- Axiology
- questions about what is worth knowing
- Charmed loops
- Rules of meaning are consistent when hierarchy is repeated
- Communication (def)
- A social process in which individuals employ symbols to establish and interpret meaning in ther environment
- Concepts (def)
- labels for most important parts of a theory
- Content
- the conversion of raw data into meaning
- Content analysis
- a technique for textual analysis involving coding units into finite categories
- Context (def)
- environments in which communication takes place
- Coordinated Management of Meaning (assumptions)
- Humans live in communication (reality is symbolic meanings), humans co-create a social reality (conversations, experiences), information transactions depend on personal and interpersonal meaning (meshing, coordinating, making sense)
- Coordinated Management of Meaning (creators)
- Pearce and Cronen
- Coordinated Management of Meaning (critique)
- scope (too broad, abstract), parsimony (worldview, open-ended), Utility (very much so), Heurism (again, obviously so).
- Coordinated Management of Meaning (def)
- how individuals established rules for creating and interpreting meaning, and how those rules are used in social contexts
- Coordination (def)
- use of hierarchies to process a communication, when two peopel come together to make sense out of sequence of communication
- Coordination (influences)
- resources(what you can use), higher moral order (limits and boundaries, values and ideas)
- covering law approach
- theories should follow if-then formats and should be universal, invariant statements (metatheory)
- Critical approach
- an approach stressing the researcher's responsibility to change the inequities in the status quo
- Cultural Patterns
- images of the world and a person's relationship to it
- Depth interviews
- semistructured on unstructured interviews lasting at least one hour aimed at collectin rich descriptions from respondents
- Environment (def)
- situation or context in which communication occurs
- Episodes
- communication routines that have recognized beginnings, middles, endings
- epistemology (def)
- questions about how we know things
- Evaluating Theories (characteristics)
- scope, logical consistency, parsimony, utility, testability, heurism, time
- Experimental research
- a specific research method where researchers manipulate conditions
- Heurism
- leads to more research and new ideas
- Hierarchy of Organized Meaning (characteristics)
- Content, Speech Act, Episodes, Relationship/Contract, Life Scripts, Cultural Patterns
- Interactional Model (def)
- same as linear, but circular and added notion of feedback and field of experience
- Intercultural Communication (def)
- communication between people from different cultures/backgrounds
- Interpersonal (def)
- face-to-face communication
- Interpretive Approach (also hermeneutic)
- an approach viewing truth as subjective and stressing the participation of the researcher in the research process
- Intrapersonal (def)
- communication with oneself (linked to self esteem)
- Life Scripts
- clusters of past or present episodes that create a system of manageable meanings with others
- Linear model (critique)
- only one message can be sent at a time, clear beginning and end, clearly defined sender and receiver
- Linear model (def)
- Sender->Message->Receiver with noise
- Linear Model(critique)
- still one-sided...
- Logical consistency
- needs to make sense, be sane, no contridictions
- Mass Communication (def)
- communication to large audience via mass media
- Metatheory
- theory about how to develop theories
- Mind (characteristics)
- Cant interact until you know symbols, can know symbols without interactions, thinking is an inner conversation using symbols, and one can role-play
- Mind (def)
- the ability to use symbils with common social meanings
- Noise (def and example)
- distortion in channel not intended by the source
Semantic, physical, psychological, physiological - Ontology (def)
- questions about the nature of reality
- Organization (def)
- communication within and among large, extended environments, as businesses and other institutions
- Paradigm (def)
- intellectual traditions that ground specific theories
- Parsimony
- simplicity, few complications
- Positivistic Approach (also empirical)
- an approach assuming the existence of objective reality and value-neutral research
- Process (def)
- ongoing, dynamic, and unending occurrence
- Public (def)
- dissemination of information from one person to a large group (speech), often using rhetoric (persuasion)
- Qualitative methods of inquiry
- methods that require data to be interpreted through sense-making analyses
- Quantative methods of inquiry
- methods that require data to be converted to numbers and subjected to statistical analyses
- Relationship/Contract
- agreement and understanding between two people
- Relationships (def)
- the ways in which the concepts of a theory are combined
- Rules (characteristics)
- constitutive (organize behavior to understand how meaning should be interpreted) and regulative (guidelines for people's behavior, what to do next)
- Rules approach
- theories should follow a format that lists rules in given contexts and should acknowledge variability across situations, cultures, and time (metatheory)
- Scope
- beadth of communication behaviors covered in the theory, needs to have limits
- Self (characteristics)
- looking-glass self (same as self definition), Pygmalion effect (live up to or down to other's expectations), Me (presented self), I (intuitive self)
- Self (def)
- imagining how we look to another person, the ability to reflect on oneself through another's view
- Self-fulfilling prophecy
- a prediction about yourself causing you to behave in such a way that it becomes true
- situational contexts (def)
- environments limited by a number of issues, including people, space, and feedback
- Small Group (def)
- individuals who work together to achieve a goal or accomplish tasks
- Social (def)
- the notion that people and interactions are part of the communication process
- Society (characteristics)
- particularized (well-known people), generalized (culture, public)
- Society (def)
- the web of social relationships humans create and respond to
- Speech Act
- action we perform by speaking (complimenting, arguing, questioning)
- Strange loop
- rules of meaning change within loop when repeated
- Survey research
- a specific research emthod asking participants to respiond to written questionnaires
- Symbol (def)
- arbitrary label given to a phenomenon
- Symbolic Interaction Theory (assumptions)
- The importance of meanings for human behavior, the importance of self-concept, the relationship between individual and society
- Symbolic Interaction Theory (creator)
- Mead (George Herbert), with student Herbert Blumer (University of Chicago)
- Symbolic Interaction Theory (critique)
- scope (too broad), utiltiy (focus in individual, ignore emotions, self-esteem), and testability (vague concepts, not directly observable)
- Systems approach (characteristics)
- wholeness (fundamental!, more than sum of parts), interdependence (elements are interrelated), hierarchy (organization), boundaries (limits w/i organization), calibration/feedback (check what is allowable), equifinity (different pathways to same end)
- Systems approach (def)
- theories should follow a format that maps the systemic properties of a phenomenon, takes the postion that people have free will, which is sometimes contrained by systemic factors (metatheory)
- Test of time
- still relavent, debated, studied?, durability
- Testability
- can you test the accuracy of the claims?, prove or disprove
- Textual analysis
- a specific research method requiring researchers to analyze a particular text (see content analysis)
- The importance of meanings for human behavior (sub-assumptions)
- Humans act toward others on the basis of meanings those others have for them, meaning is created in interaction between people, and meaning is modified through an interpretive process
- the importance of self-concept (perceptions about oneself)(sub-assumptions)
- Individuals develop self-concepts through interaction with others, self concepts provide an important motive for behavior
- the relationship between individual and society (sub-assumptions)
- People and groups are influenced by cultural and social processes, Social structure is worked out through social interaction
- Theory (def)
- an abstract system of concepts and their relationships that help us to understand a phenomenon
- Transactional Model (def)
- communicatorcommunicator, each with a field of experience and some shared
- Triangulation
- an approach to research involving multiple methods (quantative and qualitative), normally fails
- Unwanted Repetitive patterns
- recurring, undesirable conflicts in relationships
- Utility
- is there practical value?
