Understanding Group Affiliations

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Ellen DeGeneres is an American, a woman, and a baby boomer. She is white. She is a Californian, but also a southerner. She is a lesbian, a vegan, an animal rights activist, and an environmentalist. She is also a successful entertainer and is very wealthy. All of these characteristics—and many others—form DeGeneres’s unique identity. These attributes also make her a member of various groups. Some of these groups might be formal (as expressed by her affiliations with various animal rights groups). However, most are informal, reflecting the more general ways in which we group ourselves and others based on particular characteristics. Thus, Ellen is a member of the white community, the southern community, the wealthy community, the entertainment community, and so on.

You too have multiple aspects to your identity, including the many groups to which you belong. These group affiliations powerfully shape your communication and affect how others communicate with and about you. In this section, we’ll consider these facts by examining co-cultural communication as well as social identity theory and intergroup communication.