Communication Theory

Apple iPhone 13 Advertisement 1 . A core assumption of social judgment theory is that your attitudinal anchor influences how you evaluate a persuasive message. Use the advertisement you selected to answer these questions: Who has high ego involvement in terms of this ad and who has low-ego involvement? How does ego-involvement impact the “contrasting” and “assimilation” of a person’s attitudinal anchor? Social Judgment Theory (SJT) is a cognitive theory that examines how persuasive messages are processed based on how involved people are in those messages. A part of this theory is something called ego-involvement , which basically means “how central an issue is in our lives” (Griffin, p. 172). If someone cares about an issue (or product), they will have a higher ego-involvement.  In this iPhone 13 advertisement, someone would have a high ego-involvement if they like using Apple products. If someone doesn’t like Apple, they would have a lower ego-involvement. Furthermore, their leve...

2. Compare the approach to relational communication championed by Baxter and Montgomery with either social penetration theory or uncertainty reduction theory (e.g., identify an axiom). How would you assess the insights and value of each theory? Use a real-life example to support your answer. Uncertainty reduction theory (URT) is the idea that people will try to reduce uncertainty around new people through different ways, such as verbal communication, similarity, etc. (Griffin, p. 105). Baxter and Montgomery thought of an approach to relational communication which they dubbed Relational Dialectics Theory ( RDT). RDT “is about struggle between discourses, and these unceasing struggles are ‘located in the relationship between parties, produced and reproduced through the parties’ joint communicative activity’” (Griffin, p. 132). The main difference between these two theories is that URT is a more internal struggle, whereas RDT is between two people, so it is more external.  One of th...

  1. Think back on your initial encounters with a roommate, romantic partner, or friend. Now, select two axioms to explain your encounter – What strategies were employed to reduce uncertainty? Were there elements about the individual or the context of your meeting that motivated your quest to reduce uncertainty?   My boyfriend, Hunter, and I met online, in a group chat for incoming freshmen at Fredonia. At first, all of our interactions were made through that group chat, before he privately messaged me one day. We instantly hit it off, and we texted each other every day. He decided to make the drive to see me (we lived about an hour and a half away from each other before we both went to Fredonia). Soon after that, we started dating.  There are two axioms of the Uncertainty Reduction Theory that explain how we met and how we were able to reduce uncertainty. URT is a theory that states “when strangers meet, their primary concern is reducing uncertainty, or increasing pred...

 1. Explain whether you agree or disagree with the statement, “A violation can never be positive.” Use a real-life example to support your answer. Last semester, I started playing Dungeons & Dragons with a new group of people, one of them I had not met before then. We all played together well, it was easy to jump back and forth and continue the game-play in an interesting way. But, recently, the player that I have known for the shortest amount of time gave me a gift. This violated my expectations in a positive way. Thus, I disagree with the statement “a violation can never be positive.”  According to Em Griffin, “ violation valence refers to the positive or negative value we place on a specific unexpected behavior” (Griffin, p. 85). My expectation was to not receive a gift (it wasn’t even a thought in my head), mainly because we had not known each other for that long, and we only ever played D&D together. But when she gave me the gift, my expectations were violated in...