Introduction
The nonverbal expectancy violation theory seeks to explain the reaction that a person gives when their peers behave in a manner that is least expected. When people’s personal space tends to be infringed by an external force, they often accord meanings to such contravention as a way of understanding better why such an action was perpetrated in the first place.
The nonverbal expectancy theory attempts to discover such meanings that people accord to actions that violate their personal space. Overly, the theory attempts to give predictions on how communication has the ability to limit the amount of uncertainty that exists during conversations. Expectation Violations Theory (EVT) is attributed to Judee K. Burgoon who came up with the idea for the first time in 1976 (Burgoon & Hale, 1988).
In the initial instance of studying the EVT model, Burgoon began by focusing more on what she termed as personal space. This refers to the area surrounding an individual. This area is invisible and varying in volume. This personal space defines the particular range of distance that a person finds it comfortable to keep others at bay.
When people extend their contacts beyond this invisible surrounding space, one feels as though his personal space has been infringed (Burgoon & Hale, 1988). Although this was Burgoon’s original model, the present day EVT involves virtually all behaviour violation types.
EVT is a ‘soft determinism’ kind of theory. It does not have any claims to universal laws that may be considered to be hard-core. Burgoon also introduces another important dimension to his theory. This dimension is known as proxemics. She identifies this in relation to the fact that people often use space as a special way of elaborating their culture.
This space extends to include both the psychological, as well as emotional space that a person determines to be his preferred distance to keep others at bay. The concept of proxemics is further highlighted by Edward Hall. In his study findings, Hull determines 4 paroxemic zones that he refers to as intimate, person, social, and public. Hull determines the surrounding space for each of these as 0-18 inches, 18 inches – 4 feet, 4 – 10 feet, and 10 feet to infinity respectively (Burgoon & Hale, 1988).
How the theory applies in the study of sports and mass media
Sports involve many nonverbal aspects that strongly determine the surrounding space of either a team or a player. The jerseys worn by participants may play out as important cues that determine the surrounding space of an individual. For instance, a supporter of a particular team who puts on his favourite team’s jersey may expect limited negative talk about his team from a fan who supports the opposite side.
Many communities across the world often rely on the media for information concerning events around them. What the society interprets in the media is critical in the sense that the mindset of the public is guided towards thinking in a certain way. Journalists often use framing while preparing stories to be conveyed through the media, which is a means through which they manage to organise disparate facts in such a way that they are able to produce a coherent story (Scheufele, 2000).
While journalists rely on media frames to shape up stories, individuals in the society are considered to have audience frames. These refer to the mental schemas in individuals that make up the audience and which comprise of ideas that guide the manner in which they process information. The media particularly uses media frames to pass around complex issues for purposes of making sense out of an event. As Scheufele (2000) points out, the media does this because it is aware that the audience has limited prior information.
According to arguments presented by Lundy (2006), both the media and audience frames interact in order to influence the perception of an individual and his attitudes. It is critical to point out that the media has, in many instances, primed the public to particular issues in the society. This brings about the aspect of priming theory, where the public determines the main standards towards which the media provides the issues.
Both concepts of priming and framing are critical within the society as they influence the social issues, as well as the subsequent judgments involved while dealing with the issues.
There are two main benefits that derive from the concept of media framing. These include the fact that it is a perfect tool that is used to derive meaning of complex issues, as well as influencing attitudes about the same issue. This highlights the fact that it is possible to operationalise societal expectations as media framings that influence the public’s attitudes and perception (Lundy, 2006).
Public relations scholars such as Danowski (2008) portend that it is possible to shape news frames by relying on public relations framing. For journalists, campaigns on public relations have the potential of causing short term and long term priming effects when it comes to shaping news coverage.
From the management’s point of view, framing issues is important in the whole process of communication. Frames help organisations to discuss the existing relationships between the important public on the one hand, as well as the organisation on the other hand.
Public relations exercise has limited effect on news content that is absorbed by the audience. This is due to the fact that the journalists’ viewpoints end up filtering such news content (Kiousis, Popescu & Mitrook, 2007). Public relations, in particular, is an important source of news but its materials are only used in instances where they do not offer any support to the main organisation’s agenda-building goals.
In some instances, many issues covered in the news could turn out as biased towards one end or the explanations become poorly done. This may end up affecting the public policy decisions and legislation. In this regard, the media relations of an organisation do not achieve any news contents in instances where the issues turn out to be controversial (Kiousis, Popescu & Mitrook, 2007).
In essence, the organisational issue position, which is the issue framing, and the news content, also known as media framing, occurs. In the same breath, the negative violation in Expectancy Violation Theory results in communication patterns which are unfavourable.
This is just in the same way that the negative violation will cause negative evaluation particularly on issues that directly touch on the organisational behaviours (Danowski, 2008). On a different perspective, that of management context, the resultant negative outcomes could be regulatory implementation by the policy makers.
Basing on Burgoon and Hale (1988) argument, individuals have different expectations towards others’ non-verbal behaviours. Violating such expectations often arouses the victims. Thus, mass communication may turn out to be positive or negative depending on several factors.
Firstly, it depends on how the communicator is evaluated, which is also known as ‘communicator rewardingness’. Secondly, violation of the audience’s expectation may depend on the implicit messages that may closely relate with the behaviour. Thirdly, it may also depend on the actual behaviour itself.
Nonverbal behaviours exist, which naturally result in either negative or positive assessments. Additionally, some verbal behaviour that carries implicit messages exists. In such instances, violations are likely to be understood differently within varying contexts.
Burgoon and Hale (1998) point out further that the initial behaviour evaluation together with the second interpretation concerning the implicit behaviour meaning may end up being affected by the ‘communicator rewardingness’. The communicator rewardings imply the reward value that is attributable to the violator and which implies a function touching on all relevant communicator characteristics, including gender, personality, as well as physical attractiveness.
Thus, it happens that a positive valence violation results in a positive attitude and behaviour. The audience may have its expectation violated by a particular media company, but an evaluation of the valence relating to the violation will be done by the audience to determine whether it is positive or negative.
The determination will depend on other factors, such as the overall attractive of its associated outcome. The audience will develop a positive attitude directed at the media if the evaluation determines it to be positive. The opposite happens where the evaluation establishes negative results (Danowski, 2008).
This concept can be applied to the relationship that exists between the public and the organisation. Both the public and organisations often have expectations in one way or the other. In particular, the public often holds expectations concerning issues, while organisations often have expectations from the public in the form of their behaviour towards the issue. There exists great similarity between this and the concept of legitimacy (Lundy, 2006).
For the organisation, positive violations end up resulting in organisational benefits, while negative violations result in negative evaluations both on the organisation and on issues. The EVT principle predicts this outcome. In essence, negative violations touching on EVT imply legitimacy gaps that occur and exist within the public relations context (Danowski, 2008).
Criticism of the Research
EVT is not a good theory, particularly where specific predictions that relate to touch outcomes are involved. Most of the theory’s main principles, such as the personal space, are considered as invisible (Kiousis, Popescu, & Mitrook, 2007). However, physical outcomes may fail to achieve the same results that the theory proposes. In this instance, the theory fails in the aspect of its practicality as it does not maintain the consistency as proposed.
This theory also fails to account for the dominance of reciprocity where interpersonal interactions are involved. In other words, people are likely to respond with the same gesture as their counterparts whom they are meeting for the first time (Kiousis, Popescu, & Mitrook, 2007).
If somebody from a different culture anticipates that his meeting with another person from a separate culture will be hostile but this fails to occur, the person will likely change and appear friendly. This, however, does not tally with the explanations and expectations given by EVT.
EVT falls short of indicating which is more important between communicator valence and behaviour valence. Instead, the theory holds them as the same, which makes it difficult to determine which is more critical between the two in explaining the theory’s main principle (Danowski, 2008).
Need for New Research
While Burgoon’s Expectancy Violation Theory attempts to explain some of the phenomenon widely seen in nonverbal communication between two strangers, it is evident that this theory is not conclusive. Many of the assumptions that Burgoon determines are not practical when applied in real life situations. There is need for further research to be conducted in the same area in order to come up with a more convincing theory.
A new research should particularly focus on determining the most important aspect between communicator valence and behaviour valence. It is also evident that Burgoon fails to consider other external factors that may play a critical role in influencing an individual’s space of influence.
EVT takes greater consideration of cultural aspects as the main influence, but ignores other non-cultural aspects that are also critical in determining the influence (Scheufele, 2000). A more inclusive research needs to be undertaken to consider all the other important aspects that seem to have been ignored by EVT.
EVT, however, forms a perfect groundwork upon which new research can be developed with the need to develop the existing limitations. A new research in this area should only seek to expound on some of the principles that have already been determined by Jurdee Burgoon. This will result in a more efficient theory that encompasses all the necessary aspects that EVT tends to overlook (Kiousis, Popescu, & Mitrook, 2007).
Conclusion
The nonverbal Expectancy Violation Theory’s main concept seeks to explain the different meanings that individuals attribute to others’ unexpected actions that tend to violate their personal space sense. The personal space is invisible and refers to what an individual considers as safe for himself.
The EVT helps in explaining how and why people from varying cultural backgrounds behave in different ways. The EVT concept and its explanation of personal space highlight the balance that exists between the need for affiliation on the one hand and privacy on the other hand. In communication, sometimes the violation of space expectations forms an efficient strategy of communication.
Journalists realise the expectation for news that their audience have. Sometimes, these journalists shape the news and the content in order to acquire certain influences that they deem as appropriate for their business. In other words, the media has the potential of determining what their audiences think about and their actions.
References
Burgoon, J. K., & Hale, J. L. (1988). Nonverbal expectancy violations: Model elaboration and application to immediacy behaviors. Communication Monographs, 55, 58-79
Danowski, J. A. (2008). Short-term and long-term effects of a public relations campaign on semantic networks of newspaper content: Priming and framing? Public Relations Review, 34, 288-290.
Kiousis, S., Popescu, C., & Mitrook, M. (2007). Understanding influence on corporate reputation: An examination of public relations efforts, media coverage, public opinion, and financial performance from an agenda-building and agenda-setting perspective. Journal of Public Relations Research, 19(2), 147-165.
Lundy, L. K. (2006). Effect of framing on cognitive processing in public relations. Public Relations Review, 32, 295-301.
Scheufele, D. A. (2000). Agenda-setting, priming, and framing revisited: Another look at cognitive effects of political communication. Mass Communication & Society, 3(2&3), 297-316.