Term
| Speech Code Theory - Gerry Philpsen |
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Definition
| Through ethnography of communication we know all cultures have a unique speech code that involves a distinctive psychology, sociology, and rhetoric. The meaning of a speech code is determined by speakers and listeners, and is woven into speech itself. Artful use of the code can explain, predict, and control talk about talk. (Socio-cultural tradition) |
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Term
| Symbolic Interactionalism - Mead |
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Definition
| Humans act toward people, things, and events on the basis of the meanings they assign to them. Once people define a situation as real, it has very real consequences. Without language there would be no thought, no sense of self, and no socializing presence of society within the individual. (Socio-cultural tradition) |
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Term
| Coordinated Management of Meaning - Pearce and Cronen |
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Definition
| Persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create. They can achieve coherence through common interpretation of their stories told. They can achieve coordination by meshing their stories lived. Dialogic communication, which is learnable, teachable, and contagious, improves the quality of life for everyone. (Socio-cultural and phenomenological traditions) |
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Term
| Expectancy violations theory - Judee Burgoon |
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Definition
| Violating another person's interpersonal expectations can be a superior strategy to conformity. When the meaning of a violation is ambiguous, communicators with high reward valence can enhance their attractiveness, credibility, and persuasiveness by doing the unexpected. When the violation valence or their reward valence is negative, they should act in a socially appropriate way. (Socio-psychological tradition) |
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Term
| Interpersonal Deception Theory - Buller and Burgoon |
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Definition
| Human beings are poor lie detectors in interactive situations. Although strategic deception often results in cognitive overload, which leaks out through a deceiver's communication, respondents usually miss these telltale signs due to a strong truth bias. When respondents appear doubtful, deceivers can adjust their presentation to allay suspicion. (Socio-psychological tradition) |
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Term
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Definition
| People who are more cognitively complex in their perceptions of others have a greater ability to craft sophisticated communication that will achieve beneficial outcomes. They can employ a rhetorical message design logic to create person-centered messages that also seek to accomplish multiple goals. (Socio-psychological and rhetorical traditions) |
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Term
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Definition
| Interpersonal closeness proceeds in a gradual and orderly fashion from superficial to intimate levels of exchange as a function of anticipated present and future outcomes. Lasting intimacy requires continual and mutual vulnerability through breadth and depth of self-disclosure. (Socio-psychological tradition) |
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Term
| Uncertainty reduction theory - Berger |
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Definition
| When people meet, their primary concern is to reduce uncertainty about each other and their relationship. As verbal output, nonverbal warmth, self-disclosure, similarity, and shared communication networks increase, uncertainty decreases-and vice versa. Information seeking and reciprocity are positively correlated with uncertainty. (Socio-psychological tradition) |
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Term
| Relational Dialectices - Baxter and Montgomery |
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Definition
| Relationships are always in flux. Both parties experience conflicting pulls toward (1) connectedness-separateness, (2) openness-closedness, and (3) certainty-uncertainty-within their relationship and vis-à-vis their social networks. Couples cope with dialectical tension through strategies of denial, disorientation, spiraling alteration, segmentation, balance, integration, recalibration, and reaffirmation. (Phenomenological tradition) |
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Term
| Interactional View - Watzlawick |
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Definition
| Relationships within a family system are interconnected and highly resistant to change. Communication among members has a content component, and a relationship component that centers on issues of control. The system can be transformed only when members receive outside help to reframe their metacommunication-communication about communication. (Cybernetic tradition) |
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Term
| Adaptive Structuration Theory - Poole |
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Definition
| Structuration is the production and reproduction of social systems by people's use of rules and resources in interaction. Communication matters when groups make decisions. The duality of structures means that the rules and resources members use will affect decisions, and in turn those structures will also be affected by those decisions. (Socio-cultural and cybernetic traditions) |
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Term
| Information Systems Approach to Organizations - Weick |
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Definition
| Organizing is the process of making sense out of equivocal information through enactment, selection, and retention of information. Organizations survive in hostile environments when they succeed in reducing equivocality through retrospective sensemaking. When faced with an ambiguous situation, managers should rely on double interacts rather than rules. Act first, plan later. (Cybernetic tradition) |
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Term
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Definition
| The mass media function to maintain the ideology of those who already have power. Corporately controlled media provide the dominant discourse of the day that frames interpretation of events. Critics should seek not only to interpret culture, but to change it. Yet media audiences do have the capacity to resist hegemonic influence. (Critical tradition) |
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Term
| Agenda - Setting Theory - McCombs and Shaw |
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Definition
| The media tell us (1) what to think about, and (2) how to think about it. The first process (agenda setting) transfers the salience of items on their news agenda to our agenda. The second process (framing) transfers the salience of selected attributes to prominence among the pictures in our heads. (Socio-psychological tradition) |
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Term
| Spiral of Silence - Noelle-Neumann |
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Definition
| People feel increasing pressure to conceal their views when they think they are in the minority, which then makes them the minority, perpetuating a cycle or “spiral of silence”. |
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Term
| Face Negotiation Theory - Ting-Toomey |
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Definition
| In conflict situations, mutual and other-face concerns of people in collectivistic cultures cause them to give face to others by avoiding, obliging, or compromising. Self-face concerns of people in individualistic cultures cause them to restore their own face by dominating, expressing emotion, or displaying passive aggression. Both cultures use integrating and third-party help, but in different ways. (Socio-cultural and socio-psychological traditions) |
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Term
| Speech Codes Theory - Philipsen |
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Definition
| Through ethnography of communication we know all cultures have a unique speech code that involves a distinctive psychology, sociology, and rhetoric. The meaning of a speech code is determined by speakers and listeners, and is woven into speech itself. Artful use of the code can explain, predict, and control talk about talk. (Socio-cultural tradition) |
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