*This documents only contains notes from chapters 6-8 and 11-12 as our prof told us the exam will be based on only those chapters.
Interpersonal Relationships
- Impersonal Communication: Strategies used by communicators to influence the way others view them
- Qualitatively interpersonal communication: Interaction in which people treat one another as unique individuals, regardless of the context in which the interaction occurs or the number of people involved.
Content messages: Messages that communicate information about the subject being discussed.
Relational messages: Messages that express the social relationship between two or more individuals.
Affinity: The degree to which people like or appreciate one another. (usually expressed non-verbally)
Control: Thesocialneedtoinfluenceothers.
Immediacy: The degree of interest and attraction we feel toward others.
Respect: The degree to which we hold others in esteem.
Metacommunication: Communication about communication.
Intimacy: A state of closeness between two or more people.
- Physical: Hugs, kisses, touching.
Intellectual: Sharing and exchanging thoughts and ideas.
- Emotional: Expressing and exchanging emotions.
- Shared activities: Spending time together doing something, such as working or playing basketball.
Developmental model: A model claiming that the nature of communication is different in various stages of interpersonal relationships.
Stages of Relational Development
1. Coming together
Initiating (initial contact made with another person),
Experimenting (developing a conversation with others using small talk)
Intensifying (Expressing feelings to others)
Bonding (Showing the world that their relationship exists through symbolic public gestures)
2. Relational maintenance
Integrating (spending time with the other person and giving up some characteristics of our old selves and become different people)
Differentiating (Gaining privacy from one another and re-establishing individual identities)
Circumscribing (Communication between the two people decreases both in quantity and quality)
3) Coming apart
Stagnating (when the members behave in their old ways, but lose enthusiasm)
Avoiding: (Creating distance between each other)
Terminating (ending the relationship)
Dialectical model: A model claiming that, throughout their lifetime, people in virtually all interpersonal relationships must deal with equally important, simultaneous, and opposing forces.
Dialectical tensions: Inherent conflicts that arise when two opposing or incompatible forces exist simultaneously.
- Connection versus autonomy
- Predictability versus novelty
- Openness versus privacy
Self-disclosure: The process of deliberately revealing information about oneself that is significant and that would not normally be known by others.
Social penetration model: A model describing how intimacy can be achieved via the breadth and depth of self-disclosure.
Breadth: The range of topics about which an individual discloses.
Depth: The level of personal information a person reveals on a particular topic.
Johari Window: A model that describes the relationship between self-disclosure and self-awareness
Altruistic lies: Deceptions intended to be unmalicious, or even helpful, to the person they are told.
Equivocal language: Language with more than one likely interpretation.
Communication climate: The emotional tone of a relationship as it is expressed in the messages that partners send and receive.
Confirming response: A response that conveys valuing, caring, and/or respecting another person
Disconfirming response: A message that expresses a lack of caring or respect for another person
De-escalatory conflict spiral: A communication spiral in which the parties slowly lessen their dependence on one another, withdraw, and become less invested in the relationship.
Escalatory conflict spiral: A reciprocal pattern of communication in which messages, either confirming or disconfirming, between two or more communicators, reinforce one another.
Spiral A reciprocal communication pattern in which each person’s message reinforces the other’s
Evaluative communication: messages in which the sender judges the receiver in some way, usually resulting in a defensive response.
Gibb categories: Six sets of contrasting styles of verbal and non-verbal behaviour. Each set describes a communication style that is likely to arouse defensiveness and a contrasting style that is likely to prevent it.
Controlling message: Message in which the sender tries to impose some sort of outcome on the receiver, usually resulting in a defensive reaction.
Description message: Messages that describe the speaker’s position without evaluating others.
Problem orientation: A supporting style of communication in which the communicators focus on working together to solve their problems instead of trying to impose their own solutions on one another.
Strategy: A defence-arousing style of communication in which the sender tries to manipulate or trick a receiver. Also, the general term for any type of plan, as in the plan for a persuasive speech.
Neutrality: A defence-arousing behaviour in which the sender expresses indifference toward a receiver.
Spontaneity: Supportive communication behaviour in which the sender expresses a message without any attempt to manipulate the receiver.
Superiority: A defence-arousing style of communication in which the sender states or implies that receiver is inferior.
Conflict: An expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce rewards, and interference from the other party in achieving their goals.
Non-assertion: The inability or unwillingness to express one’s thoughts or feelings when necessary.
Direction Aggression: An expression of the sender’s thoughts or feelings or both that attacks the position and dignity of the perceiver.
Passive Aggression: An indirect expression of aggression, delivered in a way that allows the sender to maintain a façade of kindness.
Assertion: Direct expression of the sender’s needs, thoughts, or feelings delivered in a way that does not attach the receiver’s dignity.
Crazymaking: Passive-aggressive messages send in indirect ways that frustrate and confuse the recipient.
Indirect communication: Hinting at a message instead of expressing thoughts and feelings directly.
Win-losing problem-solving: An approach to conflict resolution in which one party reaches its goal at the expense of the other.
Compromise: An approach to conflict resolution in which both parties attain at least part of what they seek through self-sacrifice.
Lose-lose problem-solving: An approach to conflict resolution in which neither party achieves its goals.
Win-win problem-solving: An approach to conflict resolution in which the parties work together to satisfy all their goals.
Follower: A twitter user who has subscribed to the tweets of another user.
Social media: Social environments that are meant to be use at little or no cost to publish and share messages and information generated by participants.
Tweet: A message sent through the micro blogging service, Twitter.
User-generated content: Social media content that is generated by their users, not by large organizations.
Community media: A form of media that blends qualities of both social media and traditional mass media.
Social networking site: A social medium that allows users to create virtual social communities in which they share content, exchange messages, and build relationships.
Media convergence: The tendency for large corporations to own and integrate various types of media outlets so that content can be shared and rebroadcast. Some critics claim that this reduces consumer choice for information.
Zine: A self-published, non-commercial publication, in either print or electronic format that often covers specialized or unconventional subject matter.
Blog: A website that features, in reverse-chronological order, an organization’s regular commentary on events, philosophical musings, and/or personal opinions about an area of expertise. Blogs may also include images, sound clips, and video clips.
Vlog: A blog in which the creator produces and publishes video entries as part of the blog’s content.
Cyberstalking: The stalking or harassing of an individual or organization using the internet or other types of electronic communication.
Microblog: A blog in which the entries are much shorter than traditional blogs and are ‘in the moment’.
Hashtag: A short, descriptive label preceded by a pound sign that is included in tweets to make them easily searchable.
Status update: A short sentence or sentence fragment posted to a social medium that contains a message describing what the communicator is thinking or doing at the time of writing.
Feed: The constantly updated, reverse-chronological list of tweets issued by the people that a twitter subscriber is following.
Intranets: Networks that have been sealed off from the general internet for secure and private use.
Social news aggregators: Websites that allow registered users to post news stories to electronic bulletin boards.
Wikis: Websites that enable collaboration and sharing of information by creating and editing linked web pages via web browsers.
Social bookmarking websites: Websites that permit registered users to organize, share and manage lists of bookmarks of internet content.
Geotagging: The act of tagging a piece of posted content with the GPS coordinates of its author at the moment of posting.
Space-binding media: A term coined to describe types of media, such as television, that collapse space by conveying information that is meant to reach as many citizens as possible over long distances.
Time-binding media: A term coined to describe the types of media, such as storytelling, that collapse time by figuratively bringing their audiences back to the original moment of communication.
Global village: A reference to an effect of social media, which makes people more connected with others and involved in their lives, as well as the politics and cultures of other countries.
Tetrad: The collective term given to Marshal McLuhan’s four laws of media.
Bullet Theory: A theory that posits that mass media has direct, powerful effects on their audiences.
Cool media: According to McLuhan, media that are allusive require users to use their imaginations to supply missing information.
Flow theories: Theories that deal mainly with how effects travel, or “flow” , from the mass media to their audiences.
Hot media: According to McLuhan, media that are explicit and leave little to user’s imaginations.
Multi-step flow theory: The theory that mass media effects are part of a complex interaction.
Two-step flow theory: The theory that mass media effects operate in a two-step process, mostly in interaction with interpersonal communication.
Social learning theory: A theory based on the assumption that people learn how to behave by observing others, especially portrayed in the mass media.
Cultivation theory: A theory that claims that the media shape, and sometimes distort, our perception of the world.
Diffusion of innovation theory: A theory that identifies five types of people with different degrees of willingness to accept new ideas from the media: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.
Agenda-setting theory: A theory that argues that the media tell people not what to think but what to think about.
Cumulative effects theory: A theory that states that media messages are understood through redundancy and have profound effects over time.
Persuasion: The process of motivating someone, through communication and relationship-building, to change a particular attitude, belief, value or behaviour.
Anchor: The position supported by audience members before a persuasion attempt.
Latitudes of acceptance: In social judgement, statements that a receiver would not reject.
Latitudes of non-commitment: In social judgement theory, statements that a receiver would not care strongly about one way or another.
Latitude of rejection: In social judgement theory, statements that a receiver could not possibly accept.
Social judgement theory: Explanation of attitude change that posits that opinions will change only in small increments and only when the target opinions lie within the receiver’s latitudes of acceptance and non-commitment.
Message: A central theme, idea, or value that is transmitted to receivers through persuasive communication.
Ethical persuasion: Persuasion in an audience’s best interest that does not depend on false or misleading information to induce change.
Propositions of fact: Claims bearing on issues in which there are two or more side of conflicting factual evidence.
Propositions of value: Claims bearing on issues involving the worth of some idea, person, or object.
Propositions of policy: Claims bearing on issues that involve adopting or rejecting a specific course of action.
Ad hominem fallacy
Either-or
Post hoc
Reductio ad absurdum
Argumentum ad populum
Argumentum ad vercun
