Muted Group Theory

According to Griffin (2009, p. 455), Muted Group is "People with little power who have trouble giving voice to their perceptions because they must re-encode their thoughts to make them understood in the public sphere; e.g., women." I will use the film 'Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy' as an example where the Veronica was at a constant struggle to complete and attract attention for air time on TV rather than her more dominant male colleagues to help understand how power privileges in the divided in men and women in our daily lives.

Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy

Kramarae (2005) states that muted group theory suggest in which women are confines to what they can say, when and with what results moreover, languages are man-made; constructed by man in order for them to express themselves and this leads to women being muted. Kramarae and Ardener established that this mutedness is also caused by lack of power dynamics in any group with low rank and they are deemed as "black holes" due to being overlooked and seen invisible (Griffin, 2009, p. 455). In the case of the Veronica, due to their lack of 'power' as a upcoming female news reporter rather than their male counterparts, she is usually ignored from given any TV air time and are not fully utilized as they should be. Kramarae assumes that women see the world differently from men due to dissimilar experience in division of work, furthermore due to men's political dominance and their perception is dominant, hence it ensures that men have the 'controlling power' especially control of the dominant mode of expression.

Co-anchors; Ron Burgundy and Veronica Comingstone

Men are seen as gatekeepers of communication in the film, the KVWN-TV station was filled with male-dominant news reporters and journalist and Veronica's goal as a lead anchor was challenged by not only Ron but his friends were also a constant nuisance. Ron did not want a 'woman' to be in his workplace and Veronica had to go to extreme measures to be anchor. Kissack (2010) supports by saying that "In a patriarchal society, men create and reinforce their prevailing societal structures, including the formulation and use of language. For women to operate within such a society, they must assimilate to masculine norms, including language usage. Such assimilation mutes feminine voice and renders women as inarticulate due to the necessity of having to express themselves through a language that does not accommodate their experiences." As stated by Griffin (2010, p. 459), "Kramarae believes that in order to participate in society, women must transform their own models in terms of the received male system of expression." In other words, women have to learn make an effort to speak the language of men to get noticed and most importantly being able to express themselves. In the end of the film, Veronica and Ron did managed to settle their differences and became co-anchors for World News Centre.

Muted Group Theory focuses on women who are muted but nowadays more and more women are able to empress themselves such as seen in the movie, women should not be discounted as invisible despite the 'power privileges' that we see in our daily lives.


References:


Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th ed). New York: McGraw-Hill.


Kramarae, C. (2005). Muted Group Theory and Communication: Asking Dangerous Questions. Women & Language, 28(2), 55-61.


Kissack, H. (2010). Muted voices: a critical look at e-male in organizations. European Journal of Training and Development, 34(6), 539-551.