DISCUSSION BOARD

1.2 Assessing Your Social Network Profile Heightened awareness of how messages help create meanings should increase your ability to make more reasoned and reasonable choices in your interpersonal interactions.

Examine your own social network profile (or that of a friend) in terms of the principles of interpersonal communication discussed in this chapter: 1. What purposes does your profile serve? In what ways might it serve the five pur-poses of interpersonal communication identified here (to learn, relate, influence, play, and help)?

2. In what way is your profile page a package of signals? In what ways do the varied words and pictures combine to communicate meaning?

3. Can you identify and distinguish between content from relational messages? 4. In what ways, if any, have you adjusted your profile as a response to the ways in which others have fashioned their profiles?

5. In what ways does your profile exhibit interpersonal power? In what ways, if any, have you incorporated into your profile the six types of power discussed in this chapter (legitimate, referent, reward, coercive, expert, or information)?

6. What messages on your profile are ambiguous? Bumper stickers and photos should provide a useful starting point.

7. In what ways (if any) can you identify the process of punctuation? 8. What are the implications of inevitability, irreversibility, and unrepeatability for publishing a profile on and communicating via social network sites?26 Chapter 1

______ 6. Purposes. Adjust your interpersonal commu-nication strategies on the basis of your specific purpose.

______ 7. Packaging. Make your verbal and nonverbal messages consistent; inconsistencies often create uncertainty and misunderstanding.

______ 8. Content and relationship. Listen to both the con-tent and the relationship aspects of messages, distinguish between them, and respond to both.

Key Terms

ambiguity asynchronous communication channel

choice points code switching code coercive power

communication accommodation theory

content messages

context of communication cultural context culture decoder effect

encoder ethics

expert power

feedback feedforward inevitability

information overload information power

interpersonal communication interpersonal competence irreversibility legitimate power message

metamessage mindfulness mindlessness noise

persuasion power physical context physical noise physiological noise

power

principle of adjustment psychological noise

punctuation of communication receiver referent power relationship messages response reward power semantic noise

signal-to-noise ratio social-psychological context source stimulus synchronous communication temporal context transactional view unrepeatability

Skill Building Exercises 1.1 Distinguishing Content and Relationship Messages

Content and relationship messages serve different communication functions. Being able to distinguish between them is prerequisite to using and responding to them effectively. How would you communicate both the content and the relationship messages in the following situations? 1. After a date that you didn’t enjoy and don’t want to repeat ever again, you want to express your sincere thanks, but you don’t want to be misinterpreted as com-municating any indication that you would go on another date with this person.

2. You’re ready to commit yourself to a long-term relationship but want your part-ner to sign a prenuptial agreement before moving any further in the relationship. You need to communicate both your desire to keep your money and to move the relationship to the next level.

3. You’re interested in dating a friend on Facebook who also attends the college you do and with whom you’ve been chatting for a few weeks. But you don’t know if the feeling is mutual. You want to ask for the date but to do so in a way that if you turned down,you won't be embarrased.