PM dynamics: October 2004 Archives

Today's google search:

A media and communication research textbook using a more generalized application of the term. James and my sense is restricted to linguistic/discursive communication. Most of our examples have been face-to-face, although I've got at least one from online CMC (computer-mediated communication).

An historical example? William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation, reviewed by Phillip Gould, who notes how Bradford situates tensions in the historical denoument (?) of Puritanism as "problematic moments in interpreting providence". This might qualify as an historical example, however I don't know if he provides specifically situated instances of actual dialogic interaction.

Maya Gotz counterposes "problematic moments" with "positive" ones in children's media programming. This is definitely counter to our conception, where there is both "positive" and "negative" potential in a PM....positive implying recognition of the presence of two or more discourses and an attempt to deal with them, negative implying dialogic repression and the repeat of historical patterns.

I'll present on this for Max's class Monday. It pushes me to get some more serious prep in mind for this spring's small group communication class. James and Vangie have their site up now, for Chaos Management. It might be one of the best resources for group relations type info on the web. I'll check out the AKRice Institute too...undoubtedly, these are the two most significant influences upon me in this area.

Class (as in our group of students and professor, smile) seemed more energetic last night than prevously. We've had good discussions all along, but last nght we got into some moments of...debate...(?)...I'm not sure how to characterize it. Lisa pushed me pretty hard, I guess she thinks I can take it. ;-) Lynn too cautioned about conflation - generalizing statements about one (socioeconomic) class to others. It's definitely an area I need to work on - articulating (verbally) my intuitions about how things "go together" (articulate, smile) in a more precise manner. Lisa thought I was getting too abstract at one point; in my mind, I was trying to pinpoint how an embodied subject (me, or you, grin) might notice - capture? - themselves in a moment of acting out a particular class subjectivity, perpetuating the on-going formation of class in terms of the status quo.

I attended part of Robyn's workshop on observation supervision, and can see immediately why so many people have told me to check out her work. There are definitely many overlaps. :-)

Demands are, simply, those tasks required of the job itself. Controls are the decisions one takes/makes to manage the delivery of these tasks.

Controls sound a lot like regulation in the Vygotskian sense (see previous post). Robyn described them as "decisions, actions, and attitudes - even recognizing a demand is a control" (not necessarily an exact quote, smile). There seems to be an implication that these controls are conscious? Since I don't know the whole theory, I may be speculating way "out of turn" (surprise!), but it seems like putting the two approaches into dialogue with each other might be really productive. For instance, does demand-control theory itself recognize that some controls are unconscious (meaning habitual or reactive)?

Between the process mediation workshop and Betty's poster session on self-regulation, I finally have a conceptual understanding of inhibiting) one's own desires.