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J7 Abstracts

Teresa L. Pham

Department of Communication Studies, University of North Texas

COMM 3010: Communication Perspectives

Dr. Jennifer Gray

March 5, 2020
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J7 Abstracts

Baym, N. K., & Ledbetter, A. (2009). Tunes that bind? Information, Communication & Society,

12(3), 408–427. https:///doi.org/10.1080/13691180802635430

The authors chose to focus on Last.fm, an international social music-focused website to explore

how individuals make and mediate friendships on social networking websites. The authors

concentrated their attention on how social network sites (SNS) have played a role in

interpersonal relational development. The authors collected information through Last.fm’s

discussion forum by posting a survey announcement with various questions, all in English for six

consecutive weeks, and pinned at the top of the thread for all participants to view. The authors

divided the questions into separate sections so that each section included a different subject to

inquiry. The authors found that although individuals share similar music taste and create a

friendship with one another through Last.fm, the two concepts do not correlate with one another.

The authors concluded for a friendship to truly flourish, both participants in the relationship must

find other ways of communication for the relationship to grow.

Kennedy-Lightsey, C., Martin, M., Thompson, M., Himes, K., & Clingerman, B. (2012).

Communication Privacy Management Theory: Exploring coordination and ownership

between friends. Communication Quarterly, 60(5), 665–680.

https://doi.org/10.1080/01463373.2012.725004

The authors explored how friends participate in their boundaries, ownership, private information,

and utilization of the Communication Privacy Management Theory. The authors concentrated

their attention on how individuals create boundaries around their private information and the

risk-benefit ratio when an individual decides to reveal or conceal their information. The authors

recruited a pair of 100 friends through an introductory communication course at a university, in

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which the participants could not disclose new information but only instances of previous

disclosure. When participants self-disclose information to others, the authors found that

boundary coordination and negative feelings have a positive correlation. However, the authors

found a negative association between perceived co-ownership and of the discloser’s feelings

towards the information they had disclosed and potentially shared. The authors identified

limitations such as: the possible shift in boundary management, and how future researchers

should explore the use of informational disclosure along with the lack of boundary coordination.

Koenig Kellas, J., Horstman, H. K., Willer, E. K., & Carr, K. (2015). The benefits and risks of

telling and listening to stories of difficulty over time: Experimentally testing the

expressive writing paradigm in the context of interpersonal communication between

friends. Health Communication, 30(9), 843–858.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2013.850017

The authors examined the impact of interpersonal conversation on a young adult’s (college

student’s) psychological health as a whole over time. The authors concentrated their attention on

college students, how individuals engage with one another, and the perception of how one

another’s communication competence, communicated perspective-taking, and how whether their

role as a teller or listener impacts the individual. The authors assessed the psychological health of

college students who would engage in interpersonal interactions three times out of the week in

which individuals would talk about stories, or daily events while partnered up with other

students. The authors concluded their study with a questionnaire based on three weeks after the

participants’ last interview session. The authors found limitations within the study, such as how

impactful disclosure is, regarding the storyteller and listener, some events are less severe than

another individual’s, and the need to engage multiple times vary from person to person. Lastly,
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the authors stated that certain concepts about friendship had not been measured in the study,

which could also have a potential impact on another individual’s response.

Ledbetter, A. M. (2009). Family communication patterns and relational maintenance behavior:

Direct and mediated associations with friendship closeness. Human Communication

Research, 35(1), 130–147. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2008.01341.x

The author chose to explore their hypothesis that family communication does not influence an

individual’s schema formation regarding familial context. The author concentrated his attention

on analyzing the patterns in how families engage with one another through relational

maintenance behavior as well as what directs and mediates associations with same-sex friendship

closeness. The author recruited 417 young adults from a university where 315 individuals

completed an online questionnaire while the rest of the individuals took a paper-based

questionnaire. The author concluded that face to face and online relational maintenance

behaviors serve as a mediator between friendship closeness. The author concluded that

communication behavior is in family environments and the development of a person’s schema.

The author also expressed that the results regarding face-to-face maintenance and online

maintenance can even influence online friendship closeness.

Mikkelson, A. C., Hesse, C., & Pauley, P. M. (2016). The attributes of relational maximizers.

Communication Studies, 67(5), 567–587.

https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2016.1239644

The authors ‘main reason to measure how an individual maximizes in relational outcomes to see

the correlation between how an individual maximizes a relationship and the relational outcomes

of that instance. The authors concentrated their attention on individuals to better understand how

an individual could maximize relationship, and their relational outcomes. The authors collected
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data on two separate studies, so a total of 605 participants on relational outcomes as well as

relational maximization. The authors concluded a negative correlation between the tendency to

maximize in relationships, affectionate communication, as well as relational outcomes. However,

the authors found a positive correlation between relational maximization and relational

uncertainty.

Petronio, S. (2004). Road to developing Communication Privacy Management Theory: Narrative

in progress, please stand by. Journal of Family Communication, 4, 193–207.

https://doi.org/10.1080=15267431.2004.9670131

The author focused on four storylines regarding Communication Privacy Management Theory

(CPM) and what each story line entails. The author described how each of the four story lines

correlates to the CPM theory and the process of how CPM began in 2004. The author collected

information on CPM and analyzed what serves as the basis of the boundaries and how

individuals participate in disclosure. The author stated that she received a lot of guidance from

her peers to develop and readjust her theory. The author concluded that she found herself

participating in solidifying relationships. The author also expressed how she solidified her CPM

theory through her various interactions and experiences with others, where she discussed the

conceptual ideas. The CPM theory creates a new area of conversation, which allows other

researchers to expand on the topic of communication and how the theory interrelates in every

relationship an individual participates. The CPM theory serves as the massive steppingstone into

what communication and privacy mean for individuals to self-disclose information about

themselves.

Shelton, J. N., Trail, T. E., West, T. V., & Bergsieker, H. B. (2010). From strangers to friends:

The interpersonal process model of intimacy in developing interracial friendships.

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Journal of Social & Personal Relationships, 27(1), 71–90.

https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407509346422

The authors examined the process of interracial friendships and how intimacy develops from

being strangers to becoming friends. The authors focused their attention on how intimacy levels

influence disclosure and perceived partner responsiveness through the development of interracial

and interracial friendships. The authors recruited 50 white and 24 black students in which all of

these participants attended an orientation session where they selected unacquainted people of the

same sex to get to know as the semester progressed. The authors concluded that participants self-

disclose more information with their partners and perceive partner responsiveness as higher with

an in-group friend rather than an out-group friend. The authors examined the bi-weekly survey

results of how black participants with black friends reported higher levels of self-disclosure,

partner disclosure, and partner responsiveness because their university has a predominately white

university, individuals felt more inclined to stick with a more familiar ethnic group due to the

scarcity of the black population on campus. The authors also examined how black students’ past

experiences, in which they were targets of discrimination and prejudice. The authors suggested

that although their findings were eye-opening, the researchers found limitations in the results; the

authors were not able to examine the interaction-by-interaction exchanges that other researchers

found. Instead, the authors recommended for future examinations of this topic, that other

researchers would focus more on how disclosure is between out-group friendships in correlation

with ethnic minorities, and how these individuals feel less inclined to self-disclose information to

white individuals.
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References

Baym, N. K., Yan Bing Zhang, Kunkel, A., Ledbetter, A., & Mei-Chen Lin. (2007). Relational

quality and media use in interpersonal relationships. New Media & Society, 9(5), 735–

752. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444807080339

Bishop, C. (1992). Self-disclosure in mother daughter dyads: The forgotten areas of study in

interpersonal communication. Journal of the Northwest Communication Association,

20(1), 57–75. https://doi.org/ http://www.northwestcomm.org/journal

Cohen, E. (2010). Expectancy violations in relationships with friends and media figures.

Communication Research Reports, 27(2), 97–111.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08824091003737836

Evans, K. J., & Evans, D. L. (2019). Interpretation of non‐verbal cues by people with and

without TBI: Understanding relationship intentions. International Journal of Language

& Communication Disorders, 54(3), 377–389. https://doi.org/10.1111/1460-6984.12443

Hays, A., & Metts, S. (2015). Support, closeness, and influence tactics as predictors of

acceptance of unsolicited parental advice regarding a romantic relationship during

emerging adulthood. Ohio Communication Journal, 53, 62–69.

https://doi.org/www.ohiocomm.org/

Ledbetter, A. M. (2008). Media use and relational closeness in long-term friendships:

Interpreting patterns of multimodality. New Media & Society, 10(4), 547–564.

https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444808091224

McKenna, K. Y. A., Green, A. S., & Gleason, M. E. J. (2002). Relationship formation on the

internet: What’s the big attraction? Journal of Social Issues, 58(1), 9.

https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00246
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Minniear, M., Sillars, A., & Shuy, K. (2018). Risky business: Disclosures of risky behavior

among emerging adults in the digital age. Communication Reports, 31(1), 1–13.

https://doi.org/10.1080/08934215.2017.1310271

Szu-Chi Huang, Broniarczyk, S. M., Ying Zhang, & Beruchashvili, M. (2015). From close to

distant: The dynamics of interpersonal relationships in shared goal pursuit. Journal of

Consumer Research, 41(5), 1252–1266. https://doi.org/10.1086/678958

Taylor, S. H., & Bazarova, N. N. (2018). Revisiting media multiplexity: A longitudinal analysis

of media use in romantic relationships. Journal of Communication, 68(6), 1104–1126.

https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy055