Effects of Communication Technology

In the text there are four views of the effects of technology on communication. They are the contingent view, nuetral view, dystopian view, and the utopian view. The contingent view is the idea that technology's effect on communication depends on the context or the situation in which the technology is adopted. The nuetral view says that technology has no effect on communication which seems like a very nieve idea to me. The dystopian view is that technology limits our personal freedoms and benefits only the economic elite which again seems to extreme to be true in all cases. The utopian view is the idea that information technology serves to equalize power relationships at work by bridging time and space, thereby improving both productivity and work life. The utopian view is basically the idea that all of the effects on technology are positive on communication which I think is a nieve idea as well. I believe the truth of the effects on technology are a mixture of all these views and none of them seems to be right on its own. If I had to pick one of the theories I would say that the contingent view is the closest to being correct because it considers that in different contexts technology will have different effects.

Trait Leadorship:Chapter 9

Trait leadership essentially amounts to discrimination in my book. I believe the recent election of Obama is a great thing in dismantling that type of social institution. Since the beggining of tis country presidential nominees have fit into one type of candidate based on physical characteristics (white and male). In the 2008 election the people of this country elected a black male for the first time. A female ran as vice president on the republican ticket as well. These are two historical events that will help our country in the future elect the best leaders that we can. It is in our countries best interest to elect leaders based only on who can best perform that job and not because they are a certain physical stature or gender. We are in the middle of a bad economic crisis and there is many wars going on across the globe. We will need to work together as people to solve these problems and to do so I believe idea's like trait leadership can no longer exist.

Behavioral Norms in Groups: Chapter 8

I really enjoy many of the facts that are included in this text. While working for any organization it is likely that you will be working in a group at some point in time. "Norms are the informal rules that designate the boundaries of accceptable behavior while in the groups" (Kreps, 1991. p.170) Different organizations have different sets of norms and this produces very different results. While some organizations encourage employees to argue and debate until the best idea is found others are taught to avoid any potential conflict and the results the group produces will vary accordingly!

Emotional Labor

I was reading about Emotional Labor in chapter 7 of the text and was very surprised at what I read. The text says that flight attendents are expected to have certain emotions as part of there job. This is a very interesting phenonomenon of people being expected to feel certain emotions while on the job. I would much rather the company try to hire flight attendents that did a good job of attending and personally couldn't care less about there smiling faces. I am in a similiar position at my work. At my job I work on computers and I have been asked to be empathetic with the people who are having computer problems as if they are some kind of victim. Atleast 75% of the problems are that employee using the computer innappropriatly or misusing it completely. People yell at me as if I am there broken computer and I constantly have to remind them that is unreasonable communication skills and not a good way to get what they want from me. Its like I'm some kind of therapist and computer technician wraped up in one and it is part of job I have a hard time doing. After hearing about how flight attendents have to act like grown "dolls" I really can't complain though.

HR

The idea of human resources I believe has been distorted somehow from its original model as defined in the text. While in the text the main job of these people is to encourage a positive organizational environment I believe there job has transformed into a “corporate watchdog”. The theories of the text are great and if human resources actually conducted themselves like this I would be very surprised. Every company I have ever worked for Human Resources has been the person trying to short me on my check, cut my benefits, and watch out only for upper management of the company. Just wanted to vent because it struck me as odd how the ideals of Human Resources have become so different with time!

The influence of the industrial revolution

It was interesting to hear that some of the roots of organizational communication come from the industrial revolution days. The text states that before that time the large majority of people worked for themselves in this country. With the industrial revolution came the need for large scale factories with created the need for more effective communication in large groups. Also to hear how factories were built with similar architecture as prisons was interesting. It appears from the start of the industrial revolution the rich have been plotting on being richer while the poor have gotten poorer!

CEO Salaries

I was reading the book for this class and came upon an alarming fact about CEO salaries. One stat the book uses is the fact that between 1980 and 2000 the average pay of regular working people increased just 66% whie CEO pay grew at a rate of 1,996%. This stat raises alarming points and illustrates a fundamental problem with our economy today. The distribution of wealth has obviously been lopsided and the rich have gotten enormously richer over the last 30 years. I believe this is most likely a factor in our current ecominic recession. The working person has been left to deal with the problems that the rich have helped create. While watching the presidential election in November I watched Obama say some things about distribution of wealth and how there was a problem with how salaries are distributed. I didnt realize how true this is until I read this fact in the book. I worked for a company with 100 employee's where nobody had ever gotten a raise without having a promotion and taking on additional job tasks. One day we found out that each of 10 members of the board of directors each had recieved a 150,000 pay raise per year. Just wanted to illustrate a point that is obviously true in our society today!