COM 2073 Communication and Media Theories For Correspondence Without MT

INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL FOR
COM 2073
Communication and Media Theories
Compiled by:
Malaya Abadilla-Ygot
Princess A. Esponilla
Faculty
Department of Broadcast Communication
INTRODUCTION / OVERVIEW
Communication and Media Theories (COM 2073) aim to learn and apply, in daily life,
theoretical and practical principles of communication and media. Emphasis is placed on
contextual levels of communication, cultural and critical theories. This course is designed to
expose the students to communication science by introducing various theories to aid the students
in developing their research paper. Also, this helps students improve their communication
competence in both personal and professional contexts.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
1. Creative and Critical Thinking
2. Effective Communication
3. Strong Service Orientation
4. Passion to Life-Long Learning
5. Sense of Nationalism and Global Responsiveness
6. Community Engagement
7. Adeptness in the Responsible Use of Technology
8. High Level of Leadership and Organizational Skills
9. Sense of Personal and Professional Ethics
COURSE OUTCOMES
At the end of the semester, students are expected to:
1. Identify general theories and central concepts relevant to communication and media.
2. Understand how different communication theories can be applied in life and media
industries.
3. Observe and analyze the communication process in various contexts.
4. Identify research topics and issues discussed and implied by communication scholars.
Nota bene: This Instructional material (IM) is not entirely written by the faculty but is just a
compilation of reading materials only for purposes of research and study of Communication and
Media Theories during this pandemic 2020. The attached materials are credited to the author of
said articles as properly acknowledge in the reference, respectively. This material is not for sale.
Students are not allowed to reproduce or duplicate the same. For strict confidentiality and
compliance.
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Requirement:
• Midterm Exam
• Theory application
Course Grading System
Class Standing 70 %
Activities/ Assessment
Midterm / Final Examinations 30 %

100%
Course Policy for Correspondence Students
The faculty member and the student must understand the crucial role that each of them
has in this time of the pandemic. They must work together to fulfill both their commitment and
development as we strive to be better amidst the limitations brought about by the blended mode
of education given the status of public education with the number of the student population,
intermittent signal, and nature of telephone company services. Faculty members must understand
that they have no monopoly on the learning process. S/he should bear in mind the uniqueness of
each student and must understand the economic implications of access to technology, which
might result in both the delivery and development of learning.
Students, on the other hand, must develop their passion for lifelong learning since the
professor is limited only to the allotted time for the class. Professors can only lead the way, guide,
and give directions, but it is the student who will have to prod and probe deeper into learning
individually. S/he must understand that s/he needs to exert extra effort in utilizing the allotted time,
access to technology, and means of communicating their learning and other concerns to his/her
professors. Thus,
1. Students must read this syllabus/instructional material carefully to be guided by the proper
information of the course content, required materials, course requirements, and grading.
Any clarification or query should be made the soonest directly to the professor.
2. Students are expected to accomplish self-assessment activities.
3. Students are expected to have read the assigned readings or have concluded the set
activity/assignment maximize class time and gain a better understanding of the coming
lecture and discussions.
4. Students are expected to submit the requirements and/or assignments on January 30,
2020.
5. The PUP Student Handbook shall be observed at all times on matters about any form of
academic dishonesty (e.g., cheating, plagiarism, collusion, falsification or fraud in the
submitted materials or requirements, etc.).
6. Students who cheat or plagiarize will receive a Failing Grade on the counterfeited or
plagiarized course requirement/assignment/activity.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Module 1: Introduction
Prepared by Malaya Abadilla-Ygot
- Lesson 1: Definition of communication 5

- Activity 1: Level of communication 8
- Lesson 2: Elements of communication 9
- Activity 2: Identify phenomena 11
- Lesson 3: Use and misuse of studying theories 12
Module 2: Interpersonal Communication Theories

Prepared by Princess A. Esponilla
- Lesson 1: Symbolic Interactionism 14

- Activity 1: Self-assessment 19
- Lesson 2: Expectancy Violations 20
- Lesson 3: Constructivism 23
- Lesson 4: Social Penetration Theory 28
- Lesson 5: Uncertainty Reduction 31
- Lesson 6:Social Judgment Theory 35
- Lesson 7: Elaboration Likelihood Theory 37
Module 3: Group/ Organizational/ Public Communication Theories

- Lesson 1: Structural Approach to Organization 39

- Lesson 2: Cultural Approach to organization 40
- Lesson 3: Rhetoric 41
- Lesson 4: Groupthink 42
- Lesson 5: Adaptive Structuration theory 43
- Lesson 6: Diffusion of Innovation 44
- Midterm Exam 47
Module 4: Mass Communication Theories

Prepared by Malaya Abadilla-Ygot and Princess A. Esponilla
- Lesson 1: Cultivation Theory 49

- Lesson 2: Uses and Gratifications Approach 51
- Lesson 3: Semiotics 52
- Lesson 4: Agenda Settings Theory 55
- Lesson 5: Media Hegemony 59
- Final Exam: Theory Application 62
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MODULE 1: INTRODUCTION
LESSON 1. DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION
Ø Communication is a process by which a source transmits a message to a receiver

through a/some channel/s
Ø Communication is the discriminatory response of an organism to a stimulus
Ø Communication is the transmission of information, ideas, emotions, skills and among
others, using symbols
Ø Communication is the deliberate or accidental transfer of meaning
Ø Communication is the management of meaning
Sources: E.M. Griffin, P. Moy, M. Ygot
COMMUNICATION IS NOT JUST WORDS, PAINT ON

CANVASS, MATH SYMBOLS OR THE EQUATIONS AND
MODELS OF SCIENTISTS; IT IS THE INTERRELATION OF
HUMAN BEINGS TRYING TO ESCAPE LONELINESS,
TRYING TO SHARE EXPERIENCE, TRYING TO IMPLANT
IDEAS.
William Masteller
Adver3sing Execu3ve
Ad
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Photos from Microsoft
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Importance of communication
Source: Lawrence Frey
1. Communication is at the core of our HUMANNESS.

2. Communication shapes our lives.
3. We rely on our communication skills as we confront challenges.
4. Our progress as a person depends on our learning to understanding ourselves
(intrapersonal) and others (inter/group/mass/mediated communication)
5. Communication is the deliberate or accidental transfer of meaning
Reasons for studying communication

Source: L. Frey & S. Littlejohn
1. It can improve the way you see yourself.

2. It can improve the way you see and appreciate other people.
3. It can increase your knowledge of human relationships.
4. It can teach you essential life skills.
5. It can help you succeed professionally.
6. It can help you navigate an increasing diverse world.
Contextual levels of communication

• Intrapersonal communication
• Interpersonal communication
• Group communication
• Contextual levels of communication

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o Public communication
o Mass communication
Levels of Involvement (LOI)

• Intrapersonal Communication- very high or very low
• Interpersonal Communication- very high
• Group communication- high
• Public Communication- low
• Mass Communication- very low
• Mediated communication – levels of involvement varies depending on the number of
participants and the reliability of technology.
ACTIVITY 1:
1. Identify your situations wherein you were involved in intrapersonal, interpersonal, group,
public, mass and mediated communication.
2. Which level of communication do you like best and why?
LESSON 2: ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION

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Source Message Channel Receiver Effect
Communication is a process
Effect Source Communication is a
phenomenon
Communication is
composed of various
elements
Receiver Message Communication process is
affected by the setting and
the context
Channel Noise occurs during
communication process
Characteristics of Communication
• Dynamic
• Unrepeatable and irreversible.
You can never step into one river twice
• Affected by culture.
Influenced by ethics.
• Involves judgement.
Competence-based.
• Being transformed by the Media and Technology.
Channel of communication.
Source: David Holmes
Salient Terms
1. Variable
o Any concept that takes on two or
more values.
o Can be operationalized and
measured so as to different
values of the attributes they
represent.

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2. Theory
o A generalization about a
phenomenon.
o An explanation of how and
why something occurs
3. Phenomenon
o A happening
o An event
4. Communication Phenomenon
o Communication event
Photos from www.cosmopolitan.com.ph

www.cose.com Proof. Bely R. Ygot
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5. Communication Theory
o Communication theory is designed to demystify the communication process.
o It aims to explain why communication does or does not work as it is intended.
o Also, it aims to identify and present the many interrelated elements that comprise
the communication process.
ACTIVITY 2:
1. Can you identify five most remarkable communication phenomena in your life?
2. What are the important variables in those phenomena?
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LESSON 3: USES AND MISUSE OF STUDYING THEORIES
• HOW DO WE ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE?
Below is the diagram emphasizing the hierarchy of KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION AND

DEVELOPMENT. Analyze the placement of the approaches on the pyramid. Which
approaches are at the base of the pyramid? Which approaches are at the middle? What
approach do you see on top of the pyramid?
How do we ACQUIRE knowledge?
TENACITY
• Knowledge acquired by tenacity requires little analysis
• It has always been true
• Traditions and beliefs
INTUITION
• Intuition is the acquisition and acceptance of knowledge because it feels right or it was
provided by some extrasensory source.
• Faith-based belief
• Gut feelings
AUTHORITY
• Acquisition and acceptance of knowledge as a result of its presentation be a respected
source
How do we DEVELOP knowledge?
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RATIONALISM
• Development of knowledge through the application of the rule of logic.
ü Deductive logic – general to specifics
ü Inductive logic- specifics to general
ü Analogical logic- comparison between 2 specific cases (specific case
applied to another specific case)
ü Causal logic- cause-effect link bet. events
EMPIRICISM
• Development of knowledge through observation of real events using human senses
• “Seeing, hearing, smelling, or touching is believing”
SCIENCE
• Development of knowledge through a combination of rationalism and empiricism.
• The principal tools of the scientist are the mind, permitting the dev’t of logical rel., and the
human senses, permitting the observation of the expected rel. in the real world
• Rational-empirical method
Functions of Theories
1. Explanation
• Clarifies
• Makes sense of
• Summarizes
a. Theoretical scope
b. Validity
c. Simplicity
2. Prediction
• Foretelling capacity
3. Control
• Promote beneficial events
• Avoid harmful situations
4. Heuristic function
• Promote beneficial events
• Avoid harmful situations
Misuse of studying theories

v Dominance
v Knowledge monopoly
v Cognitive conservatism
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MODULE 2: INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION THEORIES
Prepared by Princess A. Esponilla
Griffin compares interpersonal communication theories as charades. Charades capture

the simultaneous and cooperative nature of interpersonal communication, which is similar to a
transaction. It is an ongoing process using verbal and nonverbal messages to create and alter
the images in both of the minds of the sender and receiver of the message.
Griffin further says that communication between persons begins when there is some
overlap between two images and is significant to the extent that overlap increases. But he
cautions that even mental pictures are not congruent, communication would be partial as long as
images are interpreted differently. For example, the idea of ‘love’ and ‘justice’ is so broad that it
could strike one person to express love as space and freedom, while the other might regard love
as an intimate relationship with one person, and this is the same with the many concepts of justice.
Interpersonal communication, in a way, is a complex transaction in which overlapping

messages simultaneously affect and are affected by the other person and other multiple factors.
Interpersonal communication theories will help us understand how the ability to communicate with
words is the essence of being human, to make sense of interaction, to achieve communication
goals, and to craft an effective or compelling message.
Learning Objectives:
1. Understand how different interpersonal communication theories can be applied in life and
media.
2. Observe and analyze the communication process.
3. Craft useful messages guided by the theories in this module.
Learning Outcomes:
1. Applies communication knowledge and skills in problem-solving and decision making

relative to media and communication.
2. Integrates academic preparations and practical applications necessary in communication
and life-long learning.
LESSON 1: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM OF GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
George Herbert Mead was a philosophy professor at the University

of Chicago for the first three decades of the 20th century. Mead asserts
that the true test of any theory is whether it is useful in solving complex
social problems. He was a social activist who marched for women’s
suffrage, championed labor unions in an era of robber-baron capitalism,
and helped launch the urban settlement house movement with pioneer
social worker Jane Addams.
Although Mead taught in the philosophy department, he is best

known by sociologists as the teacher who trained a generation of the
best minds in their field. After he died in 1931, his students pulled
George Herbert Mead together class notes and conversations with their mentor and published
Source:Birtanicca.com 14
Mind, Self, and Society in his name. Herbert Blumer, Mead’s chief disciple at the University of
California, Berkeley, coined the term symbolic interactionism. It captures what Mead claimed the
“most human and humanizing activity” that people can engage in— talking to each other.
Symbolic Interaction
• Communication through symbols; people are talking to each other.
• Deals with meaning, language, and thoughts.
• The creation of a person’s self and socialization into a broader community.
• Meaning is negotiated through language.
Meaning: Construction of social reality
According to Blumer’s first premise, Humans act toward people or things on the basis of
the meanings they assign to those people or things.
Let us take for example the 1994 film, Nell, a story of a young woman named Nell who
was raised in isolation by her mother who had suffered a stroke that left one side of her face
paralyzed. Nell’s mother for 20 years read her the King James Version of the Bible, the words
she learned were unintelligible to anyone else.
When her mother died, Nell was found by Jerry Lovell, a small-town doctor who is quickly
joined by Paula Olsen, a psychologist from a big-city university medical center. Both are
fascinated by this grown-up “wild-child” who cowers in terror and makes incomprehensible
sounds. Although fiction, the movie is an intriguing story about the civilizing influence of language.
Griffin even said that this film could have been written by a symbolic interactionist.
For us to understand what Blumer means about the phrase “Human act toward people or
things on the basis of the meaning they assign to those people or things,” we have to analyze
how Nell was viewed by different individual in the film.
In the movie, Nell’s character elicits different responses from the people she meets. The
county sheriff regards Nell as crazy and suggests she be put in a padded cell. His chronically
depressed wife sees Nell as a free spirit and joins her in a lighthearted game of patty-cake. The
chief psychiatrist at the medical center views Nell as a chance to make research history and
insists the patient be brought to the center for study. For sleazy guys in a pool hall, they are
convinced that Nell will mindlessly mimic any action and approach her as easy sexual prey. As
for the doctor who found her, Jerry assumes Nell is fully human and seeks to become her friend.
Nell in turn calls Jerry as her guardian angel.
You will ask yourselves, which of these interpretations is correct? Or you can think of your
personal experiences which you view yourself differently from how others label you. Hence, our
meanings or how we view situations are the construction of our social reality. Griffin even
reiterated that from an interactionist position, meaning-making is a community project. To sum
this all up, In Jane Wagner’s one-woman play, The Search For Signs of Intelligent Life in the
Universe, she said, “After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a collective hunch.”
Language: The Source of Meaning
• Blumer’s second premise is that meaning arises out of the social interaction that
people have with each other.
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• Meaning is negotiated through the use of language—hence the term symbolic
interactionism.
• Griffin says that as human beings, we have the ability to name things. We can
designate specific object (person), identify an action (scream), or refer to an
abstract idea (crazy). Symbols are arbitrary signs. Take for example the word dog,
there is nothing inherently say’s about it as man’s best friend, it is “us” or humans
put meaning in the word dog or describe kitten as soft and lovable. Blumer states
that this happens only through talking with others—Symbolic Interactionism—that
we come to ascribe that meaning and develop a universal discourse.
• Interactionist claim that human intelligence is the ability to symbolically identify
much of what we encounter.
• Symbolic interaction is not just a means for intelligent expression; It is also the way
we learn to interpret the world. A symbol is a “stimulus that has a learned meaning
and value for people.”
• We have to remember that “words we use have default assumptions (Douglas
Hofstadter).
Thought: The process of taking the role of the other
Blumer’s third premise is that an individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by his or her
own though processes. Symbolic interactionists describe thinking as an inner conversation. Mead
called this inner dialogue minding.
• Minding an inner dialogue used to test alternatives, rehearse actions, and

anticipate reactions before responding; self-talk or your intrapersonal
communication.
• Language is the software that activates the minds.
• Interactionist maintain that human requires social stimulation and exposure to
abstract symbol/ systems to embark upon conceptual thoughts processes that
characterize our species.
Mead’s most significant contribution to our understanding of the way we think is his notion
that human beings have a unique capacity to take the role of the other.
• Taking the role of other the process of mentally imagining that you are someone
else who is viewing you.
The self: Reflections in a looking glass
Mead claimed that we paint our self-portrait with brushstrokes that come from taking the
role of the other—imagining how we look to another person. Interactionist calls this mental image
the looking-glass self and insist that it is socially constructed.
• Looking-glass self the mental self-image that results from taking the role of the
other; the objective self; me.
Symbolic interactionists are convinced that the self is a function of language. Without talk,
there would be no self-concept. “We are not born with senses of self. Rather, selves arise in
interaction with others. I can only experience myself in relation to others; absent interaction with
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others, I cannot be a self— I cannot emerge as someone (Griffin, 2009, p.63).” According to Mead,
the self is an ongoing process combining the “I” and the “me.”
• I is the spontaneous driving force that fosters all that is novel, unpredictable, and
unorganized in the self.
• Me is the objective self; the image of self seen when one takes the role of the
other. The “me” is viewed as an object—the image of self seen in looking glass of
other people’s reactions. The objective self concept starts with the family,
playmate, school, and institutions. The “me” is not innate— it is form through
continual symbolic interactions.
• Three-way mirror: Mead says “If the ‘I’ speaks, the ‘Me’ hears, and the ‘I’ of this
moment is present in the ‘me’ of the next moment.
New Yorker Cartoon by

Roz Chast (art.com)
Community: The socializing effect of other’s expectations
Mead states that we as human plunge into a community of other people, and every time
we are with others, we figure out what the others are doing, what their actions mean, and what
they expect of us or you. Mead and other symbolic interactionist refer to the composite mental
image she puts together as her generalized other.
• Generalized other is the composite mental image of a person has of his or her self based
on community expectations and responses.
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Community as consisting of individuals actors who make their own
choices.
Yet they align their actions with what others are doing
Forming health care system, legal sytem, etc.
The generalized others shape what we think and interact within the
community.
Applied symbolic interaction
1. Creating Reality
o Erving Goffman a sociologist from University of California develops a
metaphor of social interaction as a dramaturgical performance. He claims that
we are all involved in a constant negotiation with others to publicly define our
identity and the nature of the situation.
o Actors must give a consistent performance.
2. Meaningful Research
o Mead advocated participant observation.
o Participant observation is a method adopting the stance of an ignorant yet
interested visitor who carefully notes what people say and do in order to
discover how they interpret the world.
o Mead would have liked the wrangler who said that the only way to understand
horses is to smell like a horse, eat from a trough, and sleep in a stall.
3. Generalized other
o The sobering short story “Cipher in the Snow” tells the true account of a boy
who is treated as a nonenetity by his parents, his teachers, and other children.
Their negative responses gradually reduce him to what they perceive him to
be—nothing. He eventually collapses and dies in a snowbank for no apparent
reason. The interactionist would describe his death as symbolic manslaughter
(Griffin, 2009, p. 66).
4. Naming
o Name-calling can be devastated because the epithets force us to view
ourselves in a warped mirror. The grotesque images aren’t easily dismissed.
5. Self-fulfilling prophecy
o Self-fulfilling prophecy is the tendency for our expectations to evoke
responses that confirm what we originally anticipated.
o This is the implication of the looking-glass self idea that each of us has a
significant impact on how others view themselves.
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o To sum up the process, George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion: “The
difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how
she’s treated.” We portray or show what others expected of us.
6. Symbol manifestation
o Saul Alinsky was a product of the “Chicago School” of Sociology at a time
when Mead was having his greatest influence. Alinsky became a community
organizer and applied what he learned to empower the urban poor. In1960s,
he helped found The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) to oppose his alma
mater’s complicity in substandard neighborhood housing.
o Alinsky searched for a symbol that would galvanized Woodlawn residents into
united action and stir the sympathies of other Chicago residents. He
described his technique for selecting a symbolic issue:
o According to Alinsky, symbol should be rooted from the experience of the
people.
o He then found his symbol in the rats that infested the squalid apartments.
TWO’s rallying theme became “Rats as big as cats.” Rats as the slum
landlords. With this symbolism, Woodlawn residents gained a sense of
identity, pride, and political clout.
REFERENCE:
Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory (7th ed.).McGraw-Hill.
ACITIVTY 1:
1. Identify Blumer’s three core premises of symbolic interactionism.
2. What is the difference between the ‘I’ and ‘me’?
3. Think of a time in your life when your concept of self changed significantly. Do you believe
that self-fulfilling prophecy played a major role in the shift?
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LESSON 2: EXPECTANCY VIOLATIONS THEORY (EVT) OF JUDE BURGOON
Personal space expectations: Conform or deviate?
Jude Burgoon, a communication scholar at the University of Arizona, defined personal

space as the “invisible, variable volume of space surrounding an individual that defines that
individual’s preferred distance from others.” She claimed that the size and shape of our personal
space depend on our cultural norms and individual preferences, but it is always a compromise
between the conflicting approach-avoidance needs that as humans have for affiliation and
privacy.
The idea of personal space was not orignal with Burgoon. In the 1960’s, Illinois Institute
of Technology anthropologist Edward Hall coined the term proxemics to refer to the study of
people’s use of space as a special elaboration of culture. He entitled his book The Hidden
Dimension because he was convinced that most spatial interpretation is outside our awareness.
He claimed that Americans have four proxemic zones:
1. Intimate distance: 0 to 18 inches

2. Personal distance: 18 inches to 4 feet
3. Social distance: 4 to 10 feet
4. Public distance: 10 feet to infinity
Hall recommended that in order to be effective, we learn to adjust our nonverbal behavior
to conform to the communication rules of our partner. We shouldn’t cross a distance boundary
uninvited. However, Burgoon suggested that there are times when it’s best to break the rules.
She believed that under some circumstances, violating social norms and personal expectations
is “a superior strategy to conformity.”
To conclude what Burgoon and Hall suggestions about personal spaces, I would like to
share a phrase from Reply 1998 episode 9, a South Korean Television series released in 2015,
about family and love. Deok-sun narrates “A line indicates a limit. Maintaining that boundary
means maintaining the familiarity and the world, the rules, and the relations of that familiarity. This
also means if we were to never cross that line, we would never experience the world, rules, and
relationships outside the boundary. If we wish a new relationship and new love, we must cross
the line. If we were not to cross the line we will stay that far away from each other. Of course,
there are some lines that should never be crossed.”
Development of EVT
By the mid-1980s, Burgoon had realized that proxemic behavior is part of an

interconnected system of nonlinguistic cues. It no longer made sense to study interpersonal
distance in isolation. She began to apply the model to a host of other nonverbal variables—facial
expression, eye contact, touch, and body lean. Burgoon continues to expand the range of
expectancy violations. She applies the theory to emotional, marital, and intercultural
communication. With all the development in her studies, she calls the theory as “expectancy
violations theory” and abbreviates it EVT.
Burgoon sums up her empirically driven conclusion in a single paragraph which will tell us
what does EVT predict.
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“Expectancies exert significant influence on people’s interaction patterns,
on their impressions of one another, and on outcomes of their interactions.
Violations of expectations in turn may arouse and distract their recipients,
shifting greater attention to the violator and the meaning of the violation
itself. People who can assume that they are well regarded by their
audience are safer engaging in violations and more likely to profit from
doing so than are those who are poorly regarded. When the violation act is
one that is likely to be ambiguous in its meaning or to carry multiple
interpretations that are not uniformly positive or negative, then the reward
valence of the communicator can be especially significant in moderating
interpretations, evaluations, and subsequent outcomes… In other cases,
violations have relatively consensual meanings and valences associated
with them, so that engaging in them produces similar effects for positive-
and negative – valenced communicators.” (Griffin, 2009, pp.88-89)
Core concepts of EVT
EVT offers a “soft determinism” rather than hard-core universal laws. The qualifying terms
may, more likely, can be, and relatively reflect her belief that too many factors affect
communication to allow us ever to discover simple cause-and-effect relationships. Burgoon hopes
to show a link among surprising interpersonal behavior and attraction, credibility, influence and
involvement.
Three core concepts:
1. Expectancy
-What people predict will happen, rather than what they desire.
-Under expectancy there are three factors to consider:
a. Context begins with cultural norms and the setting of conversation.
b. Relationship factors include similarity, familiarity, liking and relative status.
c. Communicator characteristics include all of the age/sex/place-of-birth
demographic facts asked for on application forms, but they also include
personal features that may affect expectation even more—physical
appearance, personality, and communication style.
2. Violation valence
-The perceived positive or negative value assigned to a breach of expectations,
regardless of who the violator is.
-EVT says we first try to interpret the meaning of the violation, and then figure out
whether we like it. When we deal with someone who acts outside the range of
expected behavior, we switch into an evaluation mode. When a behavior has a
socially recognized meaning, communicators can usually figure out whether to go
beyond what others expect. Burgoon advice if the valence is negative, do less than
expected. If the valence is positive, go further.
-EVT says that we interpret the violation in light of how the violator can affect our
lives.
3. Communicator reward
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-The sum of positive and negative attributes brought to the encounter plus the
potential to reward or punish in the future.
-EVT is not the only theory that describes the human tendency to size up other
people in terms of the potential rewards they have to offer. Social penetration
theory suggests that we live in an interpersonal economy in which we all “take
stock” of the relational value of others we meet.
§ What can you do for me? And what can you do to me? Often cross our
mind and interpret the violations in light of how the violator can affect us.
Interaction adaptation – adjusting expectations
• Interaction adaptation theory

- A systematic analysis of how people adjust their approach when another’s
behavior doesn’t mesh with what is needed, anticipated or preferred.
- Humans are predisposed to adapt to each other.
• Interaction position
- A person’s initial stance toward an interaction as determined by a blend of
personal requirements, expectations, and desires (RED).
o Requirements (R) are the outcomes that fulfill our basic needs to survive,
be safe, belong, and have a sense of self-worth. These are the panhuman
motivations that Abrahan Maslow outlined in his hierarchy needs.
o Expectations (E) as defined in EVT are what we think really will happen.
o Desires (D) are what we personally would like to see happen.
• Reciprocity
- A strong human tendency to respond to another’s action with similar behavior.
REFERENCE:
ACTIVITY 2:
1. What proxemic advice would you give to communicators who believe they are seen
unrewarding
2. EVT suggests that communicator reward valence is especially important when the
violation valence is equivocal. What verbal or nonverbal expectancy violations would be
confusing to you even when experienced in context?
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LESSON 3: CONSTRUCTIVISM OF JESSE DELIA
Constructivism is a communication theory that seeks to explain individual differences in

people’s ability to communicate skillfully in social situations. Jesse Delia, former chair of the
department of speech communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, believes
that there is a crucial behind-the-eyes difference in people who are interpersonally effective. His
theory of constructivism offers cognitive explanation for competence, in which you observed that
some people are better at understanding, attracting, persuading, informing, comforting, or
entertaining others with whom they talk.
Delia along with a constructivist researchers, use Walter Crockett’s open ended Role
Category Questionnaire (RCQ) to help us “get inside our head.” The RCQ is designed to sample
the interpersonal constructs in our mental toolbox that we bring to the construction site of
meaning—the central processing of our minds. Much like sets of opposing terms (warm-cool, fast-
slow, good-bad), constructs are contrasting features that we have available to classify other
people.
The core assumption of constructivism is that “ person makes sense of the world through
systems of personal constructs.” Constructs are the cognitive templates or stencils we fit over
reality to bring order to our perceptions.
§ Interpersonal constructs
The cognitive templates or stencils we fit over social reality to order our impressions
of people.
§ Role Category questionnaire (RCQ)

A free-response survey designed to measure the cognitive complexity of a person’s
interpersonal perception.
An index of social perception skills
Researchers who rely on RCQ are trying to determine our degree of cognitive complexity
as we form impressions of other people and analyze social situations.
§ Cognitive complexity
The mental ability to distinguish subtle personality and behavior differences among
people.
Researchers are convinced of the following assumptions:
People with a large Better social perception skills

set of interpersonal =
constructs
High levels of Comparative experts when it comes
cognitive complexity = to understanding the people and
events in their social world.
23
Cognitive theorists like Delia and Burleson distinguish mental structures and mental
processes. Mental structure is similar to a term used by a four-year-old boy equating his “brain
like a jungle gym” and the mental process to a “thinking is like climbing all over it.”
Delia and Burleson are more concerned with the structure of our constructs than with the
actual judgments we can make. Consistent with that focus , it’s said that there are two kinds of
people in the world—those who think there are two kinds of people in the world and those who
don’t. Constructivist see them as illustrated below:
1 2
The person who thinks there are two The person who thinks there are no
kinds of people in the world two kinds of people in the world
= =
Cognitively immature A person developed into a
= sophisticated observer of the human
He or she is able to see others only in scene
terms of black and white. =
He or she is capable of distinguishing
subtle differences among people.
The RCQ is designed to gauge how intricate the jungle gym in your head.
Scoring the RCQ for construct differentiation
Differentiation is defined as the number of separate personality constructs used to portray

the person in question.
Constructivist regard the combined number of constructs for both descriptions as an index
of cognitive complexity. The higher your score, the more elaborate is the structure within your
mind over which your interpersonal perceptions play. Burleson interprets any score over 25 as a
reliable indicator of high interpersonal cognitive complexity.
Are RCQ scores really an accurate measure of cognitive complexity? Delia makes a good
case for their validity. His claim that cognitive complexity develops with a child’s chronological
age is reflected in progressively higher scores as youngsters grow older. He also believes that
individual differences between adults should be relatively stable over time. That standard has
been met through good test-retest reliability.
Research has established that RCQ scores are independent of IQ, empathy, writing skill,
and extroversion. Some critics charge that its merely a measure of loquacity, or wordiness, but
constructivist maintain that high scores on this free-response test take more than the gift of gab.
What is required is a wide range of interpersonal constructs.
24
Person-centered messages- the interpersonal edge
The main hypothesis of constructivism is that people who are cognitively complex in their
perceptions of others have a communication advantage over those with less developed mental
structures
These individuals have the ability to produce person-centered messages that give them a better
chance to achieve their communication goals
Person-centered message
A tailor-made message for a specific individual and context, reflect the communicator's
ability to anticipate response and adjust accordingly.
A sophisticated communication skill , person-centered messages that accomplishes

multiple goals.
Constructivists assume that strategic adaptation is a developmentally nurtured skill. Clark

and Delia found that the quality messages improved as the age of children increased. Cognitive
complex students were two years ahead of their same-age classmates in the ability to encode
person-centered messages. Thus, the older kids who possessed cognitive complexity beyond
their years were best able to take perspective of the other and tailor the message to the individual
listener.
Calvin and Hobbes (1987)
However constructivists don’t claim that such people always do a person-centered

message. The way the constructivist put it is that cognitive complexity is a “necessary but not
sufficient condition” of a person-centered messages.” The fatigue, the effects of alcohol, or
pressure to conform to a fixed style of communication can mute the advantage. But when the
stake is high, and emotions run deep, people who can craft person-centered messages are way
ahead of the game (Griffin, 2009, p.101)
25
Message production: Crafting goal-based plans for action
In the 1980s, cognitive theorists had begun to develop models of message production
that constructivists could use to explain the thought processes that tie cognitive structures to
speech acts.
§ Message production
A three-stage process of goals assessed, plans, selected, and tactics enacted (action).
Communication professor James Dillard of Pennsylvania State University come up with

goals-plans-action model of message production to understand a thought process of a person.
• For goal, people with high levels of interpersonal cognitive complexity can develop more
complex and sophisticated goals for many social situations, especially those appear
challenging or demanding. The number and variety of her interpersonal constructs also
equip her to develop a multifaceted plan that can pull it off.
• The next step is to devise a message plan using procedural records. Procedural record is
the recollection of an action taken in a specific situation paired with its consequences; an
if-when-then memory.
• The final phase is action of the creation of person-centered messages amidst the
challenging or demanding situation. Person-centered messages are the form of
communication that Delia wants to explain, predict, and promote.
RCQ results showed that female scores three points higher for construct differentiation than
male. Women can create more a person-centered message and display this skill in crucial
communication than men do. Burleson suggests that we can spot the reason for this gender
discrepancy through the social life of children and adolescents. According to Griffin, when guys
get together they typically talk about others in terms of external behaviors—the sports they play,
cars they drive, the battles they fight. Conversely, girls tend to talk about people—their
perceptions of internal motives, attitudes, traits, and personalities.
Beneficial effects of person-centered messages
• Social support messages -try to ease the emotional distress experienced by others.
• Relationship maintenance - a process distinct from relationship development.
• Organizational effectiveness – according to constructivist theory, high performance and
promotion reflect a continual use of person-centered communication that seeks to achieve
multiple goals with customers and co-workers. Employees who do it better should climb
the corporate ladder faster.
• Similar skills model – a hypothesis that relationships fare better when parties possess
the same level of verbal sophistication.
REFERENCE:
26
ACITIVTY 3:
1. Look at the Calvin and Hobbes cartoon on page 26. How would constructivists explain
Calvin’s success in getting a horsey ride from his father?
2. Based on constructivism, have you ever experienced a challenging or demanding situation

that you can say you have used person-centered messages and get the desired result?
27
LESSON 4: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY OF IRWIN ALTMAN & DALMAS TAYLOR
Social psychologists Irwin Altman and Dalmas Taylor proposed a social penetration
process that explains how relational closeness develops. Altman and Taylor predicted that for a
two person to end up becoming best friend, they must proceed in a “gradual and orderly fashion
from superficial to intimate levels of exchange as a function of both immediate forecast outcomes.”
§ Social penetration
The process of developing deeper intimacy with another person through mutual self-
disclosure and other forms of vulnerability.
Altman and Taylor compare people to onions—depiction of the multilayered structure of

personality.
1. Personality structure
Onion-like layers of beliefs and feelings about self, others, and the world; deeper layers
are more vulnerable, protected, and central to self-image.
Social Penetration Theory

(Bautista, 2016, slideshare.net)
2. Self-disclosure
The voluntary sharing of personal history, preferences, attitudes, feelings, values,
secrets, etc., with another person; transparency.
According to social penetration theory, a permanent guard will limit the closeness can
achieve by two individuals.
3. Depth of penetration
The degree of disclosure in a specific area of an individual’s life.
Four observations about the process of intimacy in friendship and romance:
1. Peripheral items are exchanged more frequently and sooner than private
information. University of Connecticut communication professor Arthur VanLear
analyzed the content of conversations in developing relationships. His study
showed that 14 percent of talk revealed nothing about the speaker, 65 percent
dwelled on public items, 19 percent shared semiprivate details, and only 2 percent
disclosed intimate confidences. It suggests that further penetration will bring two
persons to the point where they can share deeper feelings.
28
2. Self-disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stages of relationship
development. Social penetration theory asserts a law of reciprocity— a paced and
orderly process in which openness in one person leads to openness in the other;
“you tell me your dream, I’ll tell you mine.”
3. Penetration is rapid at the start but slows down quickly as the tightly wrapped inner
layers are reached.
4. Depenetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal. A relational retreat

is a sort of taking back of what has earlier been exchanged in the building of a
relationship.
While depth is crucial to the process of social penetration, breadth is equally important.
§ Breadth of penetration
The range of areas in an individual’s life over which disclosure takes place.
Regulating closeness on the basis of rewards and costs
§ Social exchange
Relationship behavior and status regulated by both parties’ evaluations of
perceived rewards and costs of interaction with each other.
§ Outcome
The perceived rewards minus the costs of interpersonal interaction. People
try to predict outcome of an interaction before it takes place.
Since the 19th century, when philosopher John Stuart Mill first stated his principle of utility,
there has been a compelling logic to the minimax principle of human behavior. The minimax
principle claims that people seek to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs. Thus, the
higher we rate a relational outcome, the more attractive we find the behavior that might make it
happen.
§ Minimax principle of human behavior
People seek to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs.
Social exchange theorists assume that we can accurately gauge the pay-offs of a variety
of interactions and that we have the good sense to choose the action that will provide the best
result. Altman and Taylor are not sure that the input we receive is always reliable, what matters
to them is that we base our decision to open up with another person on the perceived benefit-
minus-cost outcome.
Comparison Level (CL) - Gauging relational satisfaction
Social exchange theory offers two standards of comparison that use to evaluate
interpersonal outcomes. The first point of reference deals with relative satisfaction—how happy
or sad an interpersonal outcome makes a participant feel. Tone of voice, and the warmth of words
are some of the benchmarks used to gauge relative satisfaction. We also judge the value of a
relationship by comparing it to the baseline of past experiences. Sequence plays a large part in
evaluating relationship. The result from each interaction is stored in the individual’s memory.
29
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.
• Comparison level (CL) is the threshold above which an interpersonal outcome seems
attractive; standard for relational satisfaction.
Comparison level of Alternatives (CLalt) – Gauging relational stability
Thibaut and Kelley suggest that there is a second standard by which we evaluate the
outcomes we received. They call it the comparison level of alternatives (CLalt), and its position
vis-à-vis actual interpersonal outcomes shows the relative stability of the relationship. The location
of my (CLalt) answers the twin questions Would my relational payoffs be better with another
person? And what is the worst outcome I’ll put up with and still stay in the present relationship?
The social exchange explanation reads like a stock-market. That’s why some advocates label a
social exchange approach a theory of economic behavior.
Unlike the comparison level, the concept of CLalt doesn’t indicate relationship satisfaction.
It does explain, however, why people sometimes stay with an abusive partner.
• Comparison level of alternatives (CLalt)

The best outcome available in other relationship; a standard for relationship stability.
The relative values of outcome, CL, and CLalt go along way in determining whether a
person is willing to become vulnerable in order to have a deeper relationship. The optimum
situation is when both parties find:
Outcome > CLalt >CL
Therefore social exchange theory explains why a person in primed for social penetration.
The process of mutual vulnerability that Altman and Taylor describe, and reciprocal self-disclosure
will draw two persons closer or intimately.
REFERENCE:
ACTIVITY 4:
1. The onion model is sectioned into eight parts, representing the breadth of a person’s life.
How would you label eight regions of interest in your life?
2. Social penetration theory is usually thought of as theory of self-disclosure. What are some
other ways of showing vulnerability in a relationship?
30
LESSON 5: UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION THEORY OF CHARLES BERGER
Charles Berger, a professor of communication at the University of California, Davis, notes

that “the beginnings of personal relationships are fraught with uncertainties.” Unlike social
penetration theory, which tries to forecast the future of a relationship on the basis of projected
rewards and costs, Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory focuses on how human
communication is used to gain knowledge and create understanding.
Central to the present theory is the assumption that when strangers meet, their
primary concern is one of uncertainty reduction or increasing predictability about
the behavior of both themselves and others in the interaction (Griffin, 2009, p. 125).
Berger contends that our drive to reduce uncertainty about new acquaintances gets an
extra boost from any three prior conditions:
1. Anticipation of future interaction: We know we will see them again.
2. Incentive value: They have something we want.
3. Deviance: They act in a weird way.
Berger believes that our main purpose in talking to people is to “make sense” out of our
interpersonal world.
Uncertainty reduction: To predict and explain
Berger’s focus on predictability is straight from Shannon and Weaver’s information theory.
“As the ability of persons to predict which alternative or alternatives are likely to occur next
decreases, uncertainty increases.” He also owes a debt to Fritz Heider’s view of people as intuitive
psychologists. Heider, the father of attribution theory, believed that we constantly draw inferences
about why people do what they do. We need to predict and explain.
• Attribution theory
A systematic explanation of how people draw inferences about the character
of others based upon observed behavior.
• Uncertainty reduction
Increased knowledge of what kind of person another is that provides an
improved forecast of how a future interaction will turn out.
Two kinds of uncertainty that you face as you set out for your first meeting:
§ One kind of uncertainty deals with behavioral questions: Do you shake
hands? Who pays for the food?
§ The second uncertainty focuses on cognitive questions aimed at
discovering who the other person is as a unique individual: What does s/he
like about his/her job? What makes her glad, sad, or mad?
Reducing cognitive uncertainty means acquiring information that allows you to discard
many of these possibilities. That is the kind of uncertainty reduction Berger’s theory
addresses—cognitive rather than behavioral uncertainty.
31
An axiomatic theory: Certainty about uncertainty
Berger proposes a series of axioms to explain the connection between his central concept
of uncertainty and eight key variables of relationship development: verbal communication,
nonverbal warmth, information seeking, self-disclosure, reciprocity, similarity, liking, and shared
networks.
• Axiom
A self-evident truth that requires no additional proof.
Eight truths about initial uncertainty:
1. Axiom 1, Verbal communication: Given the high level of uncertainty present at the
onset of the entry phase, as the amount of verbal communication between
strangers increases, the level of uncertainty for each interactant in the relationship
will decrease. As uncertainty is further reduced, the amount of verbal
communication will increase.
Level of Level of
Increase in verbal uncertainty uncertainty Increase in verbal
communication decrease = decrease communication
2. Axiom 2, Nonverbal warmth: As nonverbal affiliative expressiveness increases,

uncertainty levels will decrease in an initial interaction situation. In addition,
decreases in uncertainty level will cause increases in nonverbal affiliative
expressiveness.
3. Axion 3, Information Seeking: High levels of uncertainty cause increases in

information-seeking behavior. As uncertainty levels decline, information seeking
behavior decreases.
4. Axiom 4, Self-disclosure: High levels of uncertainty in a relationship cause

decreases in the intimacy level of communication content. Low levels of
uncertainty produce high levels of intimacy.
5. Axiom 5, Reciprocity: High levels of uncertainty produce high rates of reciprocity.

Low levels of uncertainty produce low levels of reciprocity.
6. Axion 6, Similarity: Similarities between persons reduce uncertainty, while

dissimilarities produce increases in uncertainty.
7. Axiom 7, Liking: Increases in uncertainty level produce decreases in liking;

decreases in uncertainty produce increases in liking.
8. Axiom 8, Shared networks: Shared communication networks reduce uncertainty,

while lack of shared networks increases uncertainty.
Berger’s axioms yield an inevitable conclusion when inserted in the well-known pattern of
deductive logic. He does this for all possible combinations, thereby generating 28 theorems.
• Theorem
32
A proposition that logically and necessarily follows from two axioms.
Message plans to cope with uncertain responses
Ten years after introducing uncertainty reduction theory, Berger switched his research
focus to the thought processes that people go through in order to produce the messages they
speak. He concluded that most social interactions is goal driven. He was convinced that we
continually construct cognitive plans to guide our social action. According to Berger, “plans are
mental representations of action sequences that may be used to achieve goals.”
• Message plans
Mental representations of action sequences that may be used to achieve goals.
Berger claims you can’t be sure that you’ll reach your goal. You may have a great plan
but execute it poorly. Berger has come to the conclusion that uncertainty is central to all social
interaction: “The probability of perfect communication is zero.”
Behaviors to cope with uncertain responses
Methods of coping with uncertainty

33
v Seeking information
o Passive strategy – impression formation by observing the person interacting with
others.
o Active strategy – impression formation by asking a third party about the person.
o Interactive strategy – impression formation through face-to-face discussion with
a person.
v Choosing plan complexity

o A characteristic of a message plan based on the level of detail it provides and the
number of contingencies it covers.
v Hedging
o Use of strategic ambiguity and humor to provide a way for both parties to save face
when a message fails to achieve its goal.
v The hierarchy of hypothesis

o Prediction that when people are thwarted in attempts to achieve goals, their first
tendency is to alter lower-levels elements of their message.
REFERENCE:
ACTIVITY 5:
1. An axiom is a self-evident truth. Which one of Berger’s axioms seems least self-evident to
you?
2. How will you describe in your own words Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory? Do you
think this theory is useful?
34
LESSON 6: SOCIAL JUDGMENT THEORY OF MUZAFER SHERIF
According to Muzafer Sherif, the subconscious sorting out of ideas occurs at the instant
perception. We weigh every new idea by comparing it with our present point of view. He called
his analysis of attitudes the social judgment-involvement approach, but most scholars refer to it
as social judgment theory.
Social Judgement Involvement

Perception and evaluation of an idea by comparing it with current attitudes
Sherif published two landmark studies demonstrating how individuals are influenced by
reference groups—group that members use to define their identity. His autokinetic effect research
stimulated scores of later studies analyzing conformity pressure. His robber cave study explored
ways to reduce intergroup conflict. Both studies found that people’s perceptions are altered
dramatically by group membership. Social judgment theory extended his concern with perception
to the field of persuasion.
Reference groups
Groups that members use to define their identity
Sherif saw an attitude as an amalgam of three zones. He said we need to know the
location and width of each of these interrelated latitudes in order to describe a person’s attitude
structure.
Latitude of acceptance
The range of ideas that a person sees as reason able or worthy of consideration
Latitude of rejection
The range of ideas that a person sees as neither acceptable nor objectionable.
Latitude of noncommitment
The range of ideas that a person sees as neither acceptable nor objectionable.
Similar to undecided or no opinion on a traditional survey.
Ego-involvement: How much do you care?
Sherif called this concept ego-involvement in which we evaluate how important an issue
to us. Ego-involvement refers to how crucial an issue is in our lives? Is it central to our well-being?
Do we think about it a lot? Does our attitude on the matter go a long way toward defining who we
are?
Ego-involvement
The importance or centrality of an issue to a person’s life; often demonstrated by
membership in a group with a known stand.
Note that the effects of high ego-involvement on perception may be similar to those of low
cognitive complexity on the perception of personal characteristics. The person with high ego-
involvement may have trouble distinguishing between actual improvements in safety and empty
assurances. The person with low cognitive complexity may perceive groups of people as all the
same. In both cases, the observer blurs differences that could make a difference. Finally, people
35
who hold extreme opinions on either side of an issue almost always care deeply. That is why
religion, sex, and politics are traditionally taboo topics in the wardroom of a U.S. Navy ship at sea.
When passions run deep, radical opinions are common, and there’s little tolerance for diversity.
This is how social judgment theory describes the cognitive structure of a person’s attitude.
Sherif identified two mental process that is triggered when that person hears or reads a
message.
1. Contrast
A perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitudes of
rejection as further from their anchor that they really are.
2. Assimilation
A perceptual error whereby people judge messages that fall within their latitudes of
acceptances as less discrepant from their anchor than they really are.
Sherif states that people distort incoming information to fit their categories of judgment.
When presented with a persuasive message that falls within the latitude of acceptance, and is
close to the individual’s anchor, people will assimilate the new position. They will perceive the
new position to be closer to their attitude than it actually is. When the persuasive message is
relatively far from the anchor, however, people tend to contrast the new position to their own,
making it seem even more different than it is. In both cases, individuals distort incoming
information relative to their anchors.
These distortions influence the persuasiveness of the incoming message. If the message
is too close to the anchor, assimilation will occur, and it will be construed to be no different than
the original position. If contrast occurs, the message will be construed to be unacceptable and
subsequently rejected. In both cases, social judgment theory would predict that attitude change
is unlikely to occur.
The fifth principle asserts that optimal persuasion occurs when the discrepancies between
the anchor and the advocated position are small to moderate. In such cases, assimilation or
contrasting will not occur, allowing for consideration of the communicated message. Under these
conditions, attitude change is possible.
Boomerang effect
Attitude change in the opposite direction of what the message advocated; listeners
driven away from rather than drawn to an idea.
A major implication of social judgment theory is that persuasion is difficult to accomplish.

Successful persuasive messages are those that are targeted to the receiver’s latitude of
acceptance and discrepant from the anchor position, so that the incoming information cannot be
assimilated or contrasted. The receiver’s ego-involvement must also be taken into consideration.
This suggests that even successful attempts at persuasion will yield small changes in attitude.
REFERENCE:

O’Keefe, P. A. (2020, September 5) Social judgement theory.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences/applied-and-social-sciences-magazines/social-judgment-
theory
36
LESSON 7: ELABORATION LIKELIHOOD THEORY OF RICHARD PETTY & JOHN
CACIOPPO
The Elaboration Likelihood Model claims that there are two paths to persuasion: the
central path and the peripheral path. The central path is most appropriately used when the
receiver is motivated to think about the message and has the ability to think about the message.
If the person cares about the issue and has access to the message with a minimum of distraction,
then that person will elaborate on the message. Lasting persuasion is likely if the receiver thinks,
or rehearses, favorable thoughts about the message. A boomerang effect (moving away from the
advocated position) is likely to occur if the subject rehearses unfavorable thoughts about the
message. If the message is ambiguous but pro-attitudinal (in line with the receiver's attitudes),
then persuasion is likely. If the message is ambiguous but counter-attitudinal then a boomerang
effect is likely.
Central Route
Message elaboration; the path of cognitive processing that involves scrutiny of
message content.
Peripheral Route
A mental shortcut process that accepts or rejects a message based on irrelevant cues
as opposed to actively thinking about the issue. Instead of doing extensive cognitive
work, recipients rely on a variety of cues that allow them to make quick decisions.
Robert Cialdini of Arizona State University lists six cues that trigger a “click, whirr”
programmed response. These cues allow us to fly to the peripheral route on automatic
pilot:
1. Reciprocation – “You owe me.”
2. Consistency – “We’ve always done it that way.”
3. Liking – “Love me, love my ideas.”
4. Authority –“Just because I say so.”
5. Scarcity – “Quick, before they’re all gone.”
Message elaboration
The extent to which a person carefully thinks about issue-relevant arguments
contained in a persuasive communication.
The Elaboration Likelihood Model

(Griffin, 2009))
37
If the message is ambiguous but attitudinally neutral (with respect to the receiver) or if the
receiver is unable or not motivated to listen to the message then the receiver will look for a
peripheral cue. Peripheral cues include such communication strategies as trying to associate the
advocated position with things the receiver already thinks positively towards (e.g., food, money,
sex), using an expert appeal, and attempting a contrast effect where the advocated position is
presented after several other positions, which the receiver despises, have been presented. If the
peripheral cue association is accepted then there may be a temporary attitude change and
possibly future elaboration. If the peripheral cue association is not accepted, or if it is not present,
then the person retains the attitude initially held.
If the receiver is motivated and able to elaborate on the message and if there are
compelling arguments to use, then the central route to persuasion should be used. If the receiver
is unlikely to elaborate the message, or if the available arguments are weak, then the peripheral
route to persuasion should be used.
REFERENCE:
Oregonstate.edu. (n.d). Elaboration likelihood model.

https://oregonstate.edu/instruct/theory/elm.html
38
MODULE 3: GROUP/ ORGANIZATIONAL/ PUBLIC COMMUNICATION THEORIES
LESSON 1: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING BY R.

HIROKAWA AND D. GOURAN
4 Functions of Effective Decision Making

1. Analysis of the problem
2. Goal setting
3. Identification of alternatives
4. Evaluation of positive/negative characteristics
Role of Communication in fulfilling the functions

1. Promotive
2. Disruptive
3. Counteractive
Some communication experts and scholars claim that consultative discussions with the
concerned members of the organizations has significant effect on the quality of the group
decisions. Hirokawa believes that communication plays a more active role in crafting
quality decision. He regards group discussion as a tool that group members use to create
the social reality in which the decisions are made. (E. Griffin)
READING ACTIVITY:
Check Reading Material A: FUNCTIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON GROUP DECISION MAKING
39
LESSON 2: CULTURAL APPROACH TO ORGANIZATION BY C. GEERTZ AND M.
PACANOWSKY
The theory Cultural Approach to Organizations by Clifford Geetz and Michael Pacanowsky
describe organizations as having their own culture. This means that any given organization has
a particular culture in which the meanings for things are shared between individuals. Geetz and
Pacanowsky also suggest that when an organization is created it begins to develop its very own
meanings and understandings; this is referred to as CULTURE. The members continuously
establish and expose their culture through their actions which include, but are not limited to,
gossip, jokes, parties, and romantic involvement. Pacanowsky sees all cultural elements as
important, but believes that to truly learn about an organization a focus must be placed on
imaginative language, rituals, and stories (Griffin, p. 251, 2008).
The environment that surrounds each company is called the corporate culture and
consists of the organization’s image, character, and climate. The culture is learned through the
use of stories (or metaphors) used to convey the messages the corporation wants to share with
its employees. Metaphors are figures of speech that are used to provide clarification of something
by comparing or equating it to a more familiar concept. It is considered as valuable tool in
developing a better understanding of a corporate culture. Stories have the ability to capture
unforgettable events, when shared they allow an outsider access to the culture of an organization.
Pacanowsky introduces three types of stories that dramatize organizational life: corporate
stories, personal stories and collegiate stories. Corporate stories usually consist of the
company’s basic history and are viewed as the public face of the company. These are information
which the management wants to share with its employees. Often they are very informative,
relaying policies, expectations, standard procedures as well as historical data.
Personal stories include personal accounts of themselves that employees share with
each other to help them define who they are within the organization. Lastly, collegial stories are
stories, either positive or negative, that employees within the organization tell about each other.
These provide a way to acquire a sense of how the organization works because people discuss
each other’s performances, personalities and leadership styles in positive and negative tales,
which usually are not sanctioned by the management.
Sources: E. Griffin, S. LittleJohn, and E. Pernia
40
LESSON 3: RHETORIC BY ARISTOTLE
41
Source: Dr. E. Pernia
LESSON 4: GROUPTHINK
Group think is defined as a mode of thinking people engage in when they are deeply
involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members striving for unanimity override their motivation
to realistically appraise alternative courses of actionǁ. This term was first given by Irving Janis
who was a social psychologist. His main aim was to understand how a group of individuals came
up with excellent decisions one time and totally messed up ones at other times
Groupthink is a result of cohesiveness in groups and is an important factor to consider in

decision process, such as workshops, meetings, conferences, committees, etc. (E. Griffin)
Symptoms of Groupthink
Janis listed eight symptoms of group think. The first two stem from overconfidence in the
group’s power. The next pair reflects the limited vision, members use to view the problem and the
last four are signs of strong compliance pressure from within the group.
ü Illusion of invulnerability
o Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.
ü Belief in inherent morality

o Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or
moral consequences of their decisions.
ü Collective rationalization
o Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.
ü Stereotyped views of out-groups

o Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem
unnecessary.
ü Self-censorship
o Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.
ü Illusion of unanimity
o The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.
ü Direct pressure on dissenters

o Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s
views.
ü Self-appointed mindguards
o Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or
contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.
ACTIVITY 1:
1. Identify one instance that you/ your group have exhibited a GROUPTHINK symptom.
2. How do you think GROUPTHINK can be avoided in an organization?
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LESSON 5: ADAPTIVE STRUCTURATION BY M. POOLE
This theory teaches that group decision making is a process of in which group members
attempt to achieve Convergence or agreement on a final decision and, in so doing, structure
their social system. By expressing their opinions and preferences, group members actually
produce and reproduce certain rules by which convergence can be achieved or blocked. (S.
Littlejohn)
READING ACTIVITY 2: Refer to Reading Materials no. 2: The Structurational Perspective by

Stephen Littlejohn
43
LESSON 6: DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION BY EVERETT ROGERS AND SHOEMAKER
Source: Rogers and Shoemaker
Everett M. Rogers was born on March 6,

1931 and died on October 21, 2004. He was
an American communication theorist and
sociologist, who conceptualized the diffusion
of innovations theory and introduced the
term early adopter. He was Distinguished
Professor Emeritus in the Department of
Communication and Journalism at
the University of New Mexico.
Photo: (L to R) Dr. Edna T. Bernabe, Dr. Everett M.

Rogers and Dr. Divina T. Pasumbal. Taken during
the 2003 ICA Conference, San Diego, CA
Photo credits: Dr. Pasumbal and Dr. Bernabe, PUP
Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels

over time among the members of a social system.
An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or

other unit of adoption. The characteristics of an innovation, as perceived by the members
of a social system, determine its rate of adoption.
3 Main Stages:
• Antecedents- refers to those circumstances of the event or characteristics of the people
involved which make it more or less likely that an individual will either be exposed to
44
information about an innovation or will experience needs to which the information is
relevant.
• Process- is one of learning, attitude, change and decision.
• Consequences- are mainly taken to refer to the later history of use or disuse, if adoption
takes place.
The 4 main elements in the diffusion of new ideas are:
• The innovation
• Communication channels
• Time
• The social system (context)
1. The innovation
The innovation, to spread and be adopted should show:
• Relative advantage is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than
the idea it supersedes.
• Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as being consistent
with the existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters
• Complexity is the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to
understand and use.
• Trialability is the degree to which an innovation may be experimented with on a
limited basis.
• Observability is the degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others.
2. Communication Channels
• Mass Media channels are more effective in creating knowledge of innovations.
• Interpersonal channels are more effective in forming and changing attitudes toward
a new idea, and thus in influencing the decision to adopt or reject a new idea.
3. Time
The time dimension is involved in diffusion in three ways.
v Innovation-decision process
4-Step Process:
• Knowledge – person becomes aware of an innovation and has some idea of how
it functions
• Persuasion – person forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the
innovation
• Decision – person engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the
innovation
• Confirmation – person evaluates the results of an innovation-decision already
made.
45
v Innovativeness
There are five adopter categories,
or classifications of the members
of a social system on the basis on
their innovativeness:
ü Innovators
ü Early adopters
ü Early majority
ü Late majority
ü Laggards
Illustration from
www.wikipedia.com
v Rate of Adoption
The rate of adoption is the relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by
members of a social system.
4. The social system

A social system is defined as a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint
problem-solving to accomplish a common goal.
Sources: E. Griffin, D. McQuail and E. Rogers
46
MIDTERM EXAM
COMM 2073 COMMUNICATION THEORIES AND MODELS
47
48
MODULE 4: MASS COMMUNICATION THEORIES
LESSON 1: CULTIVATION THEORY
Cultivation Theory is conceptualized by George Gerber. He was a dean emeritus of the

Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Pennsylvania who founded the
Cultural Indicators Research Project in 1968. He studied television for more than three decades
and with his research project, he tracked changes that influenced the viewers’ point of view about
the real world. He coined the phrase "mean world syndrome," a phenomenon in which people
watching large amounts of television are more likely to believe that the world is an unforgiving
and frightening place.
Cultivation theory tells how the television, as a socializing agent, influences the attitude
and perception of the viewers about sociological reality. It oversees the messages and tries to
understand its function and consequences to its audience. Gerbner believed that television has a
huge impact on how viewers are exposed to longer amounts of viewing. They exhibit perceptions
and beliefs that reflect the television world messages. He added that television viewers who say
they are exposed to greater amounts of television are predicted to be more likely (compared to
viewers who say they are exposed to lesser amounts) to exhibit perceptions and beliefs that reflect
the television world messages.
Cultivation theory tells how the mass media, as a socializing agent, influence the attitude
and perception of the viewers. Its scope of analysis is subjected to the object of the correlation of
data from content analysis (identifying the whole idea of the image seen on television) with the
survey data of the audience research (to assess the impact of the content to the viewers).
From that aspect, media shapes the status quo. An intense exposure leads to standardization of
people’s culture.
MEASUREMENT OF TELEVISION EXPOSURE
1. GLOBAL ASSESSMENT – assess total viewing of television regardless of program type

or source.
2. EXPOSURE TO GENRES – researcher shows a list of 11 television genres
(action/adventure, situation comedy, afternoon soap operas, prime time soaps,
news/documentaries, movies, sports, cartoons, music, game shows, and talk shows) and
asked the viewers to estimate the number of hours they viewed on a weekly basis within
each program type.
3. EXPOSURE TO PARTICULAR SHOW -- some present specific programs or ask them to
write their specific shows.
4. LONG TERM EXPOSURE -- asks respondents when they began viewing soaps, and this
will be converted into a measure of years of viewing.
5. EXPOSURE THROUGH ATTENTION -- asks how much attention was given to the entire
program
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TYPES OF VIEWERS
ü HEAVY VIEWERS- People who spend more hours in watching are likely to be more
influenced by the ways in which the world is framed by television programs than are
individuals who watch less, especially regarding topics of which the viewer has little first-
hand experience.
ü LIGHT VIEWERS- They are the people who may have different sources of information
rather than television.
Study showed that an average person spends 3-4 hours in watching television. On a large
scale of quantity, it is an estimate of nine straight years, and that represents a major factor of
change in lifestyle (Griffin, 2006)
There are also an aftermath that the people might believe that the world has large crime rates.
Television molds the viewers to stereotype, just like our thought that ugly and black people are
bad because that is what soap operas show us.
This is so effective that the individual human subjects themselves have taken on the task of
self-observation, self-description, and self-evaluation. The theory’s effects depict a massive
ideological assumption that the real are in the images of the television. And instead of the images
imitating the real, it is the real that imitates the image. (E. Griffin)
MEAN WORLD SYNDROME
The Mean World Syndrome offers a timely and clear-eyed take on the origins of some of our most
irrational and unrelenting fears. It forms violence, stereotypes, and the cultivation of anxiety. The
more television people watch, the more likely they are to be insecure and afraid of others – it
shows how these media-induced fears and anxieties sink in a thinking of intolerance, and
extremism to people’s paranoid minds.
Sources: S. Littlejohn, K. Foss, E. Grifgin, D. Holmes, and D. McQuail
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LESSON 2: USES AND GRATIFICATIONS APPROACH
The Uses and Gratifications Approach focuses on the consumer-the audience member-
rather than the message. This approach imagines the audience member to be a discriminating
user of media. This approach takes the media consumer as its starting point and explores his
communication behavior in terms of his direct experience with the media. (S. Littlejohn)
Categories of Gratifications by Dennis McQuail
1. Diversion
ü Escape from the constraints of routine

ü Escape from the burdens of problems
ü Emotional release
All studies reveal similar escapist needs in the media audience. McQuail does at least hint
that we need to go further than merely labelling these need escapist – we need to identify what
we are escaping from.
2. Personal relationships
ü Companionship
ü Social utility
‘Companionship’ is the media as compensation in a particularly clear form. Housewives

have the radio on because they like the sound of voices in the house in the daytime. Lonely people
who may find it difficult to make real social relationships turn to the media for friendship. The
‘social utility’ use is usually the provision of something to talk about. The media provide a shared
experience, a shared topic of conversation that makes a social interaction that much easier.
3. Personal identity
ü Personal reference
ü Reality exploration
ü Value reinforcement
By personal reference McQuail refers to the way viewers use a program as a point of
direct comparison with their real life: “I can compare the people in the program with other people
I know” or “It reminds me of things that have happened in my life” are typical uses that he quotes.
‘Reality exploration’ involves a direct use of the program content to help the viewer to understand
his own life. ‘Value reinforcement’ is self-explanatory: “It puts over a picture of what family life
should be like” or it reminds me of the importance of family ties”.
4. Surveillance
This is the need of information about the complex world we live in. Other studies have
shown that people whom we can call “opinion leaders” in their social life, use the media for
information to maintain their social role.
Sources: D. McQuail, S. Littlejohn, D. Holmes and A. Hetsroni
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LESSON 3: SEMIOTICS BY ROLAND BARTHES
Barthes initially described his Semiotic Theory as an explanation of myth and later
substituted he term connotation to label the ideological baggage that signs carry wherever they
go. (Em Griffin)
Barthes’ Core Principles: Wrestling with Signs

1. A Sign Is The Combination of Its Signifier and Signified
“As soon as the adversaries are in the ring, the public is overwhelmed with the
obviousness of the roles. As in theatre, each physical type expresses to excess
the part which has been assigned to the contestant. Thauvin, a fifty-year-old with
an obese and sagging body… displays in his flesh the characters of baseness… I
know from the start that all of Thauvin’s actions, his treacheries, cruelties and acts
of cowardice, will not fail to measure up to the first image of ignobility he gave me…
The physique of the wrestlers therefore constitutes a basic sign, which like a seed
contains the whole fight.”
Roland Barthes
According to Barthes, the image of the wrestler’s physique is the signifier. The concept of
ignobility or injustice is the signified. The combination of two- the villainous body- is the
sign. Barthes considers the wrestler’s body to be just part of the overall sign; it’s the
signifier. His description of a sign as the correlation between the signifier and the signified
came directly from Saussure who visualized a sign as a piece of paper.
Saussure insisted that the relationship between the image of the signifier and the content
of signified is arbitrary. Barthes classified the relationship between signifier and signified
as “quasi- arbitrary”.
2. A Sign Does Not Stand on Its Own: It is Part of a System
“Each moment in wrestling is therefore like an algebra which instantaneously

unveils the relationship between a cause and its represented effect. Wrestling fans
certainly experience a kind of intellectual pleasure in seeing the moral mechanism
function so perfectly… Wrestlers, who are very experienced, know perfectly how
to direct the spontaneous episodes of the fight so as to make them conform to the
image which the public has of the great legendary themes of its mythology. A
wrestler can irritate or disgust, he never disappoints, for he always accomplishes
completely, by a progressive solidification of signs, what the public expects of him.”
Roland Barthes
Wrestling is just one of the many semiotic systems. Barthes attempted to define and
classify the features common to all semiotic systems. This king of structural analysis is
called taxonomy, and Barthes’ book Elements of Semiology is a “veritable frenzy of
classifications”. He admitted that his taxonomy is “risked being tedious” but the project
strengthened his conviction that all semiotic systems function the same way despite their
apparent diversity.Barthes believes that the significant semiotic systems of a culture lock
in the status quo.
The Yellow Ribbon Transformation: From Forgiveness to Pride
52
According to Barthes, not all semiological systems are mythic. Barthes contends
that a mythic or connotative system is a second- order semiological system- built off a
preexisting sign system.
In an American Journal of Semiotics article, Donald and Virginia Fry of Emerson College
examined the widespread American practice of displaying yellow ribbons during the 1980
Iranian hostage crisis.
“Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree” was the best-selling pop song of 1972 in
the United States sung by Tony Orlando and Dawn.
The yellow ribbon is obviously a sign of acceptance, but one not casually offered. There’s
a taint on the relationship, hurts to be healed. Donald and Virginia Fry label the original
meaning of the yellow ribbon in the song as “forgiveness of a stigma.”
Yellow ribbons in 1991 continued to carry a “we want you back” message when U.S.
armed forces fought in Operation Desert Storm.
According to Barthes’ theory, the shift from “forgiveness of stigma” to “pride in victory”
followed a typical semiotic pattern.
Illustration from E. Griffin
53
Barthes claimed that every ideological sign is the result of two interconnected sign
systems. The first system is strictly descriptive-the signifier concept combining to produce a
denotative sign. The signifier (1) of the denotative sign system is the image of a yellow ribbon that
forms in the mind of the person who hears the song. The content of the signified (2) includes the
stigma that comes from the conviction of a crime and a term in jail, the prisoner’s willingness to
take the responsibility for the three-year separation, and the explosive release of tension when
the Greyhound passengers cheer at the sight of the oak tree awash in yellow ribbons. The
corresponding denotative sign (3) is “forgiveness of a stigma”.
Source: Em Griffin
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LESSON 4: AGENDA SETTING THEORY OF MAXWELL McCombs & Donald Shaw
Compiled by Princess A. Esponilla
The influence of media affects the presentation of the reports and issues made in the news
that affects the public mind. The news reports make it in a way that when a particular news report
is given importance and attention than other news the audience will automatically perceive it as
the most important news and information are given to them. The priorities of which news comes
first and then the next are set by the media according to how people think and how much influence
will it have among the audience.
Rappler.com (2020 Sep 7)
Agenda setting occurs through a cognitive process known as “accessibility”. Media

provides information which is the most relevant food for thought, portraits the major issues of the
society and reflects people minds.
Agenda-setting hypothesis
The mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of issues on their news
agenda to the public agenda.
These are the levels of agenda setting theory:
First Level:
The first level is usually used by the researchers to study media uses and its objectives or
the influences that media creates on people and the most proximal thought that people will have
on the exposure to the information given by media house.
55
Second level:
At the second level, the media focuses on how people should think about the nature of
the issues. Thus, sensationalization of news reports may happen to bring in the interest of the
audience. In fact, media wants to grab attention and implant thoughts in people minds about some
serious issues. That’s why media turn certain issues viral.
Media Agenda
The pattern of news coverage across major print and broadcast media as measured
by the prominence and length of stories.
Public Agenda
The most important public issues as measured by public opinion surveys.
Interest aggregation
Clusters of people who demand center stage for their one, overriding concern;
pressure groups.
Index of curiosity
A measure of the extent to which individuals’ need for orientation motivates them to
let the media shape their views.
Agenda setting theory is used in a political ad, campaigns, business news, PR (public
relation) etc. The main concept associated with the theory is gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is in
charge of and has control of the selection of content discussed in the media. It is assumed that
the public cares mostly about the product of a media gatekeeping. Editors are the main
gatekeepers of media itself. The news media decides ‘what’ events to broadcast and show
through the media ‘gates’ on the basis of ‘newsworthiness’.
For e.g.: News Comes from various sources, editors choose what should appear and what
should not that’s why they are called as gatekeepers.
Gatekeepers are the powerful authority who ensure the right material is disseminated to
mass. Because some issues are important to media but not to masses. Also they are much
concern on not to distort peace and public stability.
Priming
The responsibility of the media in proposing the values and standards through which the objects
gain a certain amount of attention can be judged. The media’s content will provide a sufficient
amount of time and space to certain issues, making it more vivid.
In simple words, the media gives the utmost importance to a certain event such that it gives people
the impression that that particular news is the most important one. This is done on a daily basis.
The selected news report is carried on as a heading or covered regularly for months. For example,
terms such as headlines, special news features, discussions, expert opinions are used. Media
primes news by repeating the news and giving it more importance like, for example, Nuclear Deal.
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Framing
The selection of a restricted number of thematically related attributes for inclusion on
the media agenda when a particular object or issue is discussed.
The way in which news content is typically shaped and contextualized within the same
frame of reference.
Audience adopts the frames of reference and to see the world in a similar way. This is
how people attach importance to a piece of news and perceive its context within which
an issue is viewed.
Framing deals with how people attach importance to certain news. For example, in the
case of an attack, defeat, win and loss, the media frames the news in such a way that
people perceive from a different angle.
We can take the Kargil War between India and Pakistan as an example. In both the
countries, the news reports were framed in such a way they show their own country in a positive
light and the other in the negative. So depending on which media people have access to, their
perception will differ.
Media malady effect

Negative economic headlines and stories that depress consumer sentiment and
leading economic indicators.
Factors affecting Agenda setting
• Gatekeepers, editors and managers and other external influences.
• Non-media sources like government officials and influential personnel.
• For example “if the media has close relationship with the elite society, that class will
probably affect the media agenda and the public agenda in turn”.
Criticisms of Agenda setting theory is
• Media users are not ideal. The people may not pay attention to details.
• The effect is weakened for people who have made up their mind.
• Media cannot create problems. They can only alter the level of awareness, priorities,
importance, etc.
REFERENCES:
CommunicationTheory.Org. (2011). Agenda setting theory.

https://www.communicationtheory.org/agenda-setting-theory/
57
ACITIVTY 1:
1. If the media aren’t telling you what to think, why is their ability to tell you what to think
about so important?
2. Is there a recent issue that news reporters and commentators are now talking about daily
that you and the people you know don’t care about? Do you think you will still be
unconcerned two months from now?
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LESSON 5: MEDIA HEGEMONY
Compiled by Princess A. Esponilla
Media hegemony occurs when a particular political economic structure of media

institutions and associated production, distribution, and ideological practices are dominant
because they are preferred by producers, regulators, and the public, and become the social norm.
The key ingredients in any hegemony is consent: hegemony cannot be reduced to domination or
manipulation, rather hegemony indicates consensual relationships among groups or classes
whereby one sector represents and leads others. Subordinate and allied groups and classes
receive material, political, and/or cultural benefits as they adhere to the hegemonic relationship
(Arts & Murphy, 2000).
Hegemonic leaders succeed, in part, because alternative relations appear undesirable,

unachievable, or untenable to most supporters and followers. Thus, groups become hegemonic
not through coercion or domination but due to their leadership: their ability to articulate and meet
the needs of subordinate or allied groups and classes. Media hegemony does not necessarily
indicate monopoly or dominance by one or a few media corporations, or groupings, rather certain
media structures and practices become dominant as acceptance, preference, and implementation
of those structures and practices become the norm.
As a concept, media hegemony applies the insights of Antonio Gramsci (1971, 1977) N
Italian communist theoretician, who modernized the concept of hegemony in the 1930’s. Gramsci
explained hegemony as a form of political, social, and ideological leadership. He recognized the
ability of capitalist classes in the industrialized West to win consent of the working and middle
classes, and other social formations. Gramsci also noted that hegemony remains in flux, must
continually be re-negotiated among social classes, and if challenged by an emerging political or
social power will be “armored with coercion” by dominant groups unwilling to relinquish power.
Gramsci was primarily concerned with historic blocs of contending social forces and their political
agencies. While he accorded language, ideology, and communication significant instrumentality
in establishing any hegemonic leadership, Gramsci did not specifically identify media as
institutions of hegemony. After his writings were translated to Englush in 1970s, an array of
scholars including Christine Buci-Glucksmann (1980), Anne Showstack Sassoon (1987), Stuart
Hall (1986), Kate. Crehan (1988), James Lull (1995), and others have interpreted, revised and
extended hegemony to many phenomena, including media (Artz, 2004). Since then most
references to Gramsci have cited secondary sources and followed one of two trajectories:
simplifying hegemony as equivalent domination (e.g.,Chomsky, 2003); removing hegemony from
material relations and reducing it to discourse and ideological negotiation (e.g. Laclau and Mouffe,
1985). However, recognizing hegemony as a material, social relationship of consent for
leadership provides the theoretical frame for a more nuanced and more completer understanding
of media hegemony.
Media—understood as the combination and coordination of technology, production and

distribution practices, programming content, the social context of reception, and the institutional
and regulatory structures that organize the dominant forms—appear in communities, nation-
states, internationally, and globally. Throughout the history of media development and use, a
variety of technologies, production practices and norms, programming contents and genre, social
uses, and institutional and regulatory structures have appeared. Occasionally, one technology
dominated the mass communication system, but its social and cultural use depends on ownership
and control of technology.
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Media hegemony expresses relations and practices whereby a particular system of media
production, distribution and use becomes dominant because existing and emerging media outlets
follow the lead, the model, the norm of that particular media system. For example, Hollywood—
understood as move production characterized by studio-dominated, celebrity star-driven,
stylistically “narrative realism” scripted and imaged, and mass-marketed for profits from audience
revenue—has hegemonic position in the global film industry. From India’s Bollywood, Korea, and
an emerging “blockbuster” Chinese cinema to European and Latin American movies, filmmakers
around the world emulate the Hollywood model and (absent viable, available alternatives) public
audiences often “prefer” Hollywood-style movies, whether action-adventure, dramatic thriller, or
romance. The French government’s attempt to regulate Hollywood imports is an indication of the
dominance of U.S. production studios in global production and export; it also indicates the
hegemony of Hollywood for mass in audiences in Europe.
Corporate media hegemony also characterizes contemporary global radio and television
structures and practices. Nation-states and their government agencies (following the hegemonic
lead and coercive imperatives of market capitalism) are facilitating the promotion of radio and
television media that are deregulated, privatized, and commercialized. Government policies
frequently reflect the coercive arming of hegemony, as international capitalist agencies (such as
the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank) often determine the policies of developing
countries in need of financial assistance or trade deals. Yet, as government-run and public service
media are rapidly being replaced by private ownership, the model of advertising-driven
entertainment for narrow-cast, market-targeted media audiences has achieved hegemonic status.
Political parties and government officials in developing and developed nation- states have
energetically moved to institute media in the image of market-based, corporate-run media. Neo-
liberal reforms now permit foreign ownership, subsidiary operations and joint ventures of domestic
media around the globe. More importantly, the developing transnational media corporations have
established hegemony in global media practices—even domestically-owned and operated media
in every geographic region are opting for the market model, as they compete for audience share
and advertising revenue.
Hegemony depends on consent; consent depends on benefit. The material benefits for
those who own and operate privatized media are obvious: profits from media advertising are
plentiful. Political rewards likewise are significant for private media owners who can set national
public agendas by controlling information flow within their broadcast area. From Berlusconi in Italy
and Azcarrago in Mexico to Murdoch in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, the
political power attached to privately-held media are demonstrable. The corporate media model
wins consent around the globe, because for-profit domestic and regional media companies aspire
to such influence and their respective governments facilitate the commercial terrain. Cultural
benefits accruing to private media may be more difficult to concretize, but certainly private media
are well-positioned to influence social communication within any heavily-mediated society.
Whether or not they recognize hegemonic relations, media scholars have provided ample
evidence that entertainment and information media impact social values and beliefs and cultural
norms.
From the perspective of media hegemony, the specter of cultural imperialism has been
subsumed by the recruitment of national and regional media enterprises which have adopted and
refined the corporate media model to meet the cultural preferences of local markets (Artz, 2006).
The nationality of owners of various global media institutions is less relevant for hegemony than
the development of private media operations which follow the production, financing, and
distribution of the corporate media model of advertising-driven programming for audience share.
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The geographic identifiers of West or North in describing media operations have lost some
purchase, as nation-states and media in the developing South now champion the neo-liberal free
market model of mass communication: the consumer market, the advertising market, the
marketplace of ideas.
Corporate media hegemony best describes contemporary international media structures

and practices, but other non-global structures and practices have appeared and continue to
represent alternative means and methods for mass communication. In Nicaragua from 1980-
1990, publicly-funded, community-based, public access media flourished and became
hegemonic— leading the resurrections of media in a country devastated by 40 years of
dictatorship. Private media continued to exist, but those media no longer represented the needs
and interests of the majority of the population. The Corporacion de Radiodifusion del Pueblo
(CORADEP) led the development of a democratic, participatory media system in Nicaragua under
the leadership of the Frente Sandinista Liberacion Nacional (FSLN) Sandinista government. A
model of independent journalism, partisan objectivity, community correspondents, locally-
produced news, and open media access by entire communities predominated in the country for
over 10 years; not due to government coercion, but because laws and structures were established
which provided citizens opportunities to produce their own media messages, programs, and
practices. The hegemony of democratic, participatory media was interrupted and overturned as a
result of the U.S. counter-insurgency campaign against the government of Nicaragua during the
1980’s.
In 2005, another more ambitious media model developed which challenges corporate
media hegemony. Telesur (Televisora del Sur— Television of the South) was launched as pan-
Latin American satellite network jointly-financed by Venezuela, Argentina, Uruguay, and Cuba.
Bolivia joined the following year. A coordinating board of professional journalist and over 40
journalists from countries throughout Latin America produce news, documentaries, and
entertainment programs that emphasize the perspective and voices of the Latin American working
people and indigenous populations. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government has promoted
community-based radio broadcast— over 200 local stations, operated and directed by community
organization, now have licenses and minimum financing. Together, Telesur and the community
radio movement in Venezuela represent a counter-hegemonic bloc contesting but not displacing
the commercial media (Venevision, Globovision, RCTV) which remain dominant in audience
share. Under these conditions, the mediascape in Venezuela has no hegemonic leader. Media
hegemony may be recovered by the corporate media and its entertainment-based, commercially-
organized norms, or new media hegemony may be assembled if more community operators and
citizen-groups are successful in demonstrating the political and cultural advantages of a public
access, locally-produced, nationally-coordinated media systems. As Gramsci would have it,
media hegemony in Venezuela and elsewhere is the outcome of the political, social, and
ideological battle for leadership—which is ongoing and always being renegotiated as social
groups and classes vie for leadership and seek to advance their interests.
Whether local, national, or global, corporate or democratic and participatory, media

hegemony only occurs as a leadership successfully represents the interests of many by producing
and distributing programming and messages accepted by allies and subordinate groups as
articulating favorable images and representing their interests and needs.
REFERENCE:
Artz, L. (2013, January)Media hegemony.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275408880_Media_Hegemony
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FINAL PAPER: THEORY APPLICATION
The theory application will show students' grasp and understanding of different
communication theories. Correspondent students will identify significant phenomena in
their life and must be able to explain them using different theories. Your paper must involve
making a claim or argument based on theory, supported by empirical evidence.
A theory application will examine the comprehension and understanding of the students
in communication theories. Students are required to write a paper with 1,000 words providing the
general summary of the significant phenomena in your life, apply theories, discuss both its
strengths and weaknesses, and suggest potential avenues to improve communication context.
The final paper must be submitted on January 30, 2020. The paper must have on the upper left
portion the: Date, Name, Section, and Subject.
Technical Requirements:
• Paper size 8.5” x 11”
• Arial or Helvetica 12pt
• 1.5 spaced, 1-inch margins all around
• APA citation style
(https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_
guide/general_format.html)
The theory application must be submitted via courier.
The theory application Rubric will guide the students in writing the content, focus, style, and citation
format.
A (100-92) A- (91-87) B+ (86-83) B- (82-79)

Content and • Exceptionall • A clear • Contains the • The theory
Focus y clear, perspective of perspective application
focused, the theory and of the theory paper lacks
interesting maintains but clarity and
perspective consistent inconsistent focus.
of the theory. focus from focus. • Inadequate or
• Meaningful beginning to • Generalized missing
explanation end. supporting supporting
of the • Specific details on details.
importance supporting the theory • The conclusion
of the theory details are and life shows
in the present. phenomena complete
significant • A clear • The confusion about
phenomena conclusion as conclusion is the topic.
of a student’s to why the vague.
experience. theory
explains
student’s
62
experience or
event.
Organization • Strong • Clear • Introduction • Unable to

introduction introduction and clearly identify
or lead and and conclusion the introduction
conclusion conclusion. are present and conclusion.
• Consistent • It illustrates but not clear • Lack of
and coherent some • Show some consistency
logical consistency attempt of and order.
progression. and shows consistency • The paper
• Use of short some logical and order. shows little or
sentences progression. • The paper no attempt of
• Clear and • Uses clear shows the transitions
skillful transitions. attempt of between
transition transitions paragraphs.
between
paragraphs.
Style • Written in • Mostly written • Some use of • Paper
formal in formal formal frequently uses
language. language. language informal
• Use of short • Words convey and informal language.
sentences in the intended language is • The message is
an active message. dominant. unclear.
voice. • Direct quotes • Most
• Direct support the Language is
quotes student’s appropriate
support the ideas. to the topic.
student’s • Majority of • Get a vague
ideas. paper written idea of the
• Paper in student’s message.
written in own words. • Some parts
student’s of paper
own words. written in
student’s
own words
Sources/Forma Follows APA Follows APA Inconsistent use • Fails to follow
t guidelines: guidelines with of APA APA style
few exceptions: guidelines: guidelines.
• Uses five or • Less than three
more cited • Uses three to • Less than cited sources.
sources. four cited three cited • The literature
• Sources sources. sources. cited page is
meet the • Sources meet • Random not
guidelines the guidelines APA understandable
for types of for types of documentati .
sources. sources. on.
63
• Works cited • The majority • Rarely
page is APA of the works documents
correct. cited page is sources
• All APA correct.
researches • Most
are researches
documented are
documented
Conventions Superior editing. Careful editing. Some evidence Poor editing:
Rarely makes Makes few errors of editing:
errors in the in the following
following areas: areas:
• Spelling and • Spelling and • Extensive • Spelling and

mechanics. mechanics. spelling and grammatical
• Correct • Correct usage grammatical errors make it
usage of of grammar errors. difficult to read
grammar the paper.
• The rubric was patterned with Gretchen Wilson’ research paper rubric retrieved on July 25, 2020,
from https://www.pinterest.ph/pin/323696291964599975/
64

COM 2073 Communication and Media Theories For Correspondence Without MT

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INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIAL FOR

Course Grading System

Midterm / Final Examinations 30 %

Course Policy for Correspondence Students

- Lesson 1: Definition of communication 5

Module 2: Interpersonal Communication Theories

- Lesson 1: Symbolic Interactionism 14

Module 3: Group/ Organizational/ Public Communication Theories

- Lesson 1: Structural Approach to Organization 39

Module 4: Mass Communication Theories

- Lesson 1: Cultivation Theory 49

LESSON 1. DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION

Ø Communication is a process by which a source transmits a message to a receiver

COMMUNICATION IS NOT JUST WORDS, PAINT ON

1. Communication is at the core of our HUMANNESS.

Reasons for studying communication

1. It can improve the way you see yourself.

Contextual levels of communication

• Contextual levels of communication

Levels of Involvement (LOI)

LESSON 2: ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATION

Source: David Holmes

Photos from Microsoft

Photos from Microsoft

Photos from Microsoft

Photos from www.cosmopolitan.com.ph

2. What are the important variables in those phenomena?

• HOW DO WE ACQUIRE KNOWLEDGE?

Below is the diagram emphasizing the hierarchy of KNOWLEDGE ACQUISITION AND

How do we ACQUIRE knowledge?

Misuse of studying theories

Griffin compares interpersonal communication theories as charades. Charades capture

Interpersonal communication, in a way, is a complex transaction in which overlapping

1. Applies communication knowledge and skills in problem-solving and decision making

LESSON 1: SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM OF GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

George Herbert Mead was a philosophy professor at the University

Although Mead taught in the philosophy department, he is best

Meaning: Construction of social reality

Language: The Source of Meaning

Thought: The process of taking the role of the other

• Minding an inner dialogue used to test alternatives, rehearse actions, and

The self: Reflections in a looking glass

New Yorker Cartoon by

Community: The socializing effect of other’s expectations

Forming health care system, legal sytem, etc.

Applied symbolic interaction

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory (7th ed.).McGraw-Hill.

2. What is the difference between the ‘I’ and ‘me’?

Personal space expectations: Conform or deviate?

Jude Burgoon, a communication scholar at the University of Arizona, defined personal

1. Intimate distance: 0 to 18 inches

By the mid-1980s, Burgoon had realized that proxemic behavior is part of an

Core concepts of EVT

Three core concepts:

Interaction adaptation – adjusting expectations

• Interaction adaptation theory

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory (7th ed.).McGraw-Hill.

Constructivism is a communication theory that seeks to explain individual differences in

§ Role Category questionnaire (RCQ)

An index of social perception skills

Researchers are convinced of the following assumptions:

People with a large Better social perception skills