Muted Group Theory

Cheris Kramarae concluded that language is man-made construction. " The language of a particular culture does not serve all its speakers equally, for not all speakers contribute in an equal fashion to its formulation. Women( and members of other subordinate groups) are not free or as able as men are to say what they wish, when and where they wish, because the words and norms for their use have been formulated by the dominant group, men.(Griffin,2009)

"women perceive the world differently from men because of women's and men's different experience and activities rooted in the division of labor" explained Kramarae (Griffin,2009)For example, Disney cartoon. mostly seen the heroin is always portrayed as the damsel in distress. why can't the role reversed? why does the men always have to come rescue them? In the cartoon itself portrays women as weak and man as masculine and heroic.

Kramarae suggests that women are often silenced by not having publicly recongnized vocabulary through which  to express their experience. Even some words are predominantly used only for men such as policemen, army and army. Also in other culture such as in UK, married women usually take after her husband's last name which is seen as the culture, and people would question the fact if the wife still keeps her last name.

As stated by Kramarae, the language itself is man made, its is seem that these women are speaking it in a second language where it requires constant effort and usually leaves women wondering whether she's said it right. therefore concluded, women's opinion are often misheard/invisible to society s they have a difficult time to try and broadcast their opinion to others.

References:

Griffin, Em (2009). A First Look of Communication Theory (7th Edition). New York:McGraw Hills.

Communication Accomodation Theory

Communication Accomodation Theory is the constant movement toward and away from others by changing your communicative behaviour (Woo,2012). People's way of talking to other may change depends on whom he/she is talking to. they learn to adapt. adjust the language used for certain situation.


Convergence is a strategy of adapting your communication behaviour in such way as to become more similar to another person. divergence is a communication strategy of accentuating the differences between yourself and another person (Griffin,pg.389). I take my self as an example of convergence, when talking to my parents, my voice tone goes softer, and my speech adapt to the language they are using.this behaviour is where I adapt my type of communication is much more similar to my parents. On the other hand,whenever I'm going back to Tutong, my father instantly change his language from malay to his 'Dusun" dialect. where in this case, i insist on still using malay replying his questions/conversation with him.


From my point of view, culture is related to how we communicate and interpret things in our life especially to other's behavior and act. Its either we are willing to adapt to culture that suits both speakers or just continue to be themselves while interacting with each other.



References:

Ayla Abdullah (2012). Lecture Notes. AC-1201 Introduction to Communication. Universiti Brunei Darussalam

Griffin, Em (2009) A First Look at Communication Theory (7th Edition). New York:McGraw Hills.

Uncertainty Reduction Theory

Uncertainty Reduction Theory is crucial in developing a relationship, where both parties gain knowledge or information about each other. Uncertainty reduction which is "an increased knowledge of what kind of person another  is that provides an improved forecast how a future reaction will turn out. Berger (Griffiin ,2009, p.125) there are three prior conditions to reduce uncertainty about new acquaintance.

•  anticipation of future interaction: We know we will see them again. 
• Incentive value : they have something we want
• Deviance: They act in a weird way

which Berger proposes a series of axioms to explain the connection between his central concept of uncertainty and eight key variables of relationship development: verbal communication. nonverbal warmth, information seeking. self-disclosure, reciprocity, similarity, liking and shared networks.


Verbal communication,where there is a conversation starting between a stranger, the longer the conversation is, the level of uncertainty reduces as the conversation smoothly goes on.nonverbal warmth, seeing a total stranger exchanging smile to another stranger. information seeking when the high levels of uncertainty seeking is higher which causes information seeking behaviour, as they become close,it slowly decreases.Self- Disclosure when the uncertainty reduces, its is easier to get to know each other then the level of intimacy becomes higher as they became closer.


Reciprocity when knowledge about each other is minimal, both parties are careful to not let slip any foolish moment of themselves revealed. Similarity- when shared grounds. interest is shared, uncertainty lowered.Liking continuing with same hobbies, food or common interest, it is hard not to feel mutual fond to each other. shared network- reducing all the above uncertainty axioms level everything shared is each other interest and secret for the friendship sake.

References:

Griffin, E (2009). A First Look At Communication Therory. New York: McGraw Hill

Oregon State University. Uncertainty Reduction Theory. Available at http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/ur.html

Social Penetration Theory

The social penetration theory states that as relationships develop, communication moves from relatively shallow, nonintimate levels to deeper, more personal ones.(Altman & Taylor). Below a movie "My Fake Fiance" is going to be used to illustrate the usage of the theory.




The definition of social penetration is the process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self- disclosure and other forms of vulnerability. (Griffin,2009). The movie starring , Melissa as Jennifer is acquainted with Vince (Joey) through their friend's wedding being set up as date, was a disaster, as Jennifer disregard him as her "type".

Altman and Taylor compare people to onion which is also known as "Personality Structure: Multilayered Onion". where each layer of the onion expose its different part, the same with human, the deeper/closer you are with someone, their true colours will be revealed eventually, self disclosure i.e.seeing the good and bad side.Vince (Joey) beneath the surface is a gambler, broke but soon she discover, he is a sympathetic person, cares about other people not snobbish as she claimed him to be.In the beginning, it's just a simple lie they tell their family and friends. However, as time goes on, and Vince begins to grow on both Jennifer and her family, the lie becomes increasingly hard to sustain.This shows the level of "Penetration" where intimacy started to grow. Both Jennifer and Vince are put to the test a few times throughout the film, such as when Vince goes to Gambler's Anonymous and meets a beautiful young woman. He walks her home and she invites him upstairs to her room but Vince refuses and stays the night at his mother's house. The next morning, he tells Jennifer that he is sorry he had stayed out all night, but she claims to not care. They begin to get into a small argument and she reveals her true jealousy over the incident.

After realising this has gone too far, that Jennifer told Vince she cannot marry him, they went to the "depenetration process which is a gradual process of layer-by layer withdrawal", whereby relationship are likely to terminate in an explosive flash of anger but in a gradual cooling off of enjoyment and care". (Griffin,2009)

References:

Altman and Taylor (1973). In Griffin,E (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th Edition).New York:McGrawHill

My Fake Fiance Synopsis, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fake_Fianc%C3%A9

University of Kentucky.(2/14/2001) Honors; Communication Cap Stone, Spring 2001m Theory workbook. Available at:http://www.uky.edu/~drlane/capstone/interpersonal/socpen.html

Genderlect

Conversation are converse when two or more parties can actually carry on a topic both are interested in.But conversation conversed between men and women are different as both shared different values and code in communication.. Deborah Tannen stated that "Male-female conversation is cross cultural communication" where it was further explained in her book You Just Don't Understand, further explaining why men and women often talk past each other (Griffin,p.429). According to Tannen women seek human connection where as men are more concerned with status.Below are the comparison of men and women's way of communication which consists of ways in private speaking versus public speaking, telling a story, listening, asking questions and conflict.

 Private versus Public Speaking


Evidently women are more engaged in private conversation as they talk more to her close friends than men who are mostly to avoid small talk.Men are more to report talk which seek to command attention, convey information and win argument. For instance,the head of a family, a father, decides what and whom his children choose as their spouse. Men preserve their independence as their advantage for position on hierarchy of competitive accomplishment. Where as women uses rapport talk which is the typical conversational style which seeks to establish connection with others.

Telling a Story


For a women she avoids telling her story describing herself as clever to avoid the center of attention but more of her doing silly things to put her on the same level with her hearers, thus strengthening her network support. As for men, telling jokes is a masculine way to negotiate status. In situation they are not, they sometime brag themselves to be a character of somewhat heroic or some sort to send a message they are though in handling problem, therefore gaining status of the audience.

In contrast of boys and girls, boys say as minimal as possible where in each conversation are only basic conversation about food, football, girls and etc.

Where as girls for example gossip. they talk about others, not making them the topic of conversation therefore here it established connection when the listener feels the same way about the person being talked about= sharing same grounds= strengthening support network!


Listening


Body language are crucial when women are conversed in a conversation to determined the conversation is not boring (meaning they are still listening) i.e. hand gesture, nodding, "oohh and ahh" or eye contact. as opposite to men, they prefer no interference while talking, which goes back to being in control of situation.


Asking Question


Men have very high self esteem, they prefer to handle things themselves first than asking. Whereas women will wander around and try asking people around "how and what" to help them.


Conflict


Men are rarely to solve problems with just calmly sitting down talking when handling their problem like women usually do to avoid fight and disagreement.

if a women behaviour become more "masculine" she is criticized for being unfeminine,aggressive,tough or unkind or mannish. but is she is feminine in dress,shows emotion.. she is judged unfit for the female business environment said Koester (1982)

These ways of conversation can also be seen in family conversation; example in giving punishment.
the father and mother tells the child what he/she had done wrong and punish.

But; when the decisions had been made about the punishment, the the child in question cannot express her/his reasons for committing the fault as the father had made his final decisions.This is his way of showing his status/masculinity in the family as the leader and when he decide something it is his final decisions.

The mother, perhaps she will also punish her child, but after a while, she would ask for explaination for what she/he did, comfort them. in this way she is able to cool down the situation, while getting insight of information from the child on what she needs to understand. therefore maintaining human connection


another example in workplace, a women who has higher position in the company are always referred to as "boss lady"= where she is not feminine, kind or soft spoken. women had to adapt's men ways of speaking where they are dominant for people to take her seriously. women had to use alienated language to fit in society in this case alienated language,its is men language. sex is biological, gender is created by society from culture. women need to act like a women but she has to think like a men to be taken seriously.


References:


Ayla Abdullah (2012). Lecture Notes. AC-1201 Introduction to Communication, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Em Griffin(2009). A first look at Communication Theory (7th Edition). McGrawHill.

Lea P. Stewart & Stella Ting-Toomey.(1987) Communication, Gender and Sex Roles in Diverse Interaction Contexts. Ablex Publishing Cooperation. Norwood, New Jersey

Introduction to Cultural Studies

The definition of the word culture itself has it own different meaning, it could be how a certain group behave around their social norms, how they dress up, the language used and etc.





For this theory , I have chosen the popular social networking site which is "Twitter" where it can be seen not only because it has many users all over the world but because of the culture that this people have that represent themselves. Representation stands as the equivalent of something in the material world or also known as 'referent'.It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey.


Some may refer Twitter as connection the the other parts of the world or a connector to broadcasting message throughout the world which is called discourse(to make meaning of things). Ideology: gossip, updates, "in thing", Hot trending topic, blue bird. the politic; conflict of interest, individuality, privacy interfeared

Media Ecology

It is no doubt that, in our daily life, the most basic thing we use is communication What do we communicate about? mostly about everything news, stories, gossip and etc. McLuhan in his book Understanding Media : The Extensions of Man, coined the phrase "the medium is the message". Where whatever information that is received whether by human voice or printed page and etc, it influences the message, the sender, the audience and the effects of mass communication far more than was previously understood (Hiebert, Ungurait & Bohn). It may not be verbally communicated, they could get the information from watching news on television, reading the newspaper, surfing the internet or hearing other people talk about it.

McLuhan sees media ecology in two part, hot and cold media. Hot media is where he considered media that have high information but low participation of audience, back in his findings, television is a cold media where it have low information but high participation of audience , but now days television has become resourceful/ informative media with high participation of audience.

Shown below is a newspaper from "Borneo Bulletin"


The title of the newspaper itself have effected the readers. LIFESTYLE UNDER FIRE (shown in bold from the picture). From McLuhan point of view, he stated the content is maybe relatively unimportant but the title made the readers curious what is the title trying to say. therefore, readers will read it to understand the message the news trying to broadcast.


References

Griffin Em, (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th Edition). New York:MCGraw hills


Hiebert E. R, Ungurait D. F.& Bohn T.W.(1974) An Introduction to Modern Communication. Mass Media III. Longman, New York & London

Picture. credits to http://borneobulihtin.tumblr.com/post/1029991281/borneo-bulletin-alarming-readers-with-really