chapter 9 (social friendship groups)
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
THEORY OF COMMUNICATION - CHAPTER 9
Group 5
SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP GROUPS
Presenter: Minh Sang
Social Friendship Groups
A social friendship group is composed of friends who have a genuine concern about each
other’s welfare and enjoy spending time together. Their interactions are characterized by
“interpersonal ties and positive, amiable preexisting relationships among members”
(Thompson, 2003, p. 239)
Social Friendship Groups
Social Friendship Groups
Most of us belong to more than one social friendship group during our lives.
You may have had a group of friends you were close to in high school, a group of buddies
you were close to when you served in the military, or a group of friends you play golf or
softball with regularly. Sometimes people who work together evolve into a social friendship
group when they begin to get together for social activities outside of work.
Social friendship groups may initially form around a shared interest like a book club or Bible
study, but as members spend time together and find they enjoy one another’s company,
they may evolve into a social friendship group.
SUPPORT GROUPS
Presenter: Minh Sang
Support Groups
Support groups are composed of people who come together to bolster each other by
providing encouragement, honest feedback, and a safe environment for expressing deeply
personal feelings about a problem common to the members.
Support groups must create an environment where members feel safe to disclose highly
personal information. So members need to make sure that their messages follow the
guidelines in Chapter 8 for comforting, which include clarifying supportive intentions,
buffering face threats, using other-centered language, framing, and selectively offering
advice.
INTEREST GROUP
Presenter: Nguyen Ngoc Cam
What is an Interest Group?
An interest group is composed of individuals who come together
because they share a concern, hobby, or activity
What are the types of an Interest Group?
These groups may be:
- formal with defined goals and tasks
- informal
What can be an Interest Group?
They may be part of a larger organization
Some interest groups are externally focused on a common
political or social issue and adopt an agenda to achieve
change.
Other interest groups are internally focused on increasing skills
or knowledge of their members.
How do the Interest Group’s members meet?
Commonly, the group members meet each others offline
But, there are also some interest groups meet online.
What are the aims of an Interest Group?
Because interest group members share some passion, all members
ought to have an opportunity to communicate their expertise by:
- encouraging members to share success stories
- doing so in ways that all members highlight what they
know without demeaning the knowledge or opinions of others
Service Groups
Service groups are composed of individuals who come together to perform hands-on charitable works or to raise money to help organizations that perform such work.
Service groups may be local affiliates of larger secular or religious service organizations like Break Away, Lions Club International, Red Cross, Salvation Army, B’nai B’rith, and Habitat for Humanity.
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Christian denomination and international movement known for its charity shops and other charity work, operating in 126 countries.
Red Cross
The International Red Cross is an international humanitarian movement which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering.
Other service groups are local and function independently. Small soup kitchens, urban gardening groups, and community beautification groups perform charitable work that may include raising funds and interfacing with government agencies.
Because service groups are both voluntary and task-oriented, they need to be dedicated to the task as well as sensitive to the ego and emotional needs of members. So communication should :
(1) be clear about individual tasks, roles, and responsibilities: “Jim, as I remember it, today you agreed to work on patching the roof.”
(2) encourage and praise member accomplishments: “I was really impressed with how sensitive you were when you turned her down for another bag of groceries”
(3) be polite: “Mary, it would be great if you would please work with Mike on stuffing envelopes for that mailing. Thanks so much!”
STEPS TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE GROUP WORK
• Get to know each other. If you're going to be working in a group with other people for any extended period of time, spend a few minutes talking at the outset of the first meeting. Introduce yourselves if you do not already know one another.
• Assign roles if the project requires working together in a group for an extended period of time to reach a specific goal. For instance you might designate one person the group leader or facilitator and another the scribe or note taker.
• Exchange contact information to enable group members to communicate effectively outside of scheduled meetings if the project is long term.
1
2
3
• Identify the group's goal. For instance, perhaps a professor asked you to accomplish a specific task within your group, or your company asked you to research specific information and report back. Discuss and document the group's goal to make sure you all agree on the primary goal of the group's work.
• Divide tasks into steps and assign each member a specific task to attack long term projects. Often this will go easier if people volunteer for tasks they like to do.
4
5
• Listen to each other and encourage each other. Make sure everyone in the group is heard and offer encouragement when others contribute a good idea or perform a task effectively.
• Deal immediately with conflict if it arises. Although difficult to deal with, conflict or discord in a group can undermine the group's objectives. As quickly as possible, address any conflicts to keep the group members focused on the ultimate goal.
6
7
CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE GROUP WORK
Unified Commitment to a Goal
• When the team is presented with a goal, they can come together and work as a single unit to complete the task.
Participation
• In order for a team to act as a team everyone must be participating in the creation of a solution.
• A team does not have extra members. Each member of a team is essential to the team's success, and when the group is given a task, each member knows what their job is and sets out to put in their fair share of the effort.
Open Communication
• Issues within a team are handled by face-to-face communication. Team members do not talk behind each other's back as there is a respect developed among team members that necessitates direct and open communication on all issues.
Decision-Making
• The members of the group are respected for their various areas of expertise, and the leader of the group has developed the ability to obtain the group members' opinions to formulate the group's response.
• This applies to decisions made within the group ranging from resolving internal conflict to a potential change in group leadership.
Efficient Use of Ideas
• Brainstorming is one way that groups come up with the solution to a problem.
• An effective team is able to gather information from each member and formulate that information into a response.
EVALUATING GROUP DYNAMICS
Presenter: Dinh Quoc Minh Dang
Group dynamics
Group dynamics is the way a group interacts to achieve
its goal.
Evaluating group dynamics
Effective groups periodically stop and evaluate how their
interactions are affecting what they are accomplishing
and how members perceive themselves and others
Tuckman’s framework
Evaluating group dynamics
At times you may be asked to provide a formal evaluation
of the group dynamics of a class project group or other
work team
Evaluating group dynamics
One way you might evaluate members is to describe how
each member performed his or her specific tasks and
how well his or her communication contributed to the
cohesiveness, problem solving, and conflict resolution
processes in the group.
Evaluating group dynamics
Like the evaluations business managers make of employees, these
evaluations serve to document the efforts of group members. They
can be submitted to the instructor, just as they would be submitted
to a supervisor.
In business, these documents provide a basis for determining
promotion, merit pay, and salary adjustments. In the classroom, they
can provide a basis for determining one portion of each member’s
grade.
Sum up
Sometimes you might be asked to evaluate how you and
other members participate in a group.
Doing so might help your instructor grade group
dynamics or help your employer determine merit pay or
bonuses.