Well the day has
arrived. This will be my 5th and final blog for Comm 321. Today, I would like to discuss Cultivation Theory. Cultivation Theory
by George Gerbner focuses on violence in the media. He believes that the violence
we watch on television cultivates paranoia. When someone watches different
violent acts on television shows, they believe they are more susceptible to
those violent acts happening to them. This is similar to the idea of Mean World Syndrome. This is the cynical
mindset of general mistrust of others subscribed to by heave TV viewing. So the
more someone watches TV, the more they think horrid things will happen to them.
Television causes FEAR in people
This belief
comes from many different shows such as, CSI,
NCIS, Law and Order, and Nightline. When violence such as murder, rape, and
domestic assaults are shown so much on television, it is only necessary that
people watching these shows believe that it will happen to them. They become
paranoid that they will get jumped in an ally or murdered when they are all
alone in the middle of the night.
A prime example of this would be my roommate. She refuses to use HWY 20 alone or without the presence of a male. She watched a late night show such as Nightline and it scared the crap out of her. It was about a man who would spot young females driving towards Newport, pass them, and then during a part of the HWY where there was no cell service he would lay down nails in the road and cause the females to have car trouble. He would then proceed to kill these young individuals.
Because of what she read or saw, she believed that she would be the next victim. Even though the suspect was placed in jail, she still believes there is someone out there that will do that to her. Just because something horrible happened to one person, doesn't mean it is going to happen to you. Peoples paranoia and cynical minds makes them view television (any type of media really) in the Mean World Syndrome way.
Symbolic convergence
theory (SCT) relates to group conversation. It is concerned with a group’s response to a story rather than the
story itself. It has three main aspects and those are: Dramatizing messages,
fantasy chain, and symbolic cue.
A Dramatizing message iscreative messages used by a person or
group to describe a past or future event. Basically a message that describes
something from a time other than the here and now. Normally this message is a creative explanation
and understanding of the message that was just presented. Generally dramatizing
messages contain creative language such as a metaphor, wordplay, analogy, fable,
or other expressive ways to express a message. My roommate “Jessie” displays
this all the time. Whenever she is recalling an event to someone, she always
makes it sound so much more exciting than it actually was or she describes
events that didn’t necessarily happen. She likes to dramatize the message that
she is sending because people seem to be more interested in what she is saying
then rather than if she told her original story. She especially likes to use fables
and narratives. I find it rather funny when she starts to tell a dramatized
message when I was present for the event. I generally correct her on what happened
because I don’t want others being fed false information. This leads us into the
fantasy chain.
This is they primary symbol of "Drama".
A fantasy chain is like an inside joke
forming or a moment of silence whenever something bad happens. It is the
agreement within a group in response to one of those group members dramatizing
message. I like to think on the positive side, so I’ll stick to the inside
joke. Because “Jessie” likes to expand more of her stories than what really
happened, our group of friends has realized what happens and it has been
recognized more and more so this chain is picked up by the whole group. This
takes us to the symbolic cue.
Someone might see this as a cool fantasy chain.
A symbolic cue is the action or statement
that causes a response from a group of people. This response is the same response
that first happened when the original fantasy happened. The cue can be
something like a nonverbal signal, a code word, or anything that will cue the
entire group of the fantasy chain. The symbolic cue for when my roommate tells
her tall tales is a smile and point to the mouth. Another symbolic cue that “Jessie”
and I have for funny or awkward situations is saying “69”. No one understands
what we mean by “69” and some people already see it as an awkward number. This just
makes it even more hysterical for us.
This can be used as a symbolic cue in America as a sign of a good job.
Symbolic
convergence creates group cohesion because it makes everyone seem to be more of
an equal. It also helps relieve tension of being new to a group or if there is
an awkward situation. In class when we were discussing SCT, we used hashtags a
lot. That has become a symbolic cue for our class for the fantasy chain a
dramatizing message that was created during that class period. This helped
relieve the anxiety some students have about talking in class. More students
participated and now we all have an inside joke between our entire class.
Whenever I see someone outside of class, we will say a friendly hello and
either say something like #fantasychain or just make the # symbol with our
hands like see in the following video.
We also started a twitter conversation and tried to get #fantasychain trending, but we ultimately failed. It was still fun though! This how we attempted to get the fantasy chain to move beyond the group level to the public level. If we would have gotten other students who are not in our Comm 321 class to start using #fantasychain then it would have moved to the next level. In other examples,it is basically an inside joke no longer being an inside joke. It turns into a joke that many more people know and respond to. Once it gets to more people than the original joke, it becomes public.
How many times
have you predicted something will happen and been wrong about it? Did this make
you feel violated? If so than this theory will be useful! This week I will be
writing about the Expectancy Violations Theory (EVT) by Judee Burgoon. Expectancy is
what someone thinks will happen, instead of what they want to happen. Violation valence
is the positive or negative aspect to a person’s expectations being wrong. Together,
expectancy theory is the positive or negative aspects of what someone thinks
will happen with an unexpected behavior no matter who is violating these expectations.
For this blog, I
will be reflecting on past violations and referring these same violations to
one of my own personal experiences and one of my favorite TV shows: The Big
Bang Theory. I performed an experiment that is similar to a situation that
happens often on the show. I took someone else’s seat in class and saw their
reaction.
This is "Sheldon's spot" from The Big Bang Theory. He is the only person allowed to sit here. When other people sit in his spot... Be prepared for them to get an earful of information they don't really want to get.
The violation
happened in COMM 321 during week 3 or 4. Generally by this time in the term
everyone has “their” seat that they sit in (especially in a class of 28
students). The day had come for me to change things up a bit and take someone else’s
spot. I generally sit in the back left corner (that is where I feel most
comfortable) and today I was going to sit on the opposite side of the class
closer to the front of the room by students I don’t know very well. I got to class early
and took the unsuspecting students spot. One by one my classmates started
filing into the class room. I got plenty of strange looks and I was even asked
what “George” was going to do when he came into the class and saw that I was in
his seat. I honestly didn't know how he was going to react. I hadn't ever
talked to him before, but I had another friend sitting by me, so we were in
this together! When “George” walked in he was shocked. He wasn't expecting
anyone to be in his spot. He got flabbergasted and the class started to giggle
a little. He then exclaimed “Now what am I supposed to do?! I can’t learn like
this!” This again made the class laugh including our professor. And I told him
I was violating his expectations by taking his seat in class. He didn't say much after that and took a different seat.
This experiment
turned out to be negative for both of us. We were both uncomfortable because he wasn't sitting in his normal seat and I wasn't sitting in mine. Our learning opportunities were hindered some because we were used to our routines and they both
drastically changed for that class.
Even when I am
in classes with more students, I generally have the seat that I sit in every
single day. When I have to sit somewhere else because someone took my spot, I
get a little dismayed. That is the seat that I found to be perfect and have sat
there since the class started. Who do they think they are just taking someone else’s
seat? I can’t get mad about it though because that isn't actually MY seat. My
name isn't on it anywhere, so whenever someone else takes my seat, I feel
violated and from now on I think of EVT.
In the pilot
episode of The Big Bang Theory is the first of many times that viewers see EVT.
Penny has just moved in across the hallway from Lenard and Sheldon and they
invite her over for dinner. This then proceeds to happen…
As you can see, both Sheldon's and Penny's expectations have been violated. Sheldon didn't expect anyone to sit in his spot, and when it happens, he doesn't know where to sit or what to do. Penny wasn't expecting for it to be such a big deal about where she sat, but she obviously expected wrong. I will show another clip of EVT between Sheldon and Penny. This one not relating to someone taking Sheldon's spot on the couch. You can skip to 2:40 if you don't want to watch the entire 3 minute video.
Whenever Sheldon knocks on Penny's door, it always goes like this, *knock knock knock, "Penny", knock knock knock, "Penny", knock knock knock "Penny". It has become expected of Sheldon to always knock like that and for Penny to answer after the third "Penny". When Penny Violates these expectations, by knocking back to Sheldon and responding with his name, he is lost for words and doesn't know what to do. So he just keeps his routine going until she opens the door.
There are countless number of clips that I could show you about EVT and The Big Bang Theory (mainly between Sheldon and Penny), but that would take hours upon hours for you to watch them all. I would just suggest watching all of the seasons!
As you can see, EVT is important in communication. It is important to take each situation one at a time and not over or under react to each situation. If this happens, then another element of EVT can form; Communicator reward valence. This is the positive or negative traits that can bring a reward or punishment in the future. In my case for taking another persons spot, my punishment could be not learning the material form that days class as well because I wasn't in a comfortable spot to learn. For Sheldon, his punishment/reward is his friends either never sitting in his spot or they sit in his spot on purpose to make him uncomfortable. Overall, EVT is probably my favorite theory because I can recognize it almost anywhere and everywhere. I hope after reading this blog you can too. Until next time!
For today’s
blog, I will be discussing CMC- Computer Mediated Communication. CMC is a part
of the Social Information Processing Theory (SIP). SIP is a theory that involves how individuals
communicate with one another. This can be from social media websites,
newspapers, media, phones, to face to face interactions. CMC specifically is referring
to social websites, email, texting, this blog, and other ways we communicate to
others through text over face to face interactions. CMC can be very useful,
especially if there is something someone needs to know quickly, but it talks out
those nonverbal interactions. It is hard for someone to tell what emotions
someone is using through text messages or emails. I have been confused about
whether someone was mad at me or not because they were texting me about their
issue they were having and I couldn’t tell what their tone was. CMC takes out
that interpersonal element that helps us identity other people emotions; unless
they use emojis and smiley faces, but even then it doesn’t send the entire
message across.
Dr. Gallagher
presented my Comm. 321 class with a challenge: Go 48 hours without using any
form of CMC. This meant no text messages, social media, emails, or internet. We
were however allowed to use our phones to make phone calls but that was about
it. In a nutshell she wanted us to not rely solely on technology and
communicate with others in face to face situations. I gladly accepted this
challenge.
I strategically
planned out when I would be without technology: Over Dad’s weekend here at OSU.
I figured it would be easier for me to be without technology while my dad was
here because I was supposed to be spending time with him, not being consumed by
the internet or talking to my friends. I originally was going to start on
Friday morning and go till Sunday morning, but I had forgotten and texted one
of my classmates about a Question and Answer with Dick Butkus that we were
going to take our fathers to. After that was over I decided to start over
(whether it was against the rules or not). After this incident, it wasn’t extremely
difficult to go without CMC. I had turned the internet off on my phone to take
away the temptation of Facebook and Twitter and I rarely text people unless it
is about something important. It was also easier because of the OSU vs USC
football game. The combination of game day taking away cell service and the
actual game to encompass me and obtain my full attention, I wasn’t too
concerned about what I was missing.
It wasn’t until the
next day that I started to have issues. Once my dad left on Saturday I caved.
It didn’t help that one of my friends was out of town and having some problems
that she wanted to talk about, but because she was out of town she was unable
to call me so CMC was our only way of communicating.
I learned that I
can probably be less reliant on some forms of CMC such as Facebook or Twitter,
but when it comes to e-mail and text messaging, I have become “addicted” to
those luxuries. They are fast and easy ways to communicate with other people, but
they aren’t always the best option. Whenever possible communication should be
done through face to face (or tone to tone for cell phone conversations) ,that
way people still see different non-verbal interactions and different tones
being used. Seeing how reliant as a society we have become on CMC it would be
difficult to take it away completely. That’s why moderation is the key. It’s
okay to use CMC, but it is also important to interact with one another in
person.
Well it has been a while since my introduction post. Sorry about
that! One thing that I forgot to mention in my introduction post is that I am
writing this blog for my Comm 321: Introduction to Communication Theory class
here at Oregon State University. As we are about to enter our 5th week into the
term, this is by far one of my favorite classes I have taken here at OSU. I
find myself going home to my roommates and informing them about all of the
interesting things that have happened in class. They don't seem to into it, but
hey! It helps me learn the material better and whether they like it or not they
are learning a little something too. Let’s get back to the main reason why I am
writing this blog tonight: Cognitive Complexity.
Cognitive Complexity is “The mental ability to distinguish subtle
personality and behavior differences among people” (Griffin p. 99). In layman’s terms, cognitive
complexity is the process of determining the differences of what people say,
how they act, and how they respond in different social situations.
This is the first step of the overall process of Constructivism. This is a communication theory that explains the differences about how people skillfully communicate in social situations. Everyone has different communication skills and some are better at communicating and understanding.
One of my friends, lets call her Jamie for confidentiality purposed, has a very high level of cognitive complexity. I have another, lets call her Kelsey, has a very low level of cognitive complexity. Jamie is able to tell the
differences among people and she knows that everyone communicates and reacts in
different ways.
Kelsey on the other hand sees things in a very black and white manor. She believes that everyone will react to a certain situation in the same way as she would. One time when I was hanging out with Kelsey and a couple of our friends of the opposite sex, she believed that they were flirting with us because they were engaging us in conversation and being friendly. When in reality, they were just being our friends. Because of Kelsey’s lack of cognitive complexity, she was unable to distinguish personality and behavioral differences among our friends. If she had a higher cognitive complexity, then she might be able to realize that men and women can be just friends without the intention of something else. This is very similar to the movie "He's Just Not That Into You" when Gigi doesn't understand why a man wouldn't call her back after getting her number.
Cognitive Complexity is relevant to
communication because without it we would think everyone thinks and acts in the
same way. It helps us determine our own differences from other people.
Cognitive complexity also helps with social perception skills. Or knowing and
being aware of how people will interact in different social situations. Without
it, individuals wouldn't know how to intermingle with others or know what the
right thing to do in different situations; similar to the interaction with
Penny and Sheldon in the Big Bang Theory when Penny gets Sheldon an awesome
Christmas gift. Sheldon is flabbergasted and is unaware of how to interact with
Penny along with how he should thank her.
As you can see, Cognitive Complexity is
a key element in the overall understanding of how to interact with others and
distinguish differences among others. From how people do act in social
situations, to how they should have acted in them, social skills are important
to communication and must be understood among others and one’s self to
completely grasp a conversation.
References: Griffin, E. A. (2012). A first look at communication theory (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
I am Katie
Figoni. I am in my 4th year at Oregon State University. I am
majoring in Human Development and Family Sciences with a minor in
communication. My overall career goal is to become a high school counselor.
Well that’s the idea for now. Others have told me that I should look into other
kinds of counseling such as family and marital counseling or even look into
having a career as a sports psychologist. I guess you can say I am still trying
to find out what I want in my career.
Athletics are
also something that I am very interested it. In high school I was a three sport
athlete. I played soccer, basketball, track and field. About two months ago I
was provided an opportunity to become the head coach of a high school JV2
soccer team. It has been an amazing experience so far and I’m so blessed to
have this opportunity to share my love of the game with today’s youth.
Let’s get back
to the reason why I am writing this blog; Communication theory. I am studying
communication because communication is everywhere in the world around us.
Communication is the key to so many things. Communication isn’t just what we
say to other people, but also our body language, the tone of voice we use and
so many other things. There are many ways communication will benefit me in the
future. The main reason why I am studying communication is because the skills
and information will help with my career. I will always be communicating with
teachers, students, parents, and other officials with my jobs as a counselor
and a coach. Learning different styles of communication will help me in almost any
situation.
I hope from this
initial post you all learned a little bit about me and my reasoning for
studying communication. Until next time!