements—never complex -Metamessages never resemble the message itself: it is fundamentally a different message --> Example: "I want to go" said sarcastically, really means "I don't want to go" --> Even though there may only be a one word difference, the MEANING is fundamentally different -Metamessages are not simple metaphors of metonyms. -They are connotations and implications of context and delivery
Digital media conclusion
-There's no choice but to use digital media and social media -A solution is to learn important principles about digital media/social media
What set of insecurities do the new devices bring?
-They nurture friendships on social-networking sites and then wonder if they are among friends. -They are connected all day but are not sure if they have communicated. -They become confused about companionship. -They come to accept lower expectations for connection
What would McLuhan say about the missing "I"?
-Too time starved? --> Yes, but more importantly, the message is "hurry" -Self-absorption? --> Yes, but because of being tethered, asked to "produce constantly" and operate with increasingly less community.
How does the network continue to help us in our everyday lives?
-We discovered the network-the world of connectivity-to be uniquely suited to the overworked and overscheduled life it makes possible. -Now we look to the network to defend us against loneliness even as we use it to control the intensity of our connections.
Message of cinema?
-What is the medium, it's physical means of communicating? Analog/photographic moving image in fast sequence and perfect registration -What does it do? Captures and preserves -What is its message: Represent Reality
What is the message of Digital Media?
-What is the medium, it's physical means of communicating? Binary code reassembled and spread across an open and advanced technological network -What does it do? Digitizes and spreads information rapidly -What is its message? Produce and interact
What is the message of radio?
-What is the medium, it's physical means of communicating? Electronic transmission of soundwaves -What does it do? Sends voice/sounds rapidly--instantaneously -What is its message: Presence/Witness
Message of a newspaper?
-What is the medium, it's physical means of communicating? Print: movable type on paper -What does it do? Reports and preserves -What is its message: document
What is the message of television?
-What is the medium, it's physical means of communicating? Scanning electron transmission of image and sound -What does it do? Captures and immediately sends images and sounds of reality -What is its message: Liveness
What are generative spirals?
-When communicative behaviors interlock to produce more positive feelings about the relationship, the participants are in a generative spiral. --> In generative spirals, the perceptions of the partners become more productive and their mutual adjustments continue to build. --> Trust and understanding cycle back to create more trust and understanding
Why are messages loaded with metamessages when it comes to family?
-Within a family, everything we say in a conversation echoes with meanings from the past. -Family see us so close up that they see all the blemishes -They have innumerable opportunity to witness faults -They feel they have the right to point them out. Why? Because they care deeply for you Because they want to protect you
What have gained from mass media?
-You become empowered as a producer, not just a consumer -You can speak "one to many" "many to one" "one to any" or "many to many" -You can contest and compete with dominant media forms and ideas -You become mobile: able to communicate in a variety of locations with a variety of means -You are no longer localized or localizable
Holding my ground
-You hold your ground when you assert yourself or say exactly what's on your mind. -Holding one's ground presumes reflection, flexibility, and willingness to change. It strongly resembles what 70's and 80's literature called "assertiveness" -To stand up for ourselves without undue anxiety, to express honest feelings comfortably, to exercise personal rights without denying the rights of others.
What cultural categories did the marketing of the cell phone draw upon?
-male/production/functionality -female/consumption/fashion
What have the devices led to?
-split between the screen and the physical real, wired into existence through technology (dialed-down human contact) -young people are among the first to grow up with an expectation of continuous connection: always on, and always on them. -And they are among the first to grow up not necessarily thinking of simulation as second best.
The original market for the cell phone and how that changed?
-the cell phone was specifically conceived of, and targeted to, male users as primary or early adapters. -When the market became saturated, manufacturers then switched to more attractive designs as a means of attracting female consumers.
What is the definition of "consciousness of purpose"?
-the individual's ability to be cognizant of what their use of technology entails, including: --> how the metadiscourse of the medium embeds itself in the message --> why you are choosing the technology that you are choosing. --> how the specific medium determines the relationship between control and connection *Rocchio: you can work against the negative cultural effects
Why do all spirals pick up momentum that tends to feed on to itself?
1. Because of the nature of communication 2. Because of the nature of identity
Two main arguments of Digital Media and Interpersonal Communication
1. Digital Media makes you stupid 2. Digital media has radically changed the distinctions between interpersonal, small-group, and mass communication.
What causes changes in the direction of a Communications Spiral?
1. Internal Dynamics 2. External Reality
What the guidelines for self-disclosure?
1. Make sure disclosures are not random or isolated but rather part of an ongoing relationship 2. Focus disclosures on what is going on within and between others in the present 3. Be sensitive to the effect disclosure will have on the other person. 4. Disclose only when it has a reasonable chance of improving the relationship—otherwise it's self-indulgent 5. Continue only if disclosures are reciprocated. 6. Increase disclosures when a crisis develops in the relationship 7. Gradually move disclosures to a deeper level. 8. Keep reactions and feelings to yourself when the other is untrustworthy.
What three factors does openness depend on?
1. Self-awareness 2. Self-acceptance 3. Trust
What is the impact of self-disclosure (list)
1. Self-disclosure enables you and other people to get to know each other 2. Self-disclosure allows you and other individuals to identify common goals and overlapping needs, interests, activities and values 3. Once common goals have been identified, self-disclosure is necessary to work together to accomplish them 4. Relationships can deteriorate for lack of self-exposure
Characteristics of effective self-disclosure?
1. Self-disclosure focuses on the present, not the past 2. Reactions to people and events include feelings as well as facts. 3. Self-disclosure has two dimensions: breadth and depth. 4. Self-disclosure needs to be reciprocal—especially in early stages.
Seven elements that characterize communication spirals?
1. The participants meanings intertwine in such a way that each person's behavior accelerates the dynamism of the relationship. The relational synergy builds upon itself in a continuously accelerating manner 2. Each person's actions contribute to the overall dynamic: your communication directly impacts the other person 3. Spirals manifest either symmetrical communication moves or complementary communication moves. --> Symmetrical: more of the same produces more of the same --> Complementary: more of the same produces more of the opposite. 4. A spiral contributes to the relationship in either generative or degenerative ways. --> Generative produces positive feelings, --> degenerative produces negative 5. Both generative and degenerative spirals tend to continue accelerating until the participants check the movement by some action. 6. Spirals can be changed, the pace quickened or slowed or the direction reversed by the participants actions 7. Based on the communication spirals that unfold, relationships expand, wither, and repeat patterns of close-far.
What four fundamental points does the Radial model examine?
1. What is said 2. How it is said 3. Context of the communication 4. The relational dynamics of the speaker and listener
What are the benefits of self-disclosure? (list)
1. You begin and deepen a relationship by sharing 2. Self-disclosure improves the quality of relationships: it is through self-disclosure that caring is developed and commitment is built 3. Self-disclosure allows you to validate your perception of reality: comparing your perceptions and reactions to the reactions and perceptions of others is called consensual validation 4. Self-disclosure increases your awareness and clarifies your understanding of yourself: sharing reactions with others results in feedback—which contributes to a more objective perspective 5. The expression of feelings and reactions is a freeing experience: 6. Disclosing information about yourself—or not—can be a means of social control: it can end or engage interactions with other people. 7. Self-disclosing is an important part of managing stress and adversity 8. Self-disclosure fills a human need to be known intimately and accepted.
What does it mean when we say that dialogue is tensional?
1: It is a dynamic, emergent process rather than any kind of steady state and 2: it can be understood as happening between distinguishable moments or poles, each of which transforms the other.
What is a communication spiral?
A communication spiral occurs when the actions of each person in a relationship magnify those of the other.
How do communication spirals work?
All spirals, whether building in a positive or negative direction, tend to pick up a momentum that feeds back on itself,
External Reality
EXTERNAL REALITY: Influence of others Institutional pressures Trauma
Two socioeconomic trends are significant to the early adapters of mobile technology (children born in the mid-1980s and through the 1990s)
FIRST Trend: that these early adapters are the first generations which grew up with the computer and computer technology as a fixture within the domestic sphere. SECOND Trend: Day care generation: substitute care *As a result: socialization and production seem "natural" to this generation.
What two things, pertaining to self-disclosure, should accompany how a relationship develops in stages?
Frequency and depth of self-disclosure
What is the message of texting?
HURRY!
As far as communication spirals are concerned, what is the significance of identity?
IDENTITY is at the base of communications spirals It provides the drive the force It is what makes the spiral keep orbiting around in wider (or smaller) circles
Internal Dynamics
INTERNAL DYNAMICS: Changes in actions or discourses from the other Evolution in either person's identity
What are the characteristics of identity?
Identity is Constructed - Results from interactions—what we DO more than who we ARE - Constellations of labels that create social expectations - Complex --> They are stable (genetic make-up, identity themes) and --> They are dynamic (changes from interactions and evolving sense of self) --> And the stable interacts with the dynamic
What is the message of the Web?
Interact
What is the message of email?
Interact rapidly
Encourage Testing
Invite opposing views
How does mobile technology need to be analyzed?
It needs to be analyzed as a a site of socioeconomic convergence.
What is a message?
MESSAGE is the meaning of the words and sentences spoken: -Literal meaning -Denotation -What anyone knowing the language would understand
What is the definition of metamessage?
Metamessage is the implied meaning attached to a person's explicit message and conveyed through the articulation of the explicit message --> implied meaning results from what is said, and how it is said
After further investigation, what can we conclude about spirals?
Putting together all those aspects of Communication and Identity, we come to see that spirals do not so much "feed on themselves" as much as activate each person's identity
What are the five distinct skills that can help you talk about even the most sensitive topics?
Share your facts Tell your story Ask for others' path Talk tentatively Encourage testing *The first three describe WHAT to do, the last two HOW to do it
What does technology make easy?
Technology makes it easy to communicate when we wish and to disengage at will.
Ask For Others' Paths
The goal is to learn, not to be right
What is the significance of the metadiscourse, in regard to the message?
The metadiscourse of the medium overdetermines the content of the message
What is dialogue?
The term dialogue refers to a particular kind or quality of communication that happens when the people involved are present to each other as persons—as unique, reflective, choosing, valuing, thinking-and-feeling beings
What are the subcategories of Digital Media?
Web, Email, Cell, Text Message
Talk Tentatively
You are striving to strike a blend between confidence and humility
Tell Your Story
You construct your story based on how facts lead to a reasonable, rational, and decent conclusion.
What is the most important thing about this tension in dialogue?
both ends of the continuum are transformed by their interrelation.
What do both individuals have to do, in order for relationships to build and develop?
both individuals have to disclose and be open to other people's disclosures.
What is self-disclosure?
revealing to another person how you perceive and are reacting to the present situation, and giving any information about yourself and your past that is relevant to an understanding of your perceptions and reactions to the present.
Why is necessary to learn important principles about digital media/social media?
so you can have "consciousness of purpose"
What does electronic communication transform in interpersonal communication?
the balance of CONNECTION and CONTROL in interpersonal communication
How it is said
the formal properties of the articulation: -Tone -Pitch -Pace -Resonance -Accompanying gestures
What is the one primary tension that is maintained in moments of dialogue?
the one between letting the other happen to me while holding my own ground
What has become the connection of choice in the digital media culture?
the text message
