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[tkmike957]

5 Tips for Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships Through CMC

Relationships. Require. Work.

To believe that relationships can be established in a day, and effortlessly carried on to the next without some form of maintenance would be plain silly. The magnitude to which we maintain our relationships often determines the strength of those relationships. I challenge you to attempt a serious romantic relationship without some form of regular contact with that person. It will not succeed.

This principle of relational maintenance can be carried into every successful relationship we want to have: with our significant others, family members and our friends. This post will explore relational maintenance in these relationships through the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC).

There are 5 different types of relational maintenance strategies. These are positivity, openness, assurances, sharing tasks, and networking. For the purpose of our discussion, we will temporarily omit sharing tasks. For those that do not know, positivity is an online compliment or comment, openness being self-disclosure through a message, assurances are the posting and/or tagging of someone important on social media, sharing tasks could be a group blog post, and networking in the CMC world often involves tagging two different people of two different worlds on the same post.

1. Send that Text!

Often times we wonder if it is a good idea to send a text message to a friend going through a difficult time. We wonder, “do they need another person to text them?”  assuming that they have already received texts from other people. In a study done at a large southwestern university called, “1ts gt 2gthr l8r: Text Messaging as a Relational Maintenance Tool”, (for those of you who don’t read fancy schmancy computer lingo, that reads ‘Let’s Get Together Later’…) it was found that text messaging is an effective way to create relational assurance in our friendships (Brody, 2009). A simple text message asking how someone is doing or a “hey man, if there’s anything I can do, let me know - I gotchu” shows that you value the relationship and more importantly, you value your friend. Furthermore, this creates an opportunity for openness in our communication that would not have been there otherwise. So do yourself a favor and send that text!

2. Group Texting ≠ Happy Relationships

Although group texting can be beneficial in some relational maintenance efforts, more often than not people might hate you for starting them. The aforementioned article found that group texting was best used for sharing tasks, not benefitting and maintaining interpersonal friendships (Brody, 2009). For those of you who start group texts all the time, you know who you are, STOP IT! The study that was conducted found that group texts can actually move away from openness and assurance in relationships. Realistically, you might lose friends. Just kidding… but seriously… group texts can be pretty annoying.

3. Love is patient, love is kind, love is….. OPEN

According to a study done by Marian L. Houser, Christina Fleuriet, & Dawn Estrada, openness is one of the most important pieces of maintaining romantic relationships online. This is done in many different ways, whether it be an email, an in-depth post, or a simple picture post; but it was found most effective through instant messaging or texting mainly due to the synchronous (real-time) nature of this medium (Estrada 2012). With the abundant use of our smartphones, texting and instant messaging is happening every moment of every day. Now with inventions like speech-to-text, and even sending voice recordings instantly, the bar set for openness through CMC is only increasing.

4. 🎶 Give a little bit of your love ONLINE. 🎶

    One of the other main points in this study was the fact that women use online relational maintenance tools more frequently than men (Estrada 2012). Men, what’s up with that? It’s because of those few very active yet very passive men online that taint the expectation of our actions for the rest of us! The gap between men and women’s use of CMC and relational maintenance was found across the board, in all of the 5 different maintenance strategies. The study “The Cyber Factor: An Analysis of Relational Maintenance Through the Use of Computer-Mediated Communication” came to the conclusion that married couples and couples in deep romantic relationships may feel more comfortable expressing things through CMC rather than face to face, but this is merely an exception to the finding. Bottom line is; men, try harder and give a little bit! But for now, girls you run this!

5. Families need love too!   

We know that families and technology don’t often mix well. I mean, us millennials have to deal with the burden of being our family’s tech support most of the time, and then when they do figure it out, they constantly bombard us with texts and calls at inopportune moments expecting us to reply right away. Despite this, maintaining family relationships is important, and you shouldn’t just act cold towards your mom all the time after missing over 20 calls from her. Instead, you should have an honest conversation with them where you all set reasonable expectations for online communication with each other so you’re not at each other’s throats all the time. If you already had this conversation, it probably happened after a significant conflict with your family, which follows the multi-theory model. It may be too late for you now, but if and when you decide to start a family, try to hold an honest conversation that sets reasonable expectations for technology usage with them. Your children won’t end up hating you and thinking you’re lame, and you’ll likely have a better chance of maintaining a good relationship with them.

References

Brody, N., Mooney, C. M., Westerman, S. A., & McDonald, P. G. (2009). 1ts gt 2gthr 18r: Text Messaging as a Relational Maintenance Tool. Kentucky Journal Of Communication, 28(2), 109-127.

Hertlein, K. M. (2012). Digital Dwelling: Technology in Couple and Family Relationships. Family Relations, 61(3), 374–387. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2012.00702.x

Estrada, D. Fleurient, C. Houser M. L. (2012). The Cyber Factor An Analysis of Relational Maintenance Through the Use of Computer-Mediated Communication. Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 29(1), 34-43. file:///C:/Users/timek/Documents/Misc%20CSUF%20Work/Relational%20Maintenance%20CMC%20.pdf

[tkmike957]

Intimacy

This week my post will be discussing intimacy through an article by Pettman and tying that into the 2013 movie “Her” directed by Spike Jonze. This movie for those of you that don’t know, this movie centers on a man (Theo) that has recently gone through a divorce and is lonely. This loneliness has driven him to purchase a new Operating system (Samantha) that seems to think for itself and Theo thus begins to fall in love with his OS and eventually leads to complications. This idea of love is something that Pettman discusses in his article. Pettman says the idea of love has an overwhelming gravitas over the words “I” and “You” in the overall statement of “I love you”. This is particularly interesting when sized up with the movie Her because of the fact the statement “I love you” was never truly said. In the movie there was a scene were Samantha asked Theo to say the words “I love you” but never did and I believe that had a lot to do with his confusion with the relationship between the “I” and “you”. Pettman goes on to explain how the statement of “I love you” demands action or a response. This would mean that once those three words were said by Theo, this would force him and Samantha to act their “relationship” publicly thus putting themselves on display as a couple. Acting as a couple in a public setting would indeed be very difficult task because many would argue that the two (Theo and Samantha) are not in fact in a true relationship. I would be one of these people.

This idea of being a true couple or not brings me to my next point from Pettman being, do you love technology or what technology can do for you. Pettman takes this idea of love and names it a love vector. This is extremely enticing to me personally because I do not believe Theo and Samantha were truly in love because they literally could not be. Samantha was created as a service to its user and to be there for its user. The operating system was created and coded by a developer and later even deeper coded based on the responses the user gives upon initial set up. Also an important point I believe should be made is that in my opinion Samantha’s only “feelings” all stem and are surrounded by those that Theo has. She has not forged her own individual identity, it was formed around Theo’s identity and all of his feelings. In other words Samantha was only able to respond or react and not create feelings entirely on her own. Furthermore, I believe that Pettman would consider Theo and Samantha’s relationship purely as a love vector and not as true love.

[tkmike957]

Social Media Movements

This week I will be focusing my post on social media movements. I very unfortunately will not be linking this weeks post to my project regarding musicians, bands and their fans but instead I have picked a social media movement. I have decided to focus on the #metoo movement that is taking over the internet. But first I’d like to talk about an article that I read written by Evgeny Morozov. Morozov talks about determinism but more specifically technological determinism vs social determinism. Technological determinism is when technology influences or creates society. This is interesting because this ideal means that each advance in technology has forced society to change. An example would be when society went from the radio to the television. These technologies changed the way people consumed entertainment, and that change was due to the technology itself and nothing more. On the other hand we have social determinism and this is where society shapes itself. Where technology shapes society in technological determinism, the opposite is true for social determinism. Society shapes and creates technology. An example of this is the way society wanted a way to share music and videos in the simplest way possible so YouTube was born. The important thing that Morozov points out is that neither of these are absolutely correct because they both do not take every minute detail into consideration.

Now the #metoo campaign, for those of you that do not know what it is I shall provide you with a brief summary. The #metoo campaign is a way for women, and now men, to come out and speak about their abuses whether it be sexual harassment, rape, physical abuse or anything of the sort. Actress Alyssa Milano started this hashtag on twitter and it has since received 1.7 million tweets and has reached 85 countries. There are several different levels of this movement that interest me and the first is the way this has gained popularity. Another article by Sarah Jackson and Brooke Foucault discuss the early initiators and the networked counterpublic. In this situation Alyssa Milano would be the early initiator and all of those that have stood up and spoken out have been the networked counterpublic and that is regardless of their class or social standing. Often times these counterpublics are not of celebrity stature, but those that encounter the situation or news first hand. The #metoo campaign has raised several questions in my mind and one of those aided by my HCOM 315 class. Is the #metoo campaign raising awareness? And at what point does it become activism if at all? I had to think long and hard about this question but I do believe I have found one of many possible answers. The #metoo campaign was created to raise awareness, but due to the fact that there is no one person responsible that we can blame, maybe the awareness has become the activism. This would be the case if the intent was to relieve those that have experienced any type of abuse or to simply join together. Regardless the networked counterpublics have created a safe place to share thus turning the awareness into activism.

The final piece I would like to add is that the #metoo act was a combination of both technological and social determinism. I believe it is both because without the people, society, experiencing these abuses there would be nothing to share. But on the same token, without twitter there would be no simple accessible way for such a large group of individuals to speak up and join together. If anyone at all has been abused, please join the community and just #metoo.

[tkmike957]

Labor

This week I will be focusing my post on labor. I will be using parts of Duffy’s article on aspirational labor using the ideas of authenticity of realness and devotion to brands. As you know I have been following a huge variety of music related social media accounts and today I will be referencing two different ones to prove the points that duffy made in her article. First off I’d like to very briefly explain that aspirational labor is more of this “uncompensated” work that does not exactly fit into the mold of a job. This has taken an interesting shape thanks to social media because it has made the DWYL (Do What You Love) aspirations so much more prominent in today’s society. Next let’s focus on the authenticity of realness which is seen through the account I follow @dicogrohl. This idea of authenticity of realness is all about the way that celebrities will make themselves seem like the everyday individual, but in fact are well above the every day person. @discogrohl has lots of posts showing this lately due to the Foo Fighters recent show at Cal Jam 2017 where front man Dave Grohl camped out with his fans in his Volkswagen bus instead of in his trailer or even a fancy hotel. A short side bar on this is that I personally believe that Dave Grohl is the epitome of this ideal highlighted by Duffy because he is constantly dressing “normal”, speaking to press in a very casual way, and surprising his fans with very up close and personal interactions such as going to the Metallica concert at the rose bowl and standing in the pit rather than watching from back stage like most famous people would. Is this authentic or is Dave Grohl just catering to his fan base? I personally believe he is being authentic and sincere because of his upbringing which I can delve deeper in next time.

Devotion to brand is a very interesting topic in the music world because of all the sponsorships that are available by companies in today’s music industry. There are two accounts that I will be referencing to help support Duffy and those are @tristankelly, beat of the day drummer, and Mike Johnston @drumteacher76. These two drummers are Meinl cymbal artists, meaning meinl cymbals provides them with whatever they need as long as the artists advertise for them. Just today @meinlcymbals reposted a video by @drumteacher76 where he explained his cymbal set up and what he used on his latest album. This Is free publicity for meinl cymbals because they do not have to pay him for anything extra or anything other than provide him with the equipment he needs to continue to publicize their brand. The other part of devotion to brand that duffy talks about is that the influencers really show what is in and what people should be using, wearing or doing. I have seen this very clearly with @tristankelly because for years he was a zildjian artist, but once he reached a certain number of followers and videos meinl cymbals reached out to him and offered him a sponsorship. By accepting this it made many drummers question what product they were using and if they had the best thing at the time. Devotion to brand can heavily influence the music community in a blink of an eye, this is something I have first hand experience with being a drummer.

[tkmike957]

ONLINE MINORITIES

Today’s topic, online minorities. This topic on face value is quite difficult to link to the musicians and bands that I’ve been following but I will be linking them through culture and I love to think that Rock music has become its own subculture within the huge culture of music. In order to break this down I want to focus on shared taste, shared vernacular which add up to make a shared ideology. The band I am going to focus on today is Rush and the account is @rush and @rushfans. With Rush, shared vernacular is a very very big point and I believe that one of their logos (the 2112 logo) is a perfect example. To any person on the street, it looks just like a pentagram which has very bad connotations to most people, and also In the logo is a naked man which is simply weird and stands out. To Rush fans this is more than a logo, this means something. To Rush fans this logo represents the man vs the masses and it represents the struggles the band has gone through and how much pressure every day “working men” go through from the masses or authority. One more piece of shared vernacular in the Rush world is something I have already mentioned, 2112. To literally everyone that isn’t a part of this subculture that is just the number two thousand one hundred twelve, to every rush fan it is twenty one twelve, one of the most pivotal albums for the band rush ever.

The other part of this is the shared taste. Something that I find interesting about the Rush community is their other musical tastes and influences. It seems almost as if everyone listens to the same groups and bands such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Van Halen, The Police. This is seen through my own personal experience being in the “inner circle” if you will. Also there is an overwhelming amount of the subculture that are educated highly or at the least well-read and this is due to the complexity of their music and intricacy of their lyrics. This is interesting to point out because this is something else that the Rush subculture alone can share. Expanding the subculture to Rock music, I want to point out that this group of people dress a certain way. This group is very much the jeans and T-shirt crowd and I like pointing that out because this subculture has not changed very much throughout the years. As previously stated, I love thinking of rock music as a subculture because in my heart and mind, rock music deserves its own personality and category.

[tkmike957]

GENDER

This week’s post shall be focused on gender. This is a subject that can be broken down into several different ways but today I’ll be focusing on postfeminism as individualism and a little bit on how the accounts I follow have begun to break the mold of gender differences. Lets get started with individualism which includes choice and empowerment. Gill states that individualism is the process and choice to be oneself and to please oneself. A perfect embodiment of this is none other than Front lady Lizzy Hale from the band Halestorm. As seen above, Lizzy hale does exactly what she wants in a field predominantly run by men. I personally love that she does not shy away of being herself in the studio, on stage, and real life. Lizzy takes a strong stand for all women that want to take charge in a world run predominantly by men in powerful positions. Her unwillingness to back down in this realm of work Gill would call a leader in postfeminine sensibility. I would also like to link her very briefly to what Gill calls the sexualization of culture, this being how the public views a woman and her body. Lizzy Hale does not seem to feel obligated to wear feminine clothes or to act more feminine simply because she is a woman. She seems to break the mold so far as recently cutting her hair short which I find profoundly important because of how we as society naturally attach long hair as a feminine trait.

On the other side of this is the front lady in the band Halocene, Addie Nicole. Addie and Lizzy are very similar as they command rock bands in a time where men are usually the ones with this role and this much power. But the both of them own the stage just as much as any other musician. Something I find very important is where Lizzy doesn’t conform or mold her figure in a very feminine way, I see that Addie does portray herself in a very feminine way. Above we can see how she uses her bands page to promote her image and her friend’s make-up and hair talents on herself. She has even posted health and fitness pictures of how she stays in shape, this to me is a way that she uses the sexualization of culture in a way that we are more familiar being that she uses her health, make up, and hair in a daily focus for people to see. Although these two are on very different sides of the spectrum I do believe it is important to point out how music has been able to transcend what we know as gender norms and really break the mold giving everyone a shot at the same thing as long as everyone works hard to get there and finally how both of these women do what they can to show that women have just as powerful of a voice as everyone else!

[tkmike957]

FRIENDSHIP

Today my focus will be on friendship. Such a simple term and what seems like such a simple idea is much more complex than many of us ever realized. Along with this, social media has made friendships that much harder to examine, understand, and classify. Classification of friendships is something that I will be discussing, along with our personal intentions with the friendships entering them and after enduring them for some time. After reading articles by Bloor and Deresiewicz we know that friendships have dramatically changed over the course of history from close immediate blood all the way to what we have now which are friendship circles. We also know that there are two major types of friendship, one being an instrumental friendship and the other being a social friendship. Two very different types of friendship which tend to overlap quite a bit. For those that don’t know, an instrumental friendship is one where there is give and take, one that is for primarily business. The social friendship is one that you have just because you enjoy it, with no real intentions other than caring for that other person.

Both of these types of friendships can be seen in the social media accounts I have started following. It is incredibly interesting to me that there are two distinct levels of these friendships. One level is that you can see the instrumental and social relationships in the Celebrity’s/musicians life, and from the outside you can see our (the viewer/followers) instrumental and quasi social friendships with the musicians. There are two pictures from @foofightersteam that express this rather simply. The first is that of front-man Dave Grohl singing with model and songwriter Taylor Greenwood. This is an example of an instrumental relationship because these two did not know each other too well before this concert and they had met just for a song in the setlist and that’s about all as far as we, the fans, know. The other picture is a picture of drummer Taylor Hawkins hugging front-man Dave Grohl after one of their shows. Although we know they are a part of a band and that part can be seen as an instrumental friendship, the two genuinely care for each other and love playing together which transcends this from an instrumental friendship to that of a social friendship that is seen in that picture.

The last thing that I found incredibly interesting was the way that the fans view their relationships with these musicians. It seems by the content and captions of all the pages as if the fans and page creators have this social friendship. Some of the post are done in a matter where it seems that these fans know the musicians but looking from the outside it is nothing more than an instrumental relationship. As Deresiewicz stated, we now look for relationships that justify our actions or feelings and I think that is all that is going on here. The fans use the musicians as justifications for their feelings or use them as something to look forward or up to and the musicians simply gain a following and more publicity.

[tkmike957]

Intro!

During this semester I am going to study how musicians, bands, and their fan clubs interact with their followers to continue to keep their interest in their product and music. Musicians and bands need to be able to reach out to their fans in all different ways, and with social media being one of the biggest ways to advertise in today’s society, those musicians and bands that are relevant today need to actively participate in the use of social media. Along with advertising, social media is the easiest way to reach and connect with fans. In the past one of the few ways of connecting with fans was at a concert before or after they performed or simply by word of mouth. Today social media has simplified this completely by making Q&A sessions incredibly easy to create and fan led interviews that were once a dream, a reality. I would be following Foo Fighters, Rush, Royal Blood, and Metallica and their respective fan clubs because they need to expand their following as many believe they are past their prime. These groups are great to their fans and I think would be perfect for analyzing. As far as fan clubs, I will be following pages @discogrohl @foofightersteam @metallicadaily @digitalmenpodcast among a few others for a couple of reasons. Some of these reasons being that the majority of them post daily or at least a few times a week and I will be able to track what these groups post over time. Along with these groups I have chosen to follow a couple of online “Role Players” because they completely diminish the thought of celebrity by in fact acting as the celebrity. By following both fan clubs and the groups/musicians I can follow and see how these groups diminish the celebrity mold.