Group Communication

Group Communication

1. Group: a small collection of people whoes members interact with one another, usually face-to-face in order to reach goals.

   • Interaction, interdependence, time, and size
   • When is a group a team?
     • Clear and inspiring shared goals, a results-driven structure, competent team members, unifed commitment, collaborative climate, standards of excellence, external support and recognition, principled leadership.
   • Virtual Group: people who interact with one another via mediated channels, without meeting face to face.
     • I met my two best friends over Tumblr because we all had blogs dedicated to Marvel, and they live in Australia, so I haven't met them yet.
     • Group Goals: goals that a group collectively seeks to accomplish.
       • Individual Goals: individual motives for joining a group.
         • Hidden Agendas: individual goals that group members are unwilling to reveal.

2. Social Loafing: the tendency of some people to do less work as group members than they would as individuals

   • Rule: An explicit, officially stated guideline that governs group functions and member behavior.
   • Norms: shared values, beliefs, behaviors, and procedures that govern a groups operation.
     • Social Norms: group norms that govern the way members relate to one another.
     • Procedural Norms: Norms that describe rules for the groups operations.
       • Task Norms: group norms that govern the way members handle the job at hand.

3. Sociogram: a graphic representation of the interaction patterns in a group.

   • all-channel network: a communication network pattern in which group members are frequently together and share all information with one another.
     • Chain Network: a communication network in whcih information passes sequentially from one member to another
       • Wheel Network: A communication network in which a gatekeeper regulates the flow of information from all other members
         • Gatekeeper: person in a small group through whom communication among other members flow.
           • Roles: the patterns of behavior expected of group members.
             • Formal Role: a role assigned to a person by group members or an organization, usually to establish order.
               • Trait theories of leadership: a school of thought based on the belief that some people are born to be leaders and others are not.
             • Informal Role: a role usually not explicitly recognized by a group that describes functions of group members, rather than their positions.
           • Task Roles: roles group members take on in order to help solve a problem.
             • Social Roles: emotional roles concerned with maintaining smooth personal relationships among group members
               • Dysfunctional Roles: individual roles played by group members that inhibit the group's effective operation.

4. Transformational Leaders: defined by their devotion to help a team fulfill an important mission.

   • Emergent leaders: a member who assumes leadership roles without being appointed by higher ups.