Muted group theory

The Muted Group Theory (MGT) is a critical communication theory that examines asymmetrical power-related issues between genders, cultures, societies, and groups. According to Richard West and Lynn H. Turner “It helps us understand any group that is silenced by the inadequacies of their language[1]” (West, Turner, 2010). For example, when there is a “dominant” language or activity by a group, there are members who have “lower-power” and could feel silenced because of their inexperience in that language or activity. This is when MGT occurs. The key elements in MGT are dominant and subordinate groups, which are often used to characterize the relationship between men and women, respectively.

Background

The Muted Group Theory was firstly developed in the field of cultural anthropology; however, it has been taken up by other fields of inquiry such as communication, feminist, and cross-cultural studies. Introduced by the British Anthropologist Edwin Ardener, the Muted Group Theory is a critical theory that explores the asymmetrical relationship – mostly established by language – between dominant and silenced groups. Ardern’s study shows that it is men that have mainly produced ideas and knowledge concerning the world. Consequently, the voices of women have been ignored and ‘muted’. As part of the critical approach to the world, the Muted Group Theory explores power and societal structure in relation to the dynamism between dominant and subordinated groups.

As aforementioned the Muted Group Theory has been conceptualized, elaborated, and applied by many scholars. Deborah Ballard-Reisch (2010) for instance discusses how those who are connected to subordinate groups don’t speak up on the issues they face instead keeps the issues to themselves. The result is having many unresolved issues without hope of a solution.[2] Sarah Funderburke (2012) suggests that in doing a proper study of men and women, it is important to first define what the term “sex” means, for it is defined differently for each individual. Gender, is a term also used in the process of defining what “sex” is. Depending upon how one defines these terms will determine the role expectancy between the two genders.[3] The work of Charlotte Kroløkke (2005) indicates surveys conducted towards gender communication theories help one to focus their knowledge about the underlying assumptions as well as allow one to analyze the progression from first waves of feminism.[4] Also, analyzing these theories helps scholars find their own inspiration of change within these scopes. Furthermore, Anastacia Kurylo (2013) suggests group of scholars and other researchers from different backgrounds around the world assembled to introduce intercultural communication to undergraduate college students using four approaches. The four approaches were meant to show a range of diversity of issues and topics for the students.[5] Last but not least, Anita Taylor (2000) With a wide range of voices from women of the U.S all the way to Japan, this volume collects their stories that have been unheard. The muted group theory divides this volume into two sections, one with voices of women whose voices have been softened but has strong messages. The second section is with women whose voices have been silenced.[6]

Origin of the Muted Group Theory

The first formulation of the Muted Group Theory emerges from one of Edwin Ardener’s short essays, entitled "Belief and the Problem of Women", in which Ardener explores the ‘problem’ of women .[7] In social anthropology, the problem of women is divided in two parts: technical and analytical .[7] The technical problem is that although half of the population and society is technically made up of women, ethnographers have often ignored this half of the population .[7] Ardener writes that "those trained in ethnography evidently have a bias towards the kinds of model that men are ready to provide (or to concur in) rather than towards any that women might provide".[8] He also suggests that the reason behind this lies in that men tend to give a “bounded model of society”[8] akin to the ones that ethnographers are attracted to.[8] Therefore, men are those who produce and control symbolic production in a society. This leads to the analytical part of the problem which attempts to answer the question: "[…] if the models of society made by most ethnographers tend to be models derived from the male portion of that society, how does the symbolic weight of the other mass of persons express itself?".[9]

Ardener's Dominant Group vs Muted Group

After conducting an experiment with the information in his essay, the results showed, while not fully proven, that the male point of view in society is the norm or dominant, which is why it is depicted with a standard solid line in this graph. On the other hand, female point of view is considered as non-dominant and non-standard, so it falls in the muted category with the broken line. According to Ardener, because male-based understanding of society represents the dominant worldview, certain groups get silenced or muted and they are not able to fully incorporate their experiences in such dominant structures of society. He thus writes: "In these terms if the male perception yields a dominant structure, the female one is a muted structure".[10] Moreover, Ardener’s concept of muted groups does not only apply to women but can be applied to other non-dominant groups within societal structures.

Muted Group Theory and Communication

Cheris Kramarae is one of the main theorists who investigates the Muted Group Theory in the communication studies field. Her contribution to the Muted Group Theory comes from her interest in the relationship between gender and social interaction. Language, its use, and its structure play a central role in her analysis of society. Her main idea is that social interaction and communication create the current language structure. Because the latter was mainly built by men, men have an advantage over women. Consequently, women cannot express their thoughts through their own words because their language use is limited by the rules of a man’s language.[11] Kramarae states, "The language of a particular culture does not serve all its speakers equally, for not all speakers contribute in an equal fashion to its formulation. Women (as well as members of other non-dominant groups) are not as free or as able as men are to say what they wish, because the words and the norms for their use have been formulated by the dominant group, men."

The 'Muting' Process

According to Gerdrin, muting or silencing is a social phenomenon based on the tacit understanding that within a society there are dominant and non-dominant groups.[12] Thus, the muting process is a socially shared phenomenon that presupposes a collective understanding of who is in power and who is not.[12] Several scholars have researched and studied how this process occurs. Houston and Kramarae posit that women have been silenced in many ways by for example ridiculing women’s related lexicon, reinforcing family hierarchies, constructing a male-controlled media, trivializing their opinions, ideas, and concerns, and censoring women’s voices.[13] A central factor that contributes to these silencing methods is the trivialization of the lexicon and speech patterns that is often used to describe female activities e.g. with expressions such as chattering, gossiping, nagging, whining, bitching .[13] Social rituals are another example of a place in which the muting process takes place. Kramarae suggests that many elements within wedding ceremonies place women in a silenced position. For example, the fact that the father of the bride ‘gives her away’ to the groom, that the position of the bride – at the left of the minister – is considered less privileged than the one of the groom, that the groom announces his vows first, and that the groom is asked to kiss the bride, are all factors that contribute to the position of a woman as subordinated to the one of the man.

West and Turner's Muting or Silencing Process

As Catherine MacKinnon (one of the leading voices in the feminist legal movement )[14] suggests, the law sees women similarly as men see women.[15] Like language, the legal system has thus been created, defined, and interpreted mostly by men.[15] In the context of unequal power relations between men and women, MacKinnon proposes new standards to define and evaluate sexual harassment and sex-related issues considered as the consequence of unwanted impositions of sexual requirements .[16] Her gender inequality theory and redefinition of legal practices and concepts are often considered challenging, provocative, and sometimes flawed .[17] However, Finley argues that there has been a recent interest in feminist jurisprudence and legal scholarship inspired by the law’s failure to see that despite the legal removal of barriers, sexes are not socially equal .[18]

According to West and Turner (2010), here are strategies to avoid the 'Muting' process:

Assumptions of the Muted Group Theory

Kramarae believes that “males have more difficulty than females in understanding what members of the other gender mean.” Dale Spender of Woman’s Studies International Quarterly gave insight into Kramarae’s statement by adding the idea that many men realize by listening to women they would be revoking some of their power and privilege. “The crucial issue here is that if women cease to be muted, men cease to be so dominant and to some males this may seem unfair because it represents a loss of rights.” A man can easily avoid this issue by simply stating “I’ll never understand women” (p. 461).

Applications of Muted group theory

Muted Groups in Mass Media

According to Kramarae, women have been locked out of the publishing business until 1970; thus they lacked influence on mass media and have often been misrepresented in history. The reason behind this lies in the predominance of male gatekeepers, whom are defined as editors and other arbiters of a culture who determine which books, essays, poetry, plays, film scripts, etc. will appear in the mass media.[20] Male gatekeepers have thus been muting non-dominant groups especially women in mass media until the 1970s. Similarly, Pamela Creedon argues that in the mid-70s there is an increase of women in the male dominated profession of journalism . According to Creedon, this gender switch phenomenon was the result of the large amount of women that enrolled in Journalism and Mass Communication curses in the mid-70s.[21] Creedon’s theory is supported by the latest Radio Television Digital News Association - Hofstra University Annual Survey shows that: (1) In TV, the number of women news directors rose to the highest percentage ever, and women in the workforce rose to the second-highest level ever, (2) the number of minority workforce in TV news has risen to 22.4%, the highest it's been in 13 years and the second highest level ever, and (3) the number of minorities in the radio workforce rose to the highest level since the mid-1990s. Although the number of women and minorities in the mass media force has generally increased, many studies shows that women and minorities are still partially muted in the mass media landscape, dues to their being mis-represented.[22]

Current Status of Women in Mass Media

In The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2014, The Women’s Media Centre researches explore the current status of women in the mass media industry. The report compiles 27,000 pieces of content among “20 of the most widely circulated, read, and viewed, and listened TV networks, newspapers, news wires, and online news in the United States”.[23] The results show that women (36.1%) are significantly out-numbered by men (63.4%). More precisely:

Although the number of women on TV news broadcasts is generally growing the misrepresentation of women does not only regard their presence as anchors but also the events that they cover. Several studies show that while men mainly report on ‘hard’ news, women are often relegated to cover ‘soft’ news. Thus, women are often muted in terms of the topics they tend to cover.[23][24][25]

Although the Women’s Media Centre study is very U.S.-centric, non-dominant groups are often muted even in other country’s media landscapes. For example, Aparna Hebbani and Charise-Rose Wills have explored how Muslim women have often been muted in the Australian mass media sphere.[26] Their study shows that women that wear a hijab/burqa are often inaccurately and negatively connoted in Australian mass media.[26] According to the authors, Muslim women represent a muted group and thus cannot entirely incorporate their experiences, views, and perspective in their representation in Australian media. Thus, there is a social hierarchy that is privileging certain groups via Australian mass media.[26] It also show that although currently muted, this group is attempting to gain a voice in this media landscape by engaging and interacting with members of the dominant culture in order to negotiate their silenced position.[26]

Muted Group Theory and the Internet

Kramarae has performed research about the internet to examine if men gatekeep and control such a widely used device. Kramarae’s research leads to the belief that the traditional set up of the muted group theory exists on the internet as well. Almost all of the original creators of the internet in the 1970s and 1980s were male. Today there is about a 50/50 split on internet usage between men and women. However, all of the bones of the software and the setup of the internet is seen as masculine. Men also dominate technology fields causing women to continue being marginalized. Many of the metaphors used to describe the internet are masculine. These masculine terms such as information superhighway, new frontier, and global community affect the way that the muted group feels about the internet. Kramarae believes that the internet is on track to being more evenly balanced between males and females. She thinks with the advances of blogs, wikis, and online education that females will have a stronger voice (p. 457-458). They are able to voice their opinions in varied forms of technology and can relate to other women in their own way.

Barzilai-Nahon’s Network Gatekeeper Theory (NGT), whose theory helps bring the gatekeeping concept into the networked world. Barzilai-Nahon was driven to develop NGT because traditional gatekeeping literature ignored the role of the gated thus failing to recognise the dynamism of the gatekeeping environment. Most relevant herein is not only was NGT developed specifically with the Internet in mind, but it moves gatekeeping from a traditional focus on information ‘selection’, ‘processes’, ‘distribution’ and ‘intermediaries’ to ‘information control’:

NGT helps identify the processes and mechanisms used for gatekeeping, and most particularly highlights information control as the thread that ties the various online gatekeeperstogether. Under NGT, an act of gatekeeping involves a gatekeeper and gated, the movement of information through a gate, and the use of a gatekeeping process and mechanism. A gatekeeping process involves doing some of the following: selecting, channelling, shaping, manipulating and deleting information. For example, a gatekeeping process might involve selecting which information to publish, or channelling information through a channel, or deleting information by removing it, or shaping information into a particular form. Her taxonomy of mechanisms for gatekeeping is particularly useful. The mechanisms include, for example, channelling (i.e. search engines, hyperlinks), censorship (i.e. filtering, blocking, zoning), value-added (i.e. customisation tools), infrastructure (i.e. network access), user interaction (i.e. default homepages, hypertext links), and editorial mechanisms (i.e. technical controls, information content).[28]

Muted Group Theory and Email Communication

According to Kissack, traditionally communication has been constructed within the framework of a male dominated society. Women in corporate organizations are expected to use language associated with women that is 'female-preferential' language, this has been considered as lower than the 'male-preferential' language. The primary difference between the two is 'male-preferential' language consists of details such as opinions and facts whereas 'female-preferential' language consists mainly of personal details, emotions reflected in the conversations, also there is a great use of adjectives in it.[29]

‘Muteness’ is more glaringly present in the case of emails, the reason for that being that in the case of ‘email’ the only source of reference is the ‘text’ used for the same. In the beginning email was perceived as a ‘lean’ medium that can act as a means to level the field for both the ‘dominant group’ and its ‘subordinate’ counterpart.[29]

When can it be said that woman’s voice is ‘muted’ in an organizational frame? In the words of Kissack,

If female-preferential language is marginalized within organizations due to its deviation from male-preferential language, and female preferential language is an indication of women attempting to speak within prescriptive norms as well as an attempt to express themselves through an unaccommodating male-prescribed language, then women’s voice is being muted.[29]

According to Thompson men and women in their early days tend to spend time with ‘same-sex groups’ and thereby adapt their communication style to their groups. In spite of this fact, what it is important to note is that both these communication styles function in the realms of the ‘patriarchal society’[29] Most of the goals of organizations are met by the usage of ‘male-preferential’ language, as they tend to focus on aspects such as ‘economic gain’ and ‘performance improved.’ The main point of an organizational email is that it can help an employee male or female to fulfill their work duties and women are not able to achieve this using language more relevant to them, so in order to attain success in their workplace they have to go beyond their natural realm and utilize ‘male-preferential’ language.[29]

Muted Group Theory Across Cultures

Although the Muted Group Theory has been mainly developed as a feminist theory, there are other silenced groups in society .[30] Mark Orbe, a communication theorist, has suggested that in the U.S. the dominant group consists of white, heterosexual, middle-class, males. Thus, groups that distinguish themselves from the dominant one in terms of race, age, gender, sexual orientation, and economic status can potentially be silenced or muted. In African-American communication research: Toward a deeper understanding of interethnic communication (1995) and Constructing co-cultural theory: An explication of culture, power, and communication (1998), Orbe fleshed out two important extensions of muted group theory:

Therefore, although Kramarae focuses on women’s muted voices, she also opens the door to the application of muted group theory to issues beyond gender differences. Orbe, however, not only applies this theoretical framework to a different muted groups i.e. African-Americans, but also contributes by assessing "how individual and small collectives work together to negotiate their muted group status”.[32][33][34] Further, although various groups can be considered as muted within society, silenced and dominant groups can also exist within any group. For example, Anita Taylor and M. J. Hardman posit that feminist movements can also present dominant subgroups that mute other groups within the same movement. Thus, members within oppressed groups can have diverse opinions and one can become dominant and further mute the others .[35]

Attenuation of the Bias Language Phenomenon

A Feminist Dictionary

Kramarae states that in order to change muted group status we also need to change dictionaries. Traditional dictionaries rely on the majority of their information to come from male literary sources. These male sources have the power to exclude words important to or created by women. Furthering this idea, Kramarae and Paula Treichler created A Feminist Dictionary with words they believed Merriam-Webster defined on male ideas. For example, the word 'Cuckold' is defined as 'the husband of an unfaithful wife' in Merriam Webster. However, there is no term for a wife who has an unfaithful husband. She is simply called a wife. Another example Kramarae defined was the word 'doll.' She defined 'doll' as 'a toy playmate given to, or made by children. Some adult males continue their childhood by labeling adult female companions "dolls." The feminist dictionary includes up to 2,500 words to emphasize women’s linguistic ability and to give women words of empowerment and change their muted status.[36]

Field of Education

Houston believes in order to create a positive reform in education it might be useful to revise the curriculum and lay special stress on 'woman-centered communication' education. 'Women's studies' (WS) have been evolving and growing through the ages, today there is greater demand for faculty to be on initiatives such as WS programs, and the 'African American programs.'[37]

Critiques of Muted Group Theory

Deborah Tannen the theorist that created Genderlect Theory criticizes feminist scholars like Kramarae for assuming that men are trying to control women. Tannen acknowledges that differences in male and female communication styles sometimes lead to imbalances of power, but unlike Kramarae, she is willing to assume that the problems are caused primarily by men’s and women’s different styles. Tannen warns readers that “bad feelings and imputation of bad motives or bad character can come about when there was no intentions to dominate, to wield power [39] Kramerae thinks Tannen's opinion is false. She believes men belittle and ignore women whenever they speak out against being muted. Both theorists believe muting is involved, but they see it from different standpoints.

Edwin Ardener saw that muted group theory had pragmatic as well as analytical potentials.[40] Edwin Ardener always maintained that muted group theory was not only, or even primarily, about women - although women comprised a conspicuous case in point. In fact he also drew on his personal experience as a sensitive (intellectual) boy among hearty (sportive) boys in an all boys London secondary school. As a result of his early encounters with boys, thereafter he identified with other groups in society for whom self-expression was constrained.[40]

Is muted group out dated? In the 1970s and 1980s the muted group theory challenged the status quo, of academe at least. While many women reading and discussing the theory thought it made sense of their own lives, many other academics thought it wasn't proper—theoretically and politically. It certainly wasn't like any of the theories in introductory communication texts then. It was pretty radical. If the muted group theory now isn't as exciting as it once seemed, this is due in part to its success and the success of theories and actions related to it. Shirley and Edwin Ardener suggested that there are "dominant modes of expression in any society which have been generated by the dominant structure within it".[41] They wrote that women, due to their structural places in society, have different models of reality. Their perspectives are "muted" because they do not form part of the dominant communication system of the society.[42]

Other Related Theories

There are many theories that appear to be related to the Muted Group Theory. These include but are not limited to: Spiral of Silence Theory (SST), Feminist Standpoint Theory (FST) or Standpoint Theory, and Groupthink Theory (GT),

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References

Footnotes
  1. ↑ West and Turner, (2010).
  2. ↑ Ballard-Reisch, Deborah. "Muted Groups in Health Communication Policy and Practice: The Case of Older Adults in Rural and Frontier Areas." Women and Language 33.2 (2010): 87. Web
  3. ↑ Funderburke, Sarah. "Operating the Silencer: Muted Group Theory in "the Great Gatsby"." ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2012. Web
  4. ↑ Kroløkke, Charlotte, and Anne Scott Sørensen 1952. Gender Communication Theories & Analyses: From Silence to Performance. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2006;2005;. Web.
  5. ↑ Kurylo, Anastacia. Inter/cultural Communication: Representation and Construction of Culture. Los Angeles: SAGE, 2013. Web.
  6. ↑ Taylor, Anita, Martha James Hardman, and Faculty Author Collection. Hearing Many Voices. Cresskill, N.J: Hampton Press, 2000. Web
  7. 1 2 3 Ardener (2007), p. 72
  8. 1 2 3 Ardener (2007), p. 73
  9. ↑ Ardener (2007), p. 74
  10. ↑ Ardener (2007), p. 132
  11. 1 2 Kramarae(1981)
  12. 1 2 Gendrin, pp. 203-219
  13. 1 2 3 Houston (1991)
  14. ↑ Finley, L. (1988). "The nature of domination and the nature of women: reflections on Femminism Unmodified". Northwestern University Law Review: 353.
  15. 1 2 MacKinnon, Catherine A. (Summer 1983). "Feminism, Marxism, Method, and the State: Toward Feminist Jurisprudence". The University Chicago Press.
  16. ↑ MacKinnon, Catherine A. (1979). Sexual Harassment of Working Women. Yale University Press.
  17. ↑ Godsil Cooper, Christine (Winter 1981). "Review of 'Sexual Harassment of Working Women'". The University of Chicago Law Review XIII: 183–200. doi:10.2307/1599356.
  18. ↑ Finley, L. (1988). "The nature of domination and the nature of women: reflections on Femminism Unmodified". Northwestern University Law Review: 358.
  19. ↑ VanGorp, Ericka. "Muted Group Theory".
  20. ↑ Kramarae, Cheris. Technology and Women's Voices : Keeping in Touch.
  21. ↑ Creedon, P.; Cramer, J. (2007). Women in Mass Communication. Thousand Oak. pp. 275–283.
  22. ↑ Papper, Bob. "Women and Minorities in Newsrooms".
  23. 1 2 3 4 5 "The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2014" (PDF). http://www.womensmediacenter.com/. Women’s Media Center. External link in |website= (help)
  24. ↑ Grabe, Maria Elizabeth; Samson, Lelia (2012). "Sexual Cues Emanating From the Anchorette Chair: Implications for Perceived Professionalism, Fitness for Beat, and Memory for News". Communication Research 38: 471–496. doi:10.1177/0093650210384986.
  25. ↑ Engstrom, Erika; Ferri, Anthony J (Fall 2000). "Looking Through a Gendered Lens: Local U.S. Television News Anchors’ Perceived Career Barriers". Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media.
  26. 1 2 3 4 Hebbani
  27. ↑ Barzilai-Nahon, K. (2008). "Toward a Theory of Network Gatekeeping: A Framework for Exploring Information Control". Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59 (9): 1493–1512. doi:10.1002/asi.20857.
  28. ↑ Laidlaw, Emily (2010). "A Framework For Identifying Internet Information Gatekeepers.". International Review of Law, Computers & Technology 24 (3): 263–276. doi:10.1080/13600869.2010.522334.
  29. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Kissack (2010) pp. 539-551
  30. ↑ Hechter, M. (2004). "From class to culture". The American Journal of Sociology 110: 400–445. doi:10.1086/421357.
  31. ↑ Orbe, MP (1995). "African American Communication Research: Toward a Deeper Understanding of Interethnic Communication.". Western Journal of Communication 59: 61–78. doi:10.1080/10570319509374507.
  32. ↑ Orbe, M. P. (1995). Continuing the legacy of theorizing from the margins: Conceptualizations of co-cultural theory", Women and Language. pp. 65–66.
  33. ↑ Orbe, M. P. (1998). "Constructions of reality on MTV's "The Real World": An analysis of the restrictive coding of black masculinity". Southern Communication Journal: 23–43.
  34. ↑ Orbe, M. P. (1998). Explicating a co-cultural communication theoretical model", African American communication and identities:Essential reading. Thousand Oakes.
  35. ↑ Hardman, M. J.; Taylor, A. (2000). Hearing Many Voices. Hampton Press.
  36. ↑ Kramarae, Cheris (1985). A Feminist Dictionary.
  37. 1 2 3 Kramarae (1996)
  38. 1 2 Tannen (1992)
  39. ↑ Tannen, Deborah (2005). Conversational style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends.
  40. 1 2 Ardener (2005)
  41. ↑ Ardener, E (1975). "Belief and the problem of women". Perceiving women: 17.
  42. ↑ Kramarae, Cheris (2005). "Muted Group Theory and Communication: Asking Dangerous Questions". Women and Language 28 (2): 56.
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