A First Look At Communication Theory, 10e (Griffin)
Chapter 6 Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM)
1) Artist M. C. Escher’s lithograph Bond of Union strikingly illustrates the core claims of
coordinated management of meaning (CMM). It depicts how persons-in-conversation are making
the social worlds of which they are a part. Identify one of the parallels between the depiction and
the theory.
A) The mood and manner that persons-in-conversation adopt play an insignificant role in the
process of social construction.
B) The way people communicate is far less important than the content of what they say.
C) An individual’s social world is something he or she finds or discovers.
D) The experience of persons-in-conversation is the primary social process of human life.
2) In the context of the seven types of stories identified in the LUUUUTT model, which of the
following best describes “untold stories”?
A) what one chooses not to say
B) what one says that isn’t heard or acknowledged
C) stories that are forbidden or too painful for people to tell
D) information that is missing
3) Which of the following statements is true about the serpentine model?
A) The model directs one’s attention to the “back and forthness” of social interaction.
B) The model fails to analyze a conversation to map out its history.
C) This model is similar to the standard one-way message transmission model of
communication.
D) This model fails to capture the repetitive patterns that either benefit or pollute the social
environment.
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4) Dialogic communication:
A) means that you approximate the process of communication favored by Socrates in the
dialogues of Plato.
B) is defined as a conversation in which parties remain in the tension between holding their own
perspective while being profoundly open to the other.
C) means that you control persons-in-communication, thereby establishing both coordination and
coherence.
D) means that you encourage stories lived and stories told but carefully avoid stories untold,
stories unknown, and stories unheard.
5) Martin Buber, a German Jewish philosopher and theologian, contrasted two types of
relationships between people—I-It versus I-Thou. Identify a true statement about an I-It
relationship.
A) Individuals create this relationship through dialogue.
B) Individuals seek to experience the relationship as it appears to the other person.
C) In an I-It relationship, people regard their partners as the very one they are.
D) In an I-It relationship, people treat the other person as a thing to be used.
6) Martin Buber, a German Jewish philosopher and theologian, contrasted two types of
relationships between people—I-It versus I-Thou. Identify a true statement about an I-Thou
relationship.
A) The relationship is created through monologue.
B) The relationship lacks mutuality.
C) In an I-Thou relationship, people regard their partners as the very one they are.
D) In an I-Thou relationship, people resolve to treat their partners as a means to their own end.
7) Coordinated management of meaning (CMM) has been criticized because:
A) it has a reputation of being a confusing mix of ideas that are hard to pin down because they’re
expressed in convoluted language.
B) Pearce and Cronen do not account for elements of human communication that are beyond
coordination and coherence.
C) Pearce and Cronen have aligned themselves too closely with Shannon and Weaver’s model.
D) Pearce and Cronen have a tendency to overemphasize statistical methods.
8) Social constructionists emphasize certainty over curiosity.
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9) Coordination is only possible if persons-in-conversation are coherent.
10) Mindful participants are participant observers willing to step back and look for places in the
conversational flow where they can say or do something that will make the situation better for
everyone involved.
11) Pearce and Cronen believe that communication is a constitutive force that shapes people’s
ideas, relationships, and their whole social environment.
12) The coordinated management of meaning (CMM) theory has a reputation of being a
confusing mix of ideas that are hard to pin down because they’re expressed in convoluted
language.
13) Barnett Pearce asserts that ________ co-construct ________ and are simultaneously shaped
by the worlds they create.
14) ________ is defined as a critical point in a conversation where what one says next will affect
the unfolding pattern of interaction and potentially take it in a different direction.
15) Compare and contrast stories told and stories lived.
16) Identify, describe, and illustrate the multiple meanings of the term persons-in-conversation.
17) In your own words, define coordination and coherence. Using a television show, movie, or a
situation from “real life,” provide examples of these concepts. Be sure to discuss the relationship
between these two concepts.
18) According to coordinated management of meaning (CMM), there is a series of contexts
relevant to every conversation. Provide an example of a conversation, and then discuss how it
can be understood in terms of each context emphasized by Pearce and Cronen. Which context is
most important? Why?
19) Compared with participant observation, what are the potential strengths and weaknesses of
community-based action research?
20) From a social constructionist perspective, what is good communication? What is its
relationship to objective reality?
21) What does Escher’s Bond of Union have to do with coordinated management of meaning
(CMM)? What are the strengths, and potentially the weaknesses, of comparing a communication
theory to this specific piece of art, or to art in general?
22) What is social construction? How does it compare to information theory?
23) What is the relationship between symbolic interactionism and coordinated management of
meaning (CMM)? Does CMM extend, negate, or transform the work of Mead and his associates?
How does research figure into the discussion?
24) What research methods could be used to measure or test coordinated management of
meaning (CMM)?
25) Is coordinated management of meaning (CMM) falsifiable?