BUS210: Business Communication

Communication privacy management theory, from the socio-cultural tradition, is concerned with how people negotiate openness and privacy in relation to communicated information. This theory focuses on how people in relationships manage boundaries which separate the public from the private.

Boundaries

An individual's private information is protected by the individual's boundaries. The permeability of these boundaries is ever changing, allowing selective access to certain pieces of information. This sharing occurs when the individual has weighed their need to share the information against their need to protect themselves. This risk assessment is used by couples when evaluating their relationship boundaries. The disclosure of private information to a partner may result in greater intimacy, but it may also result in the discloser becoming more vulnerable.

Co-ownership of information

When someone chooses to reveal private information to another person, they are making that person a co-owner of the information. Co-ownership comes with rules, responsibilities, and rights that must be negotiated between the discloser of the information and the receiver of it. The rules might cover questions such as: Can the information be disclosed? When can the information be disclosed? To whom can the information be disclosed? And how much of the information can be disclosed? The negotiation of these rules can be complex, and the rules can be explicit as well as implicit; rules may also be violated.

Boundary turbulence

What Petronio refers to as "boundary turbulence" occurs when rules are not mutually understood by co-owners, and when a co-owner of information deliberately violates the rules. This is not uncommon and usually results in some kind of conflict. It often results in one party becoming more apprehensive about future revelations of information to the violator.