Spiral of Silence

The chapter about Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence was the first chapter that I found myself enthralled with. Usually when I read a chapter I read a few pages, then take a break and finish the chapter later. This chapter I could not put the book down. I was amazed at this theory. I know that succumbing to peer pressure is easy but I never knew there was a theory about it. Mother Teresa is quoted on page 374, saying, "The worst sickness is not leprocy or tuberculosis, but the feeling of being respected by no one or being unloved, deserted by everyone." This quote explains why as humans we have a need to fit in. It is hard to be an outsider, This chapter made me think a lot about the times I have changed my mind or have agreed with a crowd even if I really believe differently. I grew up in the very strict Mormon church. In high school all my friends would go to parties and drink. I would sneak away to the parties with my friends and watch them drink. I never drank in high school because I knew I would get in trouble and it was almost guaranteed that my parents would find out. My friends always offered me drinks but instead of sticking to my principles and telling them no, I would fill my red cup with some soda and pretend like I was drinking. I feared being the odd man out so badly that I would go to great lengths to lie to my parents and to my friends.
I look back and think about the stupid things I did to fit in, but even today I surprised myself by heeding to public opinion. I was walking to a parking garage this morning when a homeless woman came up to me asking for money for breakfast. I had seen her ask the group of people in front of me for money as well, but no one gave her any. I did the same as the group of people in front of me. I said, "sorry", even though I had a pop tart and some ones in my purse. There was no reason for me not to help her, I wasn't even going to eat the pop tart. I think I said no because everyone else had said no too. I have been thinking about that all day. I think I will look for her next week and bring her some granola bars. Sometimes doing what everyone else is doing is easy to do but that never makes it the right thing to do.

Media Agendas

Chapter 28 talks about Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw's Agenda setting theory. McCombs and Shaw use a quote from Bernhard Cohen, he says on page 360 that the press are not always successful in telling people what to think about, but they are stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. I thought Griffins account of the newspaper articles on the final-four. He noted that the framing that the newspaper used by the placement of the articles and the length of the articles. I am not a huge newspaper reader, I usually watch the news or check out stories on the internet. When I do read the newspaper, I tend to only read the front page or the stories that have interesting headlines and pictures. Without even knowing I have been sucked in to that media outlets framing.

Technology, it's a good thing

Neil Postman asks three questions about media at the end of chapter 24. he asked what the problem that technology solves, whose problem it is, and what other problems technology creates. The questions make you think hard about media and how it affects our lives. There are many possibilities as to who and what problems technology can cause. However I have always thought of technology as a good thing. I don't see technology as being a Faustian bargain, or a deal with t he devil. Many peoples lives are enriched because of technology. Hospitals, businesses and schools have all benefited from technology. Technology does have its drawbacks, yet I think the good outweighs the bad.

Media Ecology

Marshall McLuhan studied and asked questions about the relationship between media and culture. McLuhan saw the message and the medium as the same thing. Technology plays a huge role in our lives. We use technology everyday to help us communicate and function. McLuhan's said that, “it's not technological abnormality that demands our attention, since it's hard not to notice the new and different." (Griffin p. 313). We only notice technology when it's not working or available. We accept new technology so quickly that it usually blends seamlessly into our lives and becomes part of our lives. griffin says on page 314 that, "it's the ordinariness of media that makes them invisible. I tend to not notice how much media and technology are part of my life until the direct T.V. goes out.

Narrative paradigm

Paradigms are " a conceptual framework that calls for people to view events through a common interpretive lens." (Griffin 300). I often think of paradigms as accepted ideas that a society has. Fishers narrative paradigm offered a way to understand and explain communication behavior. Fisher thinks of every type of communication that humans find compelling or interesting can be seen as stories. The best stories are true ones, humans are constantly writing their stories; this could be one of the reasons why reality television has such a huge appeal.

Dramatism

Kenneth Burke is fascinating and complicated at the same time. When I first started reading the chapter I was impressed that he used so many different tools, as Griffin says, he used philosophy, psychology, economics, linguistics, sociology, and communication to help him create his idea of dramatisim. I agree with Burke's veiw that, “life is not like a drama; life is drama.” Burke developed the dramatist pentad as a tool to analyze how the speaker tries to persuade the audience. There are five important elements of the human drama, act, scene, agent, agency, and, purpose. It was interesting to find out that the pentad can be a way to see what the speaker's world view or philosophy is depending on what element the speaker stresses. When I speak I tend to stress the act, According to Burke, My philosophy is realism which actually is dead on.

Great Speakers

Rhetoric is a word that comes up often in communication classes. In my 140 class, Argumentation and Debate, I have become very familiar with Aristotle and his ideas about rhetoric and public speaking. Rhetorical proof, ethos, logos and pathos are all very important to know and use in order to be a effective and successful speaker. I have always admired great speakers. I still remember hearing Martin Luther King Jr.s "I Have a Dream" Speech when I was in second grade. Very few people are blessed with gift to move people. I was glad that Griffin used his speech as the case study. With that speech, Dr. King would have made Aristotle proud.

Truth and Corporations

In chapter 20 Stan Deetz' little story on page 229 really opened my eyes. He makes a great point about truth. He talks about the cereal boxes of his children's favorite cereals, on the box Kellog's put information and illustrations of happy children and all the health benefits of the cereals. They chose only to put the good aspects of the cereal and ignored the bad. I love that Deetz made his own labels for the cereals with the whole truth on it. It made me think about one of my guilty pleasures, taco bell. I know that fast food is horrible for me and I have heard that they use the lowest grade of meat allowable, but I still go. They leave out all of the negatives from their advertising and leave only the positive to suck people in. This chapter really opened up my eyes about corporations and teh impact they have on everyones life.

Chapter 19

In chapter 19 Michael Paconowsky also developed theories of culture in organizations. His experience was mostly corporate culture. He agreed with Geertz' metaphor of the culture as webs, but he says, "we need to concern ourselves not only with the structures of the cultural webs, but the process of of their spinning as well" (Griffin 250). I found Paconowsky very interesting. i had never considered the impact corporate culture has on peoples lives. The workplace is where a lot of time is spent with co-workers. Culture and relationships are bound to develop. I loved how Griffin used the show , The Office to illustrate the symbolic interpretation of story, and the three types.

The Cultural Approach to Organizations

Chapter 19 is all about Clifford Geertz and Michael Pacanowsky's research on culture in organizations. Geertz uses the metaphor of culture as a web. Griffin explains that, “in order to travel across the strands toward the center of the web, an outsider must discover the common interpretations that hold the web together.” ( Griffin p. 250). Culture is made up of many things, or strands. These strands can be made form the language we speak to the field we work in, all of the strands make up our web. Geertz is an anthropologist who has studied remote culures. Geertz says that culture is not defined as the arts or traditions but is much more complex and vague. All societies have subcultures within their culture. I looked at the subcultures to mean the “cliques” that make up the whole society.

Putting functional perspective into action

Chapter 17 was the perfect chapter to for me to read this week. In my Comm 140 class we had our first debate. In our groups we were to research our topics and then present them to the class. My group was given a very specific topic that made it hard to find a lot of research. In my group we went through all 4 of Hirokawa's functions. First we analyzed the problem which was how we were going to find some good research. Next we set our goals. we wanted to develop strong arguments and learn as much as we could about our topic. Since we had trouble with finding good articles and journals we had to identify alternatives. We had to ask for help from the professor who gave us some great alternatives. We finally found articles that helped back our arguments but we had a lot of different arguments. We had to evaluate what was negative and positive, what we needed and what was unnecessary. without realizing it I had used functional perspective to complete make decisions in a small group.

Small Group

Chapter 18 discusses Marshall Scott Poole's Adaptive Structuration theory. Poole studied patterns of communication in small groups. Through his research he learned that group decision making was very complex. He found that group dynamics are so are very complicated and cannot be predicted or boiled down to a small chain of events. Social structures were not what influence what the groups decision. He found that what people do and say and do make a difference not the social structures.
In the past when i have been in groups it is always a struggle to make a decision. Some of the groups I have been in have been complete nightmares. In the end I have had to do the work all by myself. Good communication can help groups complete their goals and make good decisions.