Social Penetration Theory.

Entering a new relationship with another person, would often lead an individual to go through number of stages or level of closeness and intimacy; to achieve from being stranger to familiarity. This process is known as 'Social Penetration Theory'. Ayla Abdullah (2011), noted that the theory is "an objective, interpretative theory from the socio-psychological tradition that aims to explain the process of relationship development." The relationship of Nick and Norah from a movie called "Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist" will be use to demonstrate the theory of Social Penetration and how it is relatable in everyday life.

In social penetration, there is a concept of where two or more people interact with one another called, 'Interpersonal Communication'. This concept involves an interaction between a group of people and their environment; for example, an intreaction between two coworkers in an office environment. People tend to create the truth about each other, where by the actuality of the truth is only communicate in internal perception (Myers and Myers, 1992, pp. 7-8). 

Griffin (2009) supported Ayla's definition by stating that social penetration is "The process of developing intimacy with another person through mutual self-disclosure and other forms of vulnerability". The theory explains how one individual would get close or attach to another stranger by going through levels of intimacy and hence would be comfortable to one another as they go on with the flow of relationship development. In other words, the more we spent with each other, the deeper level of relationship development we will be at and the more personal issues are disclosed. To which is further supported by Altman and Taylor (1973), "Social penetration theory states that as relationships develop, communication moves from relatively shallow, non-intimate levels to deeper, more personal ones."

According to Ayla Abdullah's notes (2011), there are three essential levels of openning up personal discussions to another party; Personality as an onion, Self disclosure based on 'Breadth and Depth' and the Cost-benefit analysis. 

The personality as an onion or better known by Griffin (2009) as 'Personality Structure: Multilayered onion' is, "Onion-like layers of beliefs and feelings about self, others, and the world: deeper layers are more vulnerable, protected, and central to self-image." As mentioned before, the relationship of Nick and Norah will be use as an example in this post. Nick O'leary from New Jersey , is a heterosexual male bass player in an 'all gay band' called "The Jerks Off",  who just broke up with his girlfriend, Tris, and continued to be heartbroken in the beginning of the movie. He made Tris 'mix-CDs' of "breakup", which can be assume that he is trying to win her back. Then we have Norah, an acquantince of Tris, who has no idea who Nick is, but admire his 'mix CDs' which she always saves them from being thrown away by Tris. Here we can see, at the surface level both Nick and Norah are fan of musics. As the movie goes on, they learned more about each other, such as; where they come from, which band they like and what they plan to do in their future studies. It got more deeper and deeper, when Norah reveals to be falling for Nick and how she dislike Tris because of her attitude to which she even asked Nick "What do you see in her?". While Nick reveals to Norah that he thinks she's jealous of Tris and keeps on taunting her, until Norah gave a punch at his throat. In one of the scene, Nick asked Norah "Who are you?" because of the free pass entrance they got at the first club they went, and Norah did not specifically answer to his question; she only asnwered "I'm Norah.... Daughter of my dad". Towards the end of the movie, Nick finally got to know Norah's actual personality and her family background, a famous record producer's daughter; one of the thing that she did not mention during their first meeting. 

Self- Disclosure is defined as "the process of revealing personal information about oneself to another, is one of the most important fcators in the development of initmate intercultural friendships (Barnlund, 1989; Gracis, 1999; Kuda & Simkin, 2003). This means that, with self-disclosure one would know the real personality of a person in terms of his attitudes, beliefs or secrets, for example. There are two sections under self-discosure, there are; Breadth and Depth. Breadth involves in disclosing on different areas of an individual's life, whereas Depth involves in disclosing on a specific area of an individual's life (Ayla Abdullah, 2011). Another way to see it, Breadth is getting to know the person randomly by talking about different topics on a surface level, with no deep conversation occur. Depth, on the other hand, is talking about only one topic, involving deep conversation as this is where true emotions or feelings are known by another person. In the case of Nick and Norah, they briefly disclose personal information on different areas; from their origins to favourite music bands, this is what Breadth is. As for Depth, it was when Norah explain about herself, her father and what her father does.


Under depth, it deals with the degree of intimacy which is known as 'Depth of penetration'. The first stage is, "Periphal items; are exhanged more frequently and sooner then private information", again fro this we see how Nick and Norah slowly open up each other about their basic background information rather then staright ahead into personal details. Second stage, "Self disclosure is reciprocal, especially in the early stage of development. Law of reciprocity; A paced and orderly process in which openness in one person leads to openness in the other".This means that, as one person start to introduce a specific topic, the other might giving back their side of the story on the same topic. Third stage, "Penetration is rapid at the start, but slows down quickly when more private inner layers are reached.", this happened when Nick asked Norah about her being a daughter of someone, to which Norah decline to asnwer him and walked away; afraid to expose herself from becoming vulnerable, therefore her action in a way slows down their development in getting to know each other. Fourth stage, "Depenetration is a gradual process of layer-by-layer withdrawal", whereby relationship ends suddenly after going through various deep conversation shared. (Griffin, 2009).


As mentioned in the introduction, Social Penetration theory involves an individual going through number of stages or level of closeness and intimacy; to achieve from being stranger to familiarity. The first stage is 'Orentation Stage', which usually begins with small casual talk. In the case of Nick and Norah, their begining of relationship development starts of at 'Affective Stage', the third stage; where Norah had to kiss Nick in order to show Tris that she was dating someone, without even knowing who Nick really was. However they did go back to 'Orentation Stage', when they were at the scene in the car trying to find Caroline, a friend of Norah. 'Exploratory Affective Stage', a second stage, also played its role in opening and revealing informations to each other bit by bit. This occured, when Nick and Norah talked about their personal background, such as where they came from. The fourth stage is, 'Stable Stage', it is where relationship has become completely personal and one can tell how the other person would react to a certain topic. Although it did not happened in Nick and Norah's relationship, it did however shows that Norah reveal one of her personal details that she is a daugther of a famous record producer to Nick at the near end of the movie. Finally the 'Depenetration Stage', which it did not quite happened between Nick and Norah, eventhough they did argued, because in the end the benefit exceed the cost as the two end up staying together.


Accroding to Thibaut and Kelly in Griffin (2009), "People try to predict the outcome of an interaction before it takes place."Therefore the outcome can be a reward or a costs. If the benefits is more than the costs, often social penetration would move on to the next stage. Whereas, if the costs is more than the benefits, social penetration may either stop suddenly or one of the party withdraw from the relationship. This is also known as 'Cost-Benefit Analysis' which depends on 'Social Exchange Theory', which Griffin (2009) defined; "Relationship behavior and status regulated by both parties evaluations of perceived rewards and costs of interaction with each other." As for Nick and Norah, the benefits they got from their relatinship is that both have the same interest and are quite attracted to each other, as they got intimate towards the end of the movie.


In conclusion, the usefulness of Social Penetration Theory is that it informs us how every relationship develop into; that is at what stage they are at or what stage they stopped and 'back-off'. The theory also helps us to understand how our actions can bring us up or down to a certain stage during getting to know one another. Although, not every stages would occur for some people. There are people who are comfortably open directly to others by going ahead with discussin intimate conversations. In some cases, 'Depentration' may not even happen such as Nick and Norah. However, we must take this into account that this is only a fictional film which only portrayed how they met, going through the nights and end up together in the movie. Different people may experiences the social penetration theory differently or may neve at all. The main point of Social Penetration is therefore, focuses in predicting the future result of a relationship based on cost-benefit analysis.








References List;


Altman and Taylor (1973). In Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th Ed.). Glencoe, IL: McGrawHill.


Ayla Abdullah (2011). Lecture Notes. AC-1201 Introduction to Communication. Universiti Brunei Darussalam.


Barnlund (1989), Gracis (1999), Kuda & Simkin (2003). In Chen, Y. & Nakazawa, M. (July 2009). Influences of Culture on Self-Disclosure as Relationally Situated in Intercultural and Interrascial Friendships from a Social Penetration Perspective. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research; 2007, Vol. 38, Issue 2, p. 77-98. Retrieved 28 March, 2012.


Myers, G.E. and Myers, M.T. (1992). The Dynamics of Human Communication: A Laboratory Approach (6th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.

Cultural Studies.

Culture is generally define as a shared beliefs, values and ideas among a certain community or a group of people. Cultural studies is, however, concerns on studying of what people do in their everyday life, how an individual's perception becomes an ideal meaning for everyone and more importantly, on the cultural differences among a society. Therefore, this post will discuss the key concept of culture in terms of; representation, discourse, ideology and politics, by using 'America's Next Top Model' (ANTM) as a text for this study.


Culture, according to Hartley (2011, p.77) is the production, circulation, experience and transformation (over time and space) of meaning, identity and relationships, to which he refer each respectively as; language, consiciousness and social networks. Whereas Storey (2003, p.3) defined culture as "the practices and processes of making meanings with and from the 'texts' we encounter n our everyday lives... cultures are made from the production, circulation and consumption of meanings. To share culture, therefore, is to interpret the world - make it meanigful - in recognisably similar ways". 


In cultural studies, visual culture is included to understand cultural studies more in the prespective of media such as through; Television and printed materials. Visual culture means, its shared meaning by a group of people or community through the world representation of visual, aural and textual are due to the engagement with symbolic and communicative activities (Sturken and Cartwright, 2009, p.3).

Representation stands as the equivalent of something in the material world or it is also known as a 'referent'. America's Next Top Model or ANTM, was established and started its first cycle back in May 2003. ANTM became part of American Culture as it represent how women should look like through modelling for 'Vogue' magazine and cosmetic commercial.


Discourse refers as cultural framework, or "framework of interpretation". Moreover, it also act as a system to create a social shared-culture. Fairclough (1999, p. 310) defined Discourse as, "the language used in representing a given social practice from a particular point of view". This means that, discourse interacts with a social groups by sending the sturcture of words or images to make dominate their beliefs towards a particular topic. If the word 'Goal' or 'Offside' is a discourse of football, then when any individuals hear 'You wanna be on Top?'; they would know it is referring to 'America's Next Top Model' or ANTM. On the other hand, Griffin noted, Ideology is "Those images, concepts and premises which provide the frameworks through which we represent, interpret, understand and 'make sense' of some aspect of social existence". In other words, a certain idea that we understand as a commonsense to which it shapes our perception as an ideal meaning. The main ideologies for ANTM are; Flawless or unique face and body, which is highly required in a fashion as well as media industry. The show often portray girls in sexy clothes with pretty make-up combination; according to the theme chosen for each episodes. 


Both discourse and ideology often comes hand in hand together; where there is discourse there is ideology. However, the major problem with ideologies in a discourse is that they do not represent the whole truth. The reason for this is initial existence of the counter-discourses and counter-ideologies, in the sense it has been implemented in our minds. This is supported by Hartley's (2011, p.132) statement, "Ideology is seen as the practice of reproducing and social relations of inequality within the sphere of signification and discourse." Therefore, if the ideology of ANTM is being flawless then the counter-ideology of it would be, possessing a flaw or being imperfection.


Stuart Hall defined Politics in term of media as "struggle over meaning". In the case of ANTM, the show has the power to promote the politics of materialistic, fashion, consumerism as well as being beauty conscious. With that being said, ANTM use its authority to shape any individuals in the society, in making young women especially, to do what it takes to achieve the ideal face and body which ; for example, practicing of 'bulimia'. Another way to see it, being fat is wrong. This therefore create a conterversy of the true meaning of 'beauty'.


As a result, Cultural Studies allows us to understand how an idea or concept shared can become a practice for the masses and how it brings everyone to understand of the created social shared-culture. In the case of ANTM, it did create a social community and bring them together in a common understanding of the show; fashion and beauty. However, the ideology of the show can be quite controversial in the media industry as it influence the young ones to appear how the society culture expect of them instead of letting them be who they look like. This is where the politics play it roles in whether to positively or negatively influence the audiences of the show, as they have the power to direct the audiences perception. 
















References List;


Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th Ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill.


Hartley, J. (2011). Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts (4th Ed.) New York; Routledge.


Fairclough, N.(1999). Critical Analysis of Media Discourse. In Marris, P. and Thorham, S. (1999). Media Studies; A Reader (2nd Ed.).


Storey, J. (2003). Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture.


Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009). Practices of Looking.

Week 5.

AC-1201 MEDIA ECOLOGY.

Media Ecology simply means the study of medium of media. Therefore for this post, social network will be use as an example to demonstrate the meaning and the concept of Media Ecology further.

Griffin (2009, p.313) defined Media Ecology as, "The study of different personal and social environments created by the use of different communication technologies." What Griffin means, it studies the environment of the media, it investigates the use of technology in the world to the society. It focuses on the changing of a medium instead of the content.

Media Ecology critiques communication model, whereby it focuses on system and environment rather than the message of the content. This refers to the method use to communicate,for example, communicating through social network or through telephone. Here it can seen that, when an environment change of medium changes, the whole communication environment changes. Before, communicating another party through telephone would be more private and close as it only involve conversation between two people. Today communicating via social network such as twitter, has become a mainstream where it involves interacting with more than one party in a very much open and pulicized area.

Various social networks in the internet.

Evidently, technology plays a prime role in our daily lives and it brings affect onto social structures. This is called 'Technology Determinism", which can be divided into four factors. First, 'No Determinism'; where media does not shape society. Second, 'Hard Determinism'; it involves in direct contact with media that change the social structures. Third, 'Soft Determinism'; which media may alter social structures. Fourth, 'Partial Determinism'; the media are among many factors shaping society.

There are three proposition of how media effect society. First proposition is, media directly affects the viewer; methaporically it is known as 'Hypodermic Needle'. When  person watches a violent movie for example, it however will not directly transmit the influence suddenly. As critized by Cultivation Theory, the influence will only affect the person overtime. Second proposition is, media is generally psychologically harmful and potentially dangerous. However, it does not necessarily mean it would cause any individual to personally risk themselves into driving over the speed limit as how they saw it in "Fast and Furious" movies, for example. Finally third proposition is where the media damages community and social life. Social network has allowed us to become rigid in our communication system, instead of interacting face to face we send texts or instant messages online. Although it brings benefit such as 'keeping in touch with each other', it however techonologised our evironment of communication system.

As it is widely known with Marshall McLuhan famous quote "The medium is the message". In this case, the social network is the message. McLuhan (1997, p. 7) pointed out "This fact, characteristic of all media, means that the "content" of another medium is always another medium". Therefore the message content in the social network, for example, the message content from Facebook, came from Twitter which could be coming from Yahoo and the process goes on. Thus, the content coming from all different sources change its way of delivering the message and meaning. Allowing and disallowing the content to be understood.

McLuhan further stated that, there are two types of medium; first is 'Hot Medium' where by the medium gives out high load of informations but its participation is low. In terms of written social network such as Facebook, it involves reading what is written on someone's status for example. The participation does not play so much in this case, compared to how much information one would recieved. Second is 'Cold Medium', an opposite of the 'Hot Medium', where the medium gives out low load of informations but its participation is high for example television. In terms of visual social network such as YouTube, people would become addicted in watching the videos streaming online as it does not demand one to read any informations. In contrast to before, the participation play a prime role than any informations one would recieved (McLuhan, 1997, pp. 22-23). 

In Media Ecology, there are three paradigms for media viewing. The first is 'Medium as Conduit', which involve the relationship of human through medium. Second is 'Medium as Language', looking at social network, Twitter; it refers to how the meidum allows people to text in short-forms of English words or use abbreviations. Third is 'Medium as Environment', where the environment of social network has created self-centered individuals; as it allows each every individual to choose who they want to communicate with and avoid the ones they don't want to. As a result, it can construst and deconstruct human relationship.

By understading Media Ecology, one can understand how social sturcture is shapped with the existence of different medium. It can either bring us together or drive us away from each other. The use of medium of media must be put cautious if one does not wish to risk himself to be under the too much media influence which can corrupt his rational mind, such as the influence of media violence, which could happen if one consume overtime.

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7th ed.) Glencoe, IL: McGrawHill.

McLuhan, M. (1997). Understanding media: the existences of man. London; Routledge.