we can haz blog?

"marijuana is a gateway drug." Not a very strong or convincing argument against doing drugs, is it? A. Lang & N. Yegiyan didn't think so, either.

The 2008 study, "Understanding the Interactive Effects of Emotional Appeal & Clain Strength in Health Messages", looks at how an audience perceives anti-drug PSAs (what are referred to as health messages). This plays right into what I want to do for my comp which will focus on creating effective PSAs.

Lang & Yegiyan investigate how PSAs can be effective and what makes them fail or even "boomerang". In this case, when a PSA boomerangs, it means that instead of decreasing or discouraging drug use, it encourages teens to try them. Not exactly worth spending large amounts of money on, which the government has been known to do. (see video)

Stop Government Spending on Anti-marijuana Propaganda

As I continue this journey into the topic of interruptions for my senior comp, I have found alot of different articles that have allowed me to have a better understanding of power dynamics and the ways in which we communicate with one another. Although I have initially looked at interruptions in general, I have found specific situational context for interruptive behavior that is very interesting and can help set up ideas for my comp. This article by Menz and Al-Roubaie looks at interruptions in doctor-patient interruptions. They are analyzing three specific ideas. One is to see if interruptions correlate with a person's gender. The second is to see the relationship between interruptions and the doctor's level of training (as either intern or senior). The last is if the length of the interview led to more interruptions. Both supportive and non-supportive interruptions were evaluated. Supportive interruptions were coded as signals of interest in what was being said, described as "physicians maintenance and co-construction of patient-initiated topics" (649). Non-supportive interruptions included violating speaker and are described as "overlapping sequences as violation to speaker's rights" (650).

Results show that doctors of either status (senior or intern) were involved in more non-supportive interruptive behavior than patients. Patients interrupt interns more than senior status doctors. Overall females in general initiated supporting interruptions more than males.

This article is important in understanding status and the role that status plays in interruptive behavior. Also, in terms of gender, this experiment shows different ways in which people interrupt and what type of interruptions occur. I like the ideas that Menz and Al-Roubaie lay out in their study and think that understanding status difference is an important factor to consider when thinking about conversational behavior in two person or group conversations. The only thing to consider is that in these interviews doctors in a hospital setting are typically not going to bring up issues in which cause argument among patients and therefore non-supportive interruptions are not going to be aggressive power displays.

As I continue my comp research, I am interested in looking into more situational context in which elicit interruptions or that look at status differences among individuals in conversation.

Menz, F. & Al-Roubaie, A. (2008). Interruptions, status, and gender in medical interviews:The harder you brake, the longer it takes. Discourse & Society, 19(5), 645-66.

The way Bauerlein continues to refer our generations as revolutionaries makes me think that I should start looking behind myself while sitting at a computer and thinking about taking cover. But I guess that would actually be what Bauerlein is suggesting is going to happen to the bibliophiles of the world when us technophiles begin to take over.

I'm pretty sure this is just some guy messing around and creating a graphic, but it's amusing nonetheless. I had brought it up a few classes ago, so i thought I'd finally post it.

http://graphjam.com/2008/10/01/song-chart-memes-facebook-wall-activity/

I will start my discussion on Chapter 3 where Rachel has ended it by thinking about the last question that she poses on changing the way we view intelligence. This struck me most on page 94 when Bauerlein says, "they navigate the multimedia like pros...they know remarkably little about the wider world, about civics, history, math, science, and foreign affair...". At this part of the chapter, like Rachel has mentioned, I just wanted to ask, why can't we change what is considered intelligent? Intelligence and the categorizes that fall under it have been constructed from somewhere and if half of the population no longer fits the mold of what was considered intelligent, then why not restructure it? Or, do you think it has already changed except for some people beyond this generation who disagree with these differences?

On the topic of libraries and the elimination of books, I have different opinions than stated in this chapter. I do agree that library books seem more deserted than they had been before computers and other technology but this is because most often, on-line articles and sources have the most recent information. Looking at books from ten years ago, especially for a topic in college courses such as Psychology, will leave a student behind and have outdated information. I do understand, especially because I would rather read something on paper, the differences that concrete text and on-line information have but, I also can see advantages of the access and current availability that the internet offers.

Also, reading a little further Bauerlein mentions internet terminals in public libraries rising each year. Although the internet may not always be used as an educational tool, I feel as if it is a good thing that so many people are using libraries for something.

One thing Prof. Knupsky said to us in our last class really stuck with me. After a certain point, having an excess of statistics loses your reader as well as the meaning/argument.

Reading through the first several pages of Chapter 3 once again featured statistic after statistic, and I don't know if it was because of my less than ideal state of sleep deprivation that my attention span and cognitive abilities are limited, but I feel as though I could have skipped the first ten pages without any real trouble, as he doesn't get to his own argument until "That's the claim" on page 84. Did we really need 12 pages of introductions and statistics before he got to what he really wanted to talk about?

Anyway, I, like Rachel, found that my reactions to this chapter were somewhat choppy and therefore may require some bullet points.

The article that I focus on for this Exploring the Field talks about the difference in interruptive behavior and status differences in group conversations. Because men are viewed as being in positions of dominance, Smith-Lovin & Brody hypothesized that men will interrupt most often, regardless of who they are talking to. Researchers found that interruptions were not as common as they had expected. They found that males interrupt females but not other males. Females were found to interrupt equally for both males and females. The results show that men may interrupt more often due to expectation states framework which suggests that males use their status as a status diffentiation and therefore attempt to dominate men. Women, on the other hand, are inferior to men and therefore interrupt equally, knowing that they hold this position.

Although this article looks specifically at group conversations, I believe that it will extend to my experiment even between 2-person conversations. I am still in the process of deciding on a clear topic however I am interested in extending a previous comp by looking just at male participants (the previous, just female). After filling out a questionairre related to gender, I will see a range of gender associations within men and will be able to see behaviors across gender. So this article will help me in the process by understanding the role that sex plays in language behavior. I will look at gender specifically to see if the same is true across gender. If this is the case I would find that men who identify as more masculine will interrupt men who identify as more feminine.

Another aspect of my project that I need to consider is the situation I am going to present to the participants. As this article has said, interruptions are not as common in conversations as one might think. Because of this I have to set up a situation in which is going to elicit strong opinions so that interruptions can occur. With a good situation or question and a time restraint, the occurance of interruptions is greater.

For my final exploring the field entry, I want to talk about an article that gives me hope that sarcasm actually will occur in the conversations I will be setting up for my comp next year. At the same time, it also makes me rethink my design and makes me wonder if perhaps I want to use friends AND "strangers", or some different combination of participants, but that is something for me to ponder about over the summer and not something to ramble on about here. The main focus about Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr.'s article Irony in Talk Among Friends for me was the overwhelming prevalence of sarcastic exchanges in conversations between college student's and their friends.

Pretty sad stuff, huh? A mom with lung cancer who isn't going to be there for her child because she didn't stop smoking, making a home movie in her living room for her baby. It literally almost made me cry. I'm kind of a softy, though.