MediaSpace Wiki

Small Group Spring2006 Session08

Group Structure

• Communication Networks
  • Who talks to whom in a group or other social structure
  • "Links" or "Relationships"
  • Not just a "yes/no", but a "how much"
• Reasons why network structures form
  • Propinquity
    • Who sits next to whom
    • Who lives near whom
    • Who works with whom
  • Relationships
    • Friendships
    • Partnerships
    • Alliances
    • Cliques
  • Tradition or requirements of the activity
• Types of group structure
  • Decentralized
    • At extreme, everyone talks to everyone
      • An all channel network:

• Risk: Communication Overload from too many messages
• Practically speaking, this never happens
  • Our communication with others in a group is always unequal
    • Some people talk more than others
    • Even in groups, some messages are directed at individuals
    • Side Conversations
    • Group breakouts
    • Breaks and and pre and post meeting conversations
    • Interaction between meetings
  • Spatial arrangements predispose relationships and create power dynamics
  • The big issue is simply floor control
    • There usually isn't time for everyone to speak, especially as the group gets larger
• We often solve this by delegating floor control to a discussion leader

• Centralized
  • Any kind of group structure that restricts who can talk to whom
    • Even informally
  • Risk: communication underload
    • Disconnection from the group due to a lack of messages
  • The extreme here is a linear chain:

• For which a circle is only a mild improvement:

• What we see most often is an emergent network, of which the following is an example:

• Notice, in this
  • Some people really are disconnected from the group: isolates
  • Most people focus their attention within subgroups: cliques
    • Some people only talk within their cliques
  • Some people are better connected to the whole group: liaisons
• You can draw a picture like this to get a sense of your groups structure
  • Draw a picture of the space you are interacting in
  • Show where everybody is sitting
  • When one person talks to another, draw a line with an arrow between them
    • Note additional directed speech acts with a slash on the line
  • Create a "group" object on your drawing
    • When someone talks to the group, draw a line to the group object
      • Count those too
  • This is best done as an observer of a group.
    • Its hard to do when you are in the group.
  • You may wind up with a picture like this

• This can be a useful way of figuring out what is happening in your group
• Notice the effects of spatial relationships on this group

• Note that Centralized versus decentralized is generally a matter of degree
  • And that it isn't always a conscious choice
  • But we do have some degree of choice
  • And we sometimes explicitly design network communication
    • Management chains and formal responsibility
    • Groupware structures
    • Workflows
  • When you can choose note that
    • Centralized groups may work more efficiently,
    • but are generally less satisfied
    • Decentralized groups entail a higher burden of relational communication
    • but the load is spread across the group
• Membership changes make a hash of linkages
  • Such changes can be temporary
    • In which case the substitute may never integrate with the group
  • Or permanent
    • which probably entails some socialization
    • Which may mean some renegotiation
• Spatial relationships help to structure linkages
  • Issues in spatial relationships
    • Territoriality
    • Personal Space
    • Conversational Distance
  • Issues in the separation distances we are comfortable with
    • Gender
    • Culture
    • Race
    • Age
    • Status
    • Relationship
    • Personality
• How do the following spatial arrangements affect group communication?

Index Card Assignment due Thursday

Observe a group interacting. Draw a network diagram of who talks to who and how much. If you are a part of the group (not unlikely if you observe a group you eat lunch with), focus, as much as possible, on being an observer but draw yourself into the diagram, as it is likely that someone will ask you what you are doing and that you'll have to explain.