Communication = Content + Relationship

In chapter 13, The Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick, the part of the chapter that focused on content and relationship. This portion of the chapter popped out at me because I have been working on a paper focused on metacommunication. Griffin (2008) defines this term as, “communication about communication” (p. 172).

The chart on page 172 demonstrates the relationship between content and relationship. Griffin (2008) states, “Report, or content, is what is said. Command, or relationship, is how it’s said” (p. 172). An example would be when my husband states, “What were you thinking when you park across the street?” this would be the content. The relational view would be the remark implied a form of incompetence on my selection of parking spots. It was interpreted as a negative remark which in turn created a relationship message that was not effective.

Another example of content and relationship is verbal channel and nonverbal channel. Focusing on the same statement made my husband (verbal channel) had his hands in the air with his lips tight together and a frown from his brow. The nonverbal channel of communication assisted in the interpretation of the remark being negative.

References

Griffin, E. (2008). A First Look At Communication Theory. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Three Dialectics That Affect Relationships

In chapter 12 focusing on Baxter’s and Montgomery’s relational dialectics there are three dialectics that affect relationships. This caught my attention because it somewhat adds to Roger’s phenomenological approach, Berger’s uncertainty reduction theory, and Altman and Taylor’s social penetration theory (Griffin, 2008). The three dialectics are integration-separation, stability-change, and expression-nonexpression. There is a chart on page 157 that shows how these dialectics in internal and external conditions affect within the relationship and between the couple and community. It makes me think of a comment that Dr. Coopman wrote regarding my post on social penetration theory regarding personality structure. She commented that relationships are more complicated and referred to them as a puzzle. This completely makes sense to me now that I see how some the theories we have studied are only part of the entire picture.

Social Information Processing

In chapter 11 the theory of social information processing had an interesting aspect that caught my attention. It is referred as extended time – the crucial variable in CMC (computer-mediated communication). This is where Joseph Walther determined that it is the length of time the communication takes (typing the message) that allows CMC users to achieve the same level of intimacy as others do in person. I have a friend that I met online. She and I have become the best of friends yet we have never met in person. We met online through a business encounter and communicated for the past 2 years. I have to say that she probably knows more about me than some of my friends that I see every week. So I can see how the extended time can be equal to face to face relationships. I also want to mention the reduction of uncertainty with CMC. This might be why my online friend and I are such good friends and why I consider her a closer friend than most of the people I interact with in my social circle.