Caps #5, A Little Delayed...

My favorite TV show at the moment, Parks & Recreation, features vast diversity and plays on stereotypes in society. The popular sitcom takes place in Pawnee, Indiana and stars actors including Amy Poehler, Aziz Ansari, and Rob Lowe (among more bigger names in Hollywood). The characters in the show are  full of fascination and overtime we get to learn more about their personalities.  

From the book, on U.S. popular culture and power, “we need to think about not only how people interpret and consume popular culture but also how these popular culture texts represent particular groups in specific ways” (Martin & Nakayama 2012).

Leslie Knope, played by Amy Poehler, is a strong, imaginative feminist who works 140% at her job as Deputy Director for Pawnee Parks and Recreation. The stereotype of the boss-lady is portrayed through her character with a hint of humor. She is overly-excited by the world of politics and is surprised in this episode with an engagement gift of meeting the Vice President of the United States. She practically hyperventilates in her interaction with him. She touches his face and tells him he’s very handsome.  Her overly exaggerated excitement provides nonstop entertainment.

A reinforce of stereotypes the media helps portray is in the all-American department director, Ron Swanson. His passion for bacon, guns, and breakfast in general is evident as the episodes progress. He talks about going to a restaurant called JJ’s to distract Leslie with waffles. The ambivalent mixture of the manly, tough, no emotion American man with the cleverness of a love for meat makes him a lovable character.

A t-shirt for sale featuring Ron Swanson

There is a common theme of outrageous situations, outlandish ideas, and moments that make you cringe and say, “no way would that happen in real life!” The situations are ever-changing and always grab your attention. I can’t wait to sit down on Thursday nights with my boyfriend and watch it.

References:
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. Chicago: McGraw Hill.

Kelsey Fuehrer- Friendships

Friendship is a very important relationship for many people. While some have lots of friends, others, like me, are okay with just having one or two close friends. Martin and Nakayama state that intercultural relationships can be both personal and contextual there are some things that are personal and stay the same in every situation, and some things depend on context. I grew up with many friends who were different than I. Most of my friends have been of different races or cultural backgrounds. One of these was very different than I in every aspect. We are of different races, religious backgrounds, morals and values, and different cultures, yet we seemed to get along just fine. How we interacted really did depend on the situation. Some things were always the same between us, for example we used to always crack jokes about how different we were, other of our interactions depended on the context of the situation. There were several times when we would be around each others families and we would both make an effort to respect and follow some of their family and cultural norms. She is from a family and a background where they believe that the women should do the work and the men should be served, it was sometimes hard for me to not speak up about this but I would always respect their way of life. And after we would go through these times where we might have felt uncomfortable we would talk about it and talk about how we are different, and yes we would usually end up cracking some joke about the awkward difference. It seems weird to look back at our friendship now, because I'm sure that people would look at us and think how can they possibly be friends when they are just so different. Somehow though we seemed to make it work and always had fun with each other. Over time it got less uncomfortable and awkward when we were around each others families but it never totally went away.

Reference:
Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural Communication in Contexts.Chicago: McGraw Hill.

CAPS #6 Krista Mansfield

Friendships, overtime, develop in intimacy, which results in friends sharing more personal and private information (Martin & Nakayama 403).


Danielle and I met back in 2008 at a barbeque restaurant in Lee's Summit, MO. We were both servers and she would tell me stories about her love life and past relationships with boys. I would always listen intently, rarely adding advice, but more of just being a friend to hear her out. The conversations were always so lively and fun, and we started to hang out outside of work. We talked on the phone, visited each other at work, ate sushi... so many activities! I noticed our friendship over time becoming more genuine and authentic. And the more I learned about her, the more I adored her!

 Kurt Lewin and his proposal on the self in regard to the personal/private self consists of three circles that represent the three areas of information shared overtime in a relationship.

The first circle he describes includes superficial information, such as daily life, common interests, and other basic topics. I identified the communication between Danielle and me during our first interactions as in the first circle.

The second circle is on a more personal level-- including family background, or past experiences. Once Danielle and I first met, the conversation, while never dull, slowly transitioned from more basic things to more intimate details about our lives. The final core is the inner core. This is a private and personal information that some share with no one. I know we have had some serious talks about sensitive subjects and life-changing experiences. I know I can count on her to keep my deepest secrets, and I am always there to keep hers.

References

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural Communication in Contexts. Chicago: McGraw Hill.

Nurul CAPS Blog #6

One of the meanings of friendship.

                Friendship is one of important aspects in everyone's life. Just imagine for a while what would happen if we do not have friends for the rest of our life? To live without friends as companion must be tough and difficult. As relationships develop an intimacy, friends share more personal and private information (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 395). Most people have friends from different backgrounds, races, religions, and others because nowadays we are living in a very diverse community. The value of friendship for each group or society is also different depending on cultural contextual. 

We have friends from different background, ethnicity, religion, sex, and race.

          I have a great friend named Kee Hee. Even though we have a lot of differences, we could get along very well  until now. Both of us come from different ethnicity and region. My race is Malay while she is a Chinese. The Malays are the race of people who inhibit the Peninsular Malaysia and portions of adjacent islands of Southeast Asia, including the east coast of Sumatra, the coast of Borneo, and smaller islands that lie between these areas (Zain, 2012). People could tell our differences just by looking at our physical appearances and skin colors. She has a very fair skin while I am a little  bit tan. One of dialectical tensions experienced by both of us is privileged-disadvantage dialectic.  Because she is a Chinese, she could speak Mandarin very well. When I hang out together with her friends, I always feel inferior because I could not understand what they are talking about. Luckily, she is willing to translate them into English so that I could understand their conversation. People may be simultaneously privileged and disadvantaged, or privileged in some contexts and disadvantaged in other (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 391). 

My close friend, Kee Hee is a Chinese. 

         We both also have different personalities and interests. My major is psychology while she is majoring in political science. I like reading and observing so I decided to major in psychology. She likes politic very much that she always talking about it every time we meet each other. Even though I am not really interested in politics, I do gain a lot of updates about politic from her. Because we both are majoring in different areas, we always have many ideas and thoughts to be shared together. We share a lot of things including personal problems and secrets. I have to agree that self-disclosure is what brings us closer from day to day. Self-disclosure is revealing information about oneself (Martin & Nakayama, 2012, p. 399). Currently we are separating for a while because she chose to study in Illinois. But we do keep in touch through Facebook and sometimes we make video call through Skype to maintain our friendship.

References

Martin, J.N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts (6th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw Hill. 

Zain, S. (2012). A history of Malay Peninsula. [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/malays.htm

Gatson CAPS#6

Self-disclosure is the revealing of information about oneself.  (Martin & Nakayama, 2012) It is also the key component to intimacy.  Kurt Lewin proposed three models of intimacy: superficial, personal, and private.  With each circle that is entered, obviously more in information is revealed.  Much like the process used to extract oil, reaching the “inner core” is a long process.  You have to go through the surface followed by layers, each one more dense and hard to break than the last.  Sometimes you have to wait a while and let things settle and adjust before digging out more.  And then there are the times where you just cant reach the core.  Both of these processes take patience and time. 

I met my best friend Haley at the age of five, we met but we were not best friends.  We belonged to the same church and always were in the same groups and choirs growing up.  We were acquaintances in the outer circle and it stayed that way until last year when she was my sister’s roommate.  The night we moved in we went out for ice cream and by the end of our walk to Ivanna Cone we reached the middle circle as time went on we became best friends. I personally am not very guarded.  Whatsoever. However Haley is very guarded.  We live together in a condo, live across the hall, share a bathroom the whole nine yards and still I am just now breaking through to the inner core. 

Note the brass knuckles:)

Haley is 20 and one year older than me.  Haley’s style is the edgy side of Urban Outfitters with leather, dark color schemes and studs whereas I bright colors and floral flowy skirts.  Her phone case is a brass knuckle and mine is a squishy pink. In the style department we couldn’t be more different.  Most people, upon meeting Haley tell her they are intimidated by how she dresses.

Haley’s personality is harder and can seem insensitive to those who don’t know her, most people would consider me soft and thoughtful.  However morally we agree on the same things, we are both extremely optimistic and love making the mundane fun, like two days ago her car go towed, we ended up laughing about the whole   thing instead of getting mad, and we both want to move to the east coast etc.

It wasn’t until this chapter that I really thought about the levels of intimacy and self-disclosure. I loved learning about the 3 circles this chapter.  It helps me see how I interact with people and I can evaluate where I am in the current relationships.       

Refernces:                                 

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultural communication in contexts 6th edition. Boston, MA: McGraw Hill. 

Schwarting - CAPS 6

What makes a person a friend is that friends share more personal and private information (Martin & Nakayam, 2012). According to Kurt Lewin (1948), friendship came be divided into three circles of depth.  The first circle is the outer boundary that includes superficial information.  The middle circle includes more personal information like history and family background.  Lastly, the middle circle is the most personal of information.  Sometimes we do not share this information with anyone.  European Americans disclose a wide range of superficial information but do not give out personal information very easily while Latino/a, Asian American and African American students give out very little information (Collier, 1996).

Murphy and myself

My best friend, Murphy, and I have know each other since freshman year of college.  We are in a group called enactus, formally known as SIFE, together, we are roommates, and have the same mentality.  We are very similar, but then again, very different.  We experienced the differences-similarities dialectic.  What made me first become friends with her is because of the similarity principle.  We both were in enactus together, both freshman, both business administration majors and taking the same classes.  I had a lot in common with her which made us a have a understanding and a want to get to know each other better.  Once we started to dive in to our relationship, we learned much more about each other that would differentiate ourselves. 

I would later find out that she was from Janesville Wisconsin, had a younger sister and brother, and was in a sorority.  Little by little we would share more about ourselves and the moment that I felt a true connection with her is when we were in Chicago for an enactus competition.  We were on the train going into downtown Chicago when she shared with me that she had lost her mother to cancer when she was in the 5^th grade.  I did not know it then but what she had just told me would explain the way her personality is, how she acts and the drive behind all of her hard work.

Murphy and I on the left at relay for life

Murphy is a motivated, very hard working and independent woman.  She does not rely on anyone but herself but is willing to give her time and effort to anyone who needs help.  She had to be independent and grow up very fast since she was the oldest child and had to help her father raise her siblings.  Living with her, I have learned she is very direct and to the point about things because that is the way her father ran his business and their household. 

Our history is different but our paths are the same.  We both want to help cancer patients by providing them nannies to help alleviate the stress of everyday life while going through chemo.  We both want to graduate and go on to work for successful business firms and we both want to someday have a family and be a mother.  So, even though we are very different in the way we act, talk or think, we share a common goal which makes us best friends.

Knowing the different dialects of communication helps you understand people better.  Since I realized Murphy had a very different upbringing then I did, I did not get upset when she turned down an idea I would have and she doesn’t get upset with me when I beat around the bush.  Being able to see the different dialectics makes you communicate and have better relationships with people who are different then you.  I am very grateful for all the relationships I have in my life that make me more knowledgeable and understanding person.     

References:

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama, T. K. (2012). Intercultrural Communication in Contexts. Chicago: McGraw Hill.