Language, Media & Communication
Eveliene Quaijtaal - VU Amsterdam
Final Exam - 17 December 2020
Contents of this summary
A First Look at Communication Theory chapters:
8 Social Penetration Theory;
12 Communication Privacy Management Theory;
10 Social Information Processing Theory;
13 Media Multiplexity Theory;
9 Uncertainty Reduction Theory;
Additional chapter 7 Interpersonal Deception Theory;
22 The Rhetoric;
24 Narrative Paradigm;
26 Semiotics;
Research Articles:
- Antheunis, M. L., Schouten, A. P., Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2012). Interactive
uncertainty reduction strategies and verbal affection in computer-mediated
communication. Communication Research, 39(6), 757-780.
- Chan, I. C. C., Lam, L. W., Chow, C. W., Fong, L. H. N., & Law, R. (2017). The effect
of online reviews on hotel booking intention: The role of reader-reviewer similarity.
International Journal of Hospitality Management, 66, 54-65.
- English, K., Sweetser, K. D., & Ancu, M. (2011). YouTube-ification of political talk: An
examination of persuasion appeals in viral video. American Behavioral Scientist,
55(6), 733-748.
- Keib, K., Espina, C., Lee, Y.-I., Wojdynski, B. W., Choi, D., & Bang, H. (2018).
Picture this: The influence of emotionally valenced images, on attention, selection,
and sharing of social media news. Media Psychology, 21, 202-221.
- Riordan, M. A. (2017). The communicative role of non-face emojis: Affect and
disambiguation. Computers in Human Behavior, 76, 75-86.
- Stubb, C. (2018). Story versus info: Tracking blog readers’ online viewing time of
sponsored blog posts based on content-specific elements. Computers in Human
Behavior, 82, 54-62.
- Utz, S. (2015). The function of self-disclosure on social network sites: Not only
intimate, but also positive and entertaining self-disclosures increase the feeling of
connection. Computers in Human Behavior, 45, 1-10.
Chapter 8: Social Penetration Theory (slides)
Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor proposed a social penetration process that explain how
relational closeness develops.
Altman and Taylor compared people to onions; a depiction of the multilayered structure of
personality. Peel the outer skin from an onion, and you’’ find another beneath it. Remove
that layer and you’ll be exposed to a third, and so on. The other layer is accessible to
anyone who cares to look. The inner core is made up of values, self-concept, unresolved
conflicts and deeply felt emotions.
The depth and breadth self-disclosure
,The main route to deep social penetration is through verbal self-disclosure. The depth of
penetration is the degree of intimacy. Altman and Taylor outlined four observations about the
process of getting to know someone.
1. Peripheral items that are exchanged sooner and more frequently than private
information: At the beginning, the relationship is still at a relatively impersonal level.
Studies have shown that conversations in developing relationships, only 2%
disclosed intimate confidences.
2. Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship
development: The theory predicts new acquaintances will reach roughly equal levels
of openness; a give-and-take exchange in which each party is sharing deeper levels
of feeling with the other. The social penetration theory asserts a law of reciprocity.
3. Penetration is rapid at the start, but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped
inner layers are reached: There are societal norms against telling too much. Most
relationships stall before a stable, intimate exchange is established. Studies have
shown the powerful relational impact of sharing autobiographical memories. These
personal narratives tend to contain a carefully structured story, deeper emotion, and
greater detail than other shared information.
4. Depentration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal: Relational retreat
is a sort of taking back of what has already been exchanged in the building of a
relationship. Relationships are likely to terminate not in an explosive flash of anger,
but in a gradual cooling off of care and enjoyment.
Breadth is equally important as depth in the process of social penetration. Breadth is the
range of areas in an individual’s life over which disclosure takes place. A model of true
intimacy would show multiple wedges inserted deeply into every area.
Regulating closeness on the basis of rewards and costs
Altman and Taylor borrowed ideas from the social exchange theory. This theory claims we
do a cost-benefit analysis before making a relationship. The social exchange theory
identifies three key components of this mental calculation: relational outcome, relational
satisfaction, and relational stability.
Relational Outcome: Rewards minus Costs
People try to predict the outcome of an interaction before it takes place. The idea of totaling
potential benefits and losses to determine behaviour isn’t new. John Stuart Mill first stated
his principle of human behaviour. People seek to maximize their benefits and minimize their
costs. The higher we rate a relational outcome the more attractive we find the behaviour that
might make it happen. Early in a relationship, we tend to see physical appearance, similar
backgrounds and mutual agreement as benefits. Disagreement and deviance from the norm
are negatives. But as the relationship changes, deeper friendships thrive on common values
and spoken appreciation, and we can even enjoy surface diversity (‘opposites attract’).
Gauging Relational Satisfaction - The Comparison Level (CL)
Evaluating outcomes is tricky. A relational result has meaning only when we contrast it with
other real or imagined possibilities. People use two different standards of comparison to
evaluate the outcome.
, 1. Relative satisfaction (comparison level): how happy or sad an interpersonal outcome
makes a participant feel. That way you can check if an interpersonal outcome seems
attractive. We judge the value of a relationship by comparing it to the baseline of past
experience. Sequence plays a large part in evaluating a relationship. The result from
each interaction is stored in the individual’s memory. Experiences that take place
early in a relationship can have a huge impact because they make up a large
proportion of the total relational history.
CL is your overall standard for a specific type of relationship, and it remains fairly
stable over time
Gauging Relational Stability - The Comparison of Alternatives (CLalt)
2. The second standard is a standard by which we evaluate the outcomes we receive.
They call this the comparison level of Alternatives. CLalt represents your evaluation
of other relational options at the moment. If CLalt is less than your current outcomes,
the current relationship will be stable. But if more attractive friendship possibilities
become available, the instability of the current outcome will increase.
CL and CLalt explain why some people remain in relationships that aren’t satisfying. Say,
someone is in an abusive relationship, feeling trapped in a terrible situation, she/he will not
leave the relationship because being alone in the world appears even worse. She/he might
not be able to imagine a better alternative.
In this case her outcomes are far below her CL, but also quite unsatisfying because her
outcomes are above her CLalt.
The optimum situation is when both parties find: Outcome > CLalt > CL.
(There is no other relationship that is more attractive. Yet the person will not feel trapped
because he has other satisfying options available in the case this relationship will not work
out.)
Dialectics and the environment
Altman doubted the basic assumption that openness is the predominant quality of
relationship development. He proposed a dialectical model, which assumes that human
social relationships are characterized by openness or contact and closedness or
separateness between participants. The tension between openness and closeness results in
cycles of disclosure or withdrawal.
Altman also identifies the environment as a factor in social penetration. For example, a quiet,
dimly lit sitdown restaurant might make us more willing to open up. Sometimes we actively
manipulate our environment to meet our privacy and disclosure goals. Altman found that
students, for example, are more likely to remain at the university when they honored their
need for territoriality; the human tendency to claim a physical location or object as their own.
This need shows that the onion of penetration includes both our mind and our physical
space.
Critique
Some scholars think the social penetration theory is too simple. Disclosure can lead to
intimacy, but a person may reveal private information merely to express oneself, release
, tension, or regain relational control. In these cases the speaker doesn't necessarily desire
nor achieve a stronger bond with the confidant.
Chapter 12: Social Privacy Management Theory
This theory, made by Sandra Petronio, agrees with Altman that revealing private information
might strengthen your relationship. The disclosure would also give them a chance to offer
comfort. However, sharing confidential information always reduces your privacy. The
communication privacy management theory (CPM) contains of three main parts:
1. Privacy ownership
2. Privacy control
3. Privacy turbulence
These three parts will be helping understand the five core principles of the CPM theory.
1. People believe they own and have a right to control their private information.
2. People control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules.
3. When others are told or discover a person’s private information, they become co-
owners of that information.
4. Co-owners of private information need to negotiate mutually agreeable privacy rules
about telling others.
5. When co-owners of private information don’t effectively negotiate and follow mutually
held privacy rules, boundary turbulence is the likely result.
1. Ownership and control of private information
People believe they own and have a right to control their private information
Instead of talking about self-disclosure, Petronio refers to the disclosure of private
information. There are multiple reasons why she prefers this term. Firstly, a lot of private
information we tell others isn’t about ourselves. In addition, the self-disclosure label is
usually associated with interpersonal intimacy, but Petronio thinks there are more motives
for disclosing private information. Lastly, the term disclosure of private information has a
neutral connotation (and self-disclosure has a positive feel).
How do we regard private information we manage? The first principle is quite clear. We see
privacy as our own and we believe it belongs to us. Privacy is ‘the feeling someone has the
right to own private information.’
Ownership comes with rights and obligations. The upside is that privacy makes us feel less
vulnerable, but it can also be a liability. Owners are responsible for the information and will
be held accountable for how we handle it.
Our sense of ownership motivates us to create boundaries that will control the spread of
what we know.
2. Rules of concealing and revealing
People control their private information through the use of personal privacy rules
Petronio refers to this theory as a rule-based theory. People usually have rules for managing
their private information. The internalized rules appear to guide their decisions and help
people feel like they have control over their private information.
Five factors play a role in the way we develop our own privacy: culture, gender, motivation,
context, and risk-benefit ratios.
