Sports in the Corporate World

There is no denying it, unless you are like Patrick Star from Sponge-bob Square-pants and live under a rock, we are a consumerist country. On one end of the spectrum of consumerism there is of course us, the consumer. On the other are the corporations that provide the products and services we consume. But Corporations do much more than provide products and services. Stan Deetz, professor at University of Colorado at Boulder, explains this in his critical theory of communication in organizations. This theory began as an interpersonal perspective (critical theory) and was molded and moved to be used on a bigger scale of communications in organizations. This theory essentially states that corporations have control over employees, media, governments, and society. For the purpose of this blog entry I will be going into more detail about the theory, explaining aspects such as corporate colonization, managerial control, consent, systematic distorted communication and discursive closure. I will conclude by discussing potential solutions that Deetz identifies. Of course, as this is a sports blog, I will be relating the role of corporations not only to our daily lives, but how they impact sports as well.

This is a web of corporate control

Firstly, let’s define the evil word of corporation. A corporation according to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary is, “A company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law”. This can be a business, company, organization, agency, etc. As aforementioned this theory looks at how corporations hold almost all the power over their employees, the media, government, and society in general. If we look at this in terms of sports we can see examples with the big corporate giants of ESPN (owned by ABC). ESPN controls its employees, what sporting events are aired (media), government (recent influence in performance enhancing drug scandal), and society (determining sports trends in society). One important aspect of this theory is that it is a critical theory. This means that it seeks to confront social, historical, and ideological structures that cause constraints. This relates to the main problem caused by corporations, and that is the unfair balance of power they have. Organizations are also typically undemocratic in power and decision making procedures. Critical theory of communication in organizations seeks to confront the issue of organizational/corporate power imbalance. A personal example of this power imbalance occurs almost daily with ESPN and me. I am a huge Portland Trailblazer’s fan. They are currently 15-3 which is the best record in their conference, but they are never on national television because the corporation has decided their games are not that important. So if I want to watch them, I have to buy a special package they provide just to see them play. This is an example of an unfair power balance where I am a slave to what the corporation wants.

Another key aspect of the theory is corporate colonization. Corporate colonization is the idea that capitalist ideals and values have permeated their way into society which has resulted in big corporations being the dominant force in society. We see examples of corporate colonization in many aspects of life, especially in sports. Michael Lavalette provides a prime example of this in his book “Capitalism and Sports”. The example he provides is the sport of cycling as a capitalist product. Bicycles were a product picked up by business men sold in an industry, in turn the sport of cycling was created to promote the product of that industry. Then bicycle and bicycle equipment manufactures sponsored races such as the tour de France. They then involve to media to cover these events which ultimately promote their product. So when we are watching sports we may think we are simply watching an entertaining event but we don’t realize is the capitalistic premise behind the whole event. This logic can be applied to any sporting event we watch from Nascar with the Pepsi 500, to the Super Bowl (brought to you by Coke Zero). I've attached a video that exemplifies the relationships between sports, corporations and the media I have been discussing. 

Example of the Pepsi corporation sponsoring a sporting event

Some people would argue that this is how society should be, that capitalism is a necessity. One of the negatives of this system is what Deetz calls managerial control. Managerial control excludes the voices of many people who are affected by decisions. This is essentially the idea of top down decision making. We can relate this back to sports in my example of viewing. Sports fans are those affected by which programs and games are aired on national television. But those making the decisions at the top or who have managerial control are often worried more about the bottom line than those the decision affects. For example on Monday evening the Blazers who were 14-3 were playing the Pacers who were 16-1. These were the best two teams in the NBA and the game wasn’t nationally televised because it would be competing with Monday Night Football. Instead the NBA decided to leave its usual national TV off air. Decisions like this are constantly occurring in sports and affecting the everyday fan. This problem is more of a systematic problem rather than individual managers. Individual managers are often only following orders from the system or those above them in order to keep their jobs. For example we can call the cable company and explain about not enough blazer games being aired, but if the NBA or Corporate bosses don’t want more aired there is nothing they can do.

A picture here of NBA corporate heads

Quickly, a few other key terms we should at least address before going into possible solutions to these problems are consent, systematic distorted communication, and discursive closure.

Consent is why managerial control exists. It is the employees or societies willingness to participate in undemocratic processes that perpetuate a system of corporate control. We are often unaware of this process.

Systematic distorted communication looks at language and processes of society in a way that only certain options are viable. It says the status quo is legitimate as is hierarchy. It ignores other options of decision making such as lower level employees being involved.

Discursive closure then is a method of systematic distorted communication and centers around the suppression of any opposition to the system. This will often involve ignoring or disqualifying certain employees or people speaking or making decisions.

Now that I have been on negative over-haul let’s look at a few potential solutions that Deetz proposes. Deetz states that we need initiate change through involvement and integration into democratic processes. For a sporting event this may be voting on which game is aired for example on espn.com. He says we need to encourage participation and decision making at all levels of the corporation. This is a great idea as often those lower-level employees may connect with more of the average viewer who is not only focused on the bottom line. Although these are great ideas they are simply not realistic until we as a society have an ideological shift. As of now profit, money, and the bottom line are what is most important and until we change this I don’t foresee a change in how corporations communicate or operate happening. I will try to not end on such a dark note, so remember these points when you are a big shot corporate leader, and get everyone involved in decision making. On that note I will end. Until next time!

Stay cool,

Zach

"Fighting" For Cultivation Theory

Violence has slowly permeated its way into most of our everyday lives. One of the most common and efficient ways it does this is through media, particularly through television. Professor George Gerbner is known for coming up with a theory that discusses this issue called cultivation theory. Cultivation theory focuses on violence in the media, with TV as society’s “story teller”. A key component of Gerbner’s theory is the idea that heavy viewers are likely to develop exaggerated perceptions. The theory also focuses on the idea that violence we see on our television screens cultivates violence in our lives. This means it is possible for different attitudes, values, opinions, etc. about violence to form. As this is a sports and communications blog I thought it could be interesting to look at a televised sport which is all about violence, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). In doing so I will look at how UFC and mixed martial arts create an attitude or belief that violence and fighting are just a part of life and how it cultivates the "mean world syndrome."I have added a short video below  to demonstrate to those who may not follow or have seen UFC what exactly it is. 

One issue that media scholars like Gerbner look at and fear, is that young viewers will imitate aggression and violence they see on the screen. Now when I say violence I should make it clear I am talking about what Gerbner calls dramatic violence. Dramatic violence is overt expression of physical force, with or without a weapon on self or others. It does not include verbal abuse, threats, or slapstick humor. The UFC is a prime example of dramatic violence on television, where two men are pit in a cage with the objective of knocking out or submitting the other. If we look back at the fear that young viewers will imitate what they see on the screen, we then must worry that not only are viewers learning fighting techniques they might imitate, but the attitude that fighting is a part of life becomes prominent. For example here is a video of two young children already being trained to fight UFC style. No child needs to know how to fight like this, but our children see the violence and fighting and want to imitate it. 

This belief or idea that UFC promotes violence as a part of everyday life is actually a consequence of what is called mean world syndrome. Mean world syndrome is the idea that we think the world is more violent than it really is because of media and TV. As a consequence of this (according to Gerbner’s theory) we are not only desensitized to violence but we believe that violence is normal, a good way to solve problems, and that everyone does it. I can personally attest to this as a UFC fan and college student who occasionally goes out with friends, that fighting has been desensitized and normalized to me. For example, when I was younger a conflict would never come to violence and if it did it was extremely shocking and traumatic in a sense. Nowadays when I go out with my friends if I am to see a physical fight between two guys to resolve a conflict I would see it as normal. Gerbner’s theory would point to the idea that by us watching these violent fights on screen violence is cultivated in our lives. 

I have added a video clip below (excuse the profanity in it) that highlights a bit more what the UFC is like and also points out how these fighter often don't like each other and use fighting as a way to handle this. After watching this clip it is quite evident that exposure to this kind of violence can make fighting seem like an everyday solution to personal problems. This is particularly in response to the UFC as they often will create story-lines between the two men fighting having them trash talk to create conflict. So just remember the next time that your 5 or 6 year old is watching UFC with you, that you are not only desensitizing them to fighting, you are teaching them that violence and fighting is what you do with someone you don’t like or have a conflict with.  

A last little tidbit about the theory that I found to be interesting is the idea of under-represented and over-violated groups in relation to media violence. In this part of the theory women, African-Americans, elderly and children are often portrayed as the victims of violence. In the UFC we don’t necessarily see this over-violation but what we do see is the under-representation. The UFC only just recently added a women’s division and has a majority of its fighters as white males. Although the theory generally looks at television shows as media and the under-representation, it is important to keep in mind that most of the violence we see on UFC is white male on white male.  

Overall it is quite clear that the UFC promotes an attitude or belief that violence and fighting are just a part of life and how it cultivates the "mean world syndrome." I think because of this it is important to teach people (especially children) that what they are seeing is a violent act that should not be repeated. This may be a difficult point to get across until we decide to stop glorifying violence as a masculine trait though! 

Until next time, stay cool!

-Zach 

SymBALLic Convergence Theory ...

       Despite the intimidating name, Symbolic Convergence Theory (SCT) is actually quite simple. #seriously #nothard #commtheory. Okay now you are all probably wondering what in the heck I am doing with these hash tags above. Well it all goes back to the class I am writing this blog for and is actually in itself a great example of a fantasy chain, which I will explain later. But first I want to give you a little road map of how this blog will shape up. First I will be explaining multiple aspects of SCT including dramatizing messages, fantasy chains, symbolic cues, and symbolic convergence. I will also discuss how SCT creates group cohesion and is a key component in group communication. I will then end by discussing how fantasy chains can move beyond the group level to become public. As you know, the theme of this blog is sports, so I will be using a personal example from my days on my high school basketball team where fantasy chains were the norm.

So what is SCT? The main focus of SCT is on group communication and the tasks and goals of the group, meaning it looks at getting tasks done and the social functions coinciding. SCT looks at building group cohesion which is the social glue holding the group together. In a highly cohesive group, members enjoy being a part of the group, support and interact with one another, and share in group identification. This will all make a little more sense once I begin discussing my example.

       A key foundation of SCT is dramatizing messages. A dramatizing message is a comment, joke, pun, story, anecdote, song, etc. made by a group member(s) that are unrelated to work/interactions, imaginative, etc. Think of it as the comment or joke that someone makes out of left field when working in class. It may be a funny Anchorman reference as our class often reverts to, hash-tagging everything you say (like my class does) or a random joke someone shares with the group totally off-topic. For example, my senior year of basketball my team was ranked 5^th in state and we were sitting in the locker room preparing for a game with our rival who was ranked 7^th. Needless to say it was a big game. As we are sitting there in our normal group dynamic (focused, quiet, adrenaline filled) one of my teammates randomly says, “Guys I have a confession, I love Third Eye Blind”. We all looked at him a bit confused as this was unrelated to our normal game routine and preparation. He then proceeded to belt out the song "Jumper" by Third Eye Blind.  I posted a link to the song here so you can see how unrelated to basketball it was. The whole team started laughing though and began singing the song and other light-hearted hits from the late 90s. In this case the dramatized message was the statement that he loved the song and the singing of the song.

         This led us to create what’s called a fantasy chain. A fantasy chain is anything the group collectively talks about, stemming from a dramatized message. A chain occurs when the group enthusiastically picks up the dramatizing message. So when our teammate brought up the song, if we all just looked at him like he was crazy and said nothing more about it, we would not have had a fantasy chain. Instead we thought it was hilarious and continued on with it by contributing our own dramatic messages or in this case funny random songs such as, “Getting Jiggy with it” by Will Smith. 

This pattern of us singing random songs, unrelated to basketball from our past established what’s called a fantasy theme. A fantasy theme is exactly what you might expect; it is the content of a dramatizing message that sparks the chain. In our case the theme would have been random songs. 

      After the joke slowly came to an end we went out and dominated our game, but the joke didn’t end there. You see there are things called symbolic cues which are triggers that set off group members to respond as they did when they first shared a fantasy chain. Cues can be code words, non-verbal signals, etc. For our team, I was responsible for creating our warm up CD's to be played over the courts speaker system before home games. I thought it would be funny to create our CD with nothing but those songs we talked about from our fantasy chain. So the CD started with Jumper from Third-eye blind and progressed to some other extremely non-basketball related songs. The first song of Jumper on the CD immediately acted as a symbolic cue for our whole team when they heard it come on. It served to create a bond between the team as it was something that we all shared together. This is how symbolic convergence is key in successful group communication. It creates inside jokes, bonds, and a commonality between group members that otherwise may not be there.

Now imagine all those students singing Jumper!

Sometimes we can see fantasy chains move from beyond the small group level to become public. This is usually done through forms of mass media like TV or internet related media outlets. But they can become public through good ole’ fashion word of mouth as well. Reverting back to my basketball example of the song jumper, we can see how it moved to more of a public chain. As we begin playing the song in our pre-game ritual our fans began becoming increasingly interested in why we were playing such a random song. Through word of mouth the story spread and our fans embraced the chain and began suggesting songs to play as well as singing along with the song Jumper. This created a bond between us and our fans as well! Other teams would come in to play us and were so confused why our team was warming up to Jumper by Third-eye Blind while our crowd was singing it. Here you can see a picture of our student section which was rather large for a high school, so the chain was clearly a public one! 

The chain helped us create a bond with our fans as well!

When we look at Symbolic Convergence Theory it is important to realize it is happening all around us. I think it can be a valuable tool for sports teams as well. As my example shows, a fantasy chain can be used to create a unique bond between teammates that may not have existed otherwise.

Until next time, stay cool my friends.

-Zach 

14 Hours... 14 whole hours.

Hola, Guten Tag, Bonjour and Hello again,

        I hope all of my loyal viewers are doing well and enjoying my blogging thus far. Today is a great day for me as the Portland Trailblazers start their season! Anyways, for my second official blog entry I would like to focus on the theory of Social Information Processing or SIP. This theory was coined by Joseph Walther and heavily focuses on the use of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). CMC is seen as text based messages, which filter out most non-verbal cues. This can be a text message, facebook message, online forum, or even a blog entry like this one. For the purpose of this blog I made a great sacrifice and attempted to go 48 hours without the use of CMC. Throughout this post I will discuss my experience without CMC while providing a bit more detail about the theory. Also, since this is a sports in communications blog, I will be providing an example of how CMC can be seen in sports today.

        

        As I explained, CMC is the communication via text based messages. This day in age much of this is done via the web. I think it is safe to say whether it be facebook, twitter, chatrooms, etc. almost all of us use CMC daily (especially so considering you are reading this blog). CMC provides some benefits that face to face communication may not, such as increased self-disclosure, extended time for those who prefer it, and a platform for those who struggle with face to face communication to communicate comfortably. Critics of CMC such as media relations theorists argue though that CMC is too narrow to convey rich messages. You can also argue that CMC is depriving people of necessary real life social skills. Other critics point to CMC as depriving users of the sense that another actual person is involved in the communication, these would be social presence theorist. Whether you think CMC is an effective means of communication or are a critic, it is likely CMC is not going to disappear anytime soon. This is because it is a key aspect of interpersonal relationships today, but considering these critical theories can make one question the extent that CMC should be used.

          

        For the purpose of this blog I attempted to make a great sacrifice and go without CMC for 48 hours. This meant no internet essentially, no facebook, twitter, email, etc. As an avid tweeter I thought this may be very difficult for me. I began attempting this challenge the morning of Tuesday, October 29^th. The day began with me fighting the temptation to roll over out of bed and check my texts, facebook, twitter, and email as is my usual morning tradition. I quickly realized that my phone tells me when I have a text and displays it on the screen, so in a panic I switched my phone into airplane mode. Throughout the day of class, studying and going to the gym I noticed that not using CMC was not as difficult as I had expected it would be, it was almost peaceful in a sense and increased my rate of information sharing. The real challenge though came at night. During my downtime is when I tend to use the most CMC, facebook messaging, tweeting, or texting friends. It was at this time I also realized I needed to email a professor regarding an assignment due on the upcoming Friday. This put me in a dilemma, do I wait until Thursday (the night before) to email or break my CMC ban to give them ample time to respond. Sadly, despite my best efforts, my true colors as a worry wart broke through and I emailed my professor thus ending 14 hours without CMC. While going without CMC was by no means the most difficult thing I have done in life, merely going 14 hours made me realize how critical it is in today’s society.

         

       One aspect of CMC that really stood out to me during this challenge was the chronemics. Chronemics are the study of people’s systematic handling of time in their interaction with others. Simply put, it looks at how we balance time in our interaction with people. 

I noticed that CMC allows us to balance our time much more on our own terms. For example I am able to email my professor at my convenience with CMC, but without CMC I am forced to attend his office hours or call him to make an appointment to meet with him. This being said, CMC is an effective tool for time management in communication. The above comic shows an example of how chronemics can vary between participating members of the communication as well. 

       I’d like to give a brief example to conclude this entry of how we are seeing CMC in sports today. CMC is everywhere in sports, from players, coaches, and managers communicating through text messages to email correspondence between employees for professional sports franchises. But one particular area I found interesting was how CMC between coaches and prospective athletes is being limited by the NCAA. There is currently a push to deregulate texting rules in recruiting for the NCAA, here is a brief video from the NCAA discussing both the pros and cons of CMC in recruiting (sorry the embedded video would not work). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1txZxoDSDA. Do you think coaches should be limited in the amount of CMC they can have with a prospective player? Or is it unfair to set a limitation on a communication method? No matter what side of the fence you sit on one thing is clear, CMC is everywhere. It will be interesting to see how different people and industries adapt to CMC as a part of everyday life in the near future.

Until next time, stay cool friends.

P.S. here is the sports video of the day, Go Blazers! 

-Zach 

Objective and Interpretive Theories in Sports

Hello and happy hump-day to all, here is a quick video of one of the most amazing plays I have seen in sports to wake you up! 

Today I will be looking into an aspect of metatheory, exciting I know! Metatheory is the inception of the communication world, but instead of a dream within a dream it is a theory about a theory. This complex idea can be broken down into simpler terms as the assumptions we make about a theory. When we make these assumptions we tend to group them on a scale somewhere between objective and interpretive. It is important to understand the differences between both sides of this spectrum because it allows us to understand the roots of theories. For this blog entry I will be taking a closer look at the differences between objective and interpretive theories while using the film Moneyball to illustrate the differences.

Before I get to the exciting video clips it’s important I explain to you the differences between objective and interpretive theories. An objective theory is one that explains the past and present, and predicts the future (Griffin 26). We tend to look at objective theories as measurable, factual, scientific and quantifiable.  A good objective theory will not only be testable, but will provide evidence. There are six main scientific standards for a good objective theory but three I find key; explanation of data, prediction of future events, and a hypothesis that can be tested. These are all relatively self-explanatory standards, but if you require more depth or clarity I recommend reading pages 26-30 in Em Griffin’s “A First Look at Communication Theory”. I think when looking at objective theory it’s easiest to think of it as theories not influenced by personal feelings, biases, or opinions, it is simply based on fact.

Interpretive theories on the other hand assume multiple truths or meanings as possible. They are subjective, socially constructed and depend on context, and perception. A good interpretive theory also follows scientific standards. A well thought out interpretive theory will provide a new understanding of people, clarify values, have a community of agreement, as well as qualitative research. More depth on these standards can also be found in the aforementioned textbook on pages 31-34. We can see an example of interpretive theories such as the cultural approach, cultural studies, or the interactional view. As you can infer these theories are less scientific and based on interaction, culture, and perspective. Interpretive theories may involve in-depth interviews while an objective theory may focus more on surveys or data bases.

Now since I am attempting to tie sports into each blog post, I have taken two clips from the film Moneyball. For those who have not seen it I highly recommend it, between Brad Pitt’s good looks and the intriguing story about sports there is enough to keep members of both sexes interested throughout. In brief, the film is about the Oakland A’s, a small budget Major League Baseball team. Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is responsible for putting together the team of players and faces some challenges. Although the clips I am sharing do not necessarily portray particular communication theories, I feel they provide a great picture of the difference between an objective approach and an interpretive one. 

The first clip is one where Billy Beane (Pitt) is discussing with his old scouts on how the team should be built. As we can see in this clip the old scouts take a more interpretive approach to the problem They use their perception of players, socially constructed opinions and subjective ideas on how the team should be built. We hear them talking about how the girlfriends look, their confidence, jaws, etc.  Their theories address values they have, are less scientific, and focus on the opinions of the scouts rather than science or facts.

In this second clip Billy Beane is listening to a young Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) about his theory on how the team should be built. As we can see here a more objective approach is being taken. Brand’s theory is measurable, factual, scientific and predicts the future. These examples provide us evidence as to how this dichotomy between objective and interpretive is everywhere, making it crucial to understand. This is not to say that one theory is better than another, it shows that depending on the situation different theories are applicable. 

We can see objective and interpretive theories all over. Whether it is used in sports to pick your team or it is used in differentiating communication theories. I hope you now have an improved understanding of objective and interpretive theories and are able to see how they can help you not only understand communication theories but theories in general. The more (communication) theories you understand the more aware you become of any personal biases or tendencies you might have which is beneficial in communication. So the next time you are reading about a communication theory, or one of your buddies has a crazy theory about the zombie apocalypse, try and place the theory on the scale and see if it meets the standards!

Please feel free to leave me any comments, ideas, etc. for my next blog(s). Until next time, stay cool friends!

-Zach

Citation

Griffin, Em. A First Look at Communication Theory. 8th. New York: McGraw Hill, 2012. Print.

I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal....

         Okay, well maybe I'm not that big of a deal, but I do love the movie Anchorman. Anyways, welcome to my blog, whether you arrived here by accident, are a family member, classmate, or Dr. Gallagher you are here now, so no going back! I've attempted to keep a blog once before during my travels abroad and failed, but the motivation to keep this communication theory blog going is much stronger considering it makes up half of my grade for my Comm 321 course. I assume that you might want to know a little bit about me now, so let's do that. My name is Zachary Johnson, but everyone calls me either Zach or ZJ. I am 22 years old and a senior at Oregon State University where I am majoring in Political Science and minoring in Communication. I come from a very typical middle class American family with my mom and dad (still married) and two younger sisters. I was born and raised in Newberg, Oregon and until recently my entire family had lived there as well.

So why am I studying communications, well I am studying communication for many reasons, but primarily because I believe that being an effective and efficient communicator is vital to having successful relationships, a successful career, and generally success in anything really. For the duration of this blog I will be attempting to relate the communication theories and prompts with my biggest personal interest of sports, thus the name of my blog, "Sporting" a communication theory blog. I am a sports fanatic, I grew up playing basketball, soccer, football, and baseball. My favorite teams are the New England Patriots, Portland Trail Blazers and Boston Red Sox.

Outside of sports I enjoy long walks on the beach, curling up with a blanket next to a fireplace on a cold winters evening, traveling (I spent the last year abroad in England) and spending time with family and friends. I consider myself to be a very outgoing and approachable person and enjoy working in groups. My dream job would be being a General Manager for an NBA team, but I would settle for working in the public relations department for a professional sports franchise. This career goal directly relates to my interest in communication as being a skilled communicator is vital in a career in public relations. Now that I have bored you to death with information about me, I hope you will come back to read some interesting ideas and theories about how sports and communication theory tie together! I have added a few other links to my other social media accounts and a few of the sports sites I get a lot of my articles and information from if you are interested. I have also added a little video to show you exactly why I love sports so much, so enjoy. Until next time, stay cool my friends. 

- Zach

https://twitter.com/ZJ_THE_ROCK
http://espn.go.com/
http://www.sbnation.com/
http://blog.travelpod.com/members/zjohnson2332