Research Methods for Studying Groups and Teams

12

BONA FIDE GROUPS

A Discourse Perspective

Linda L. Putnam and Cynthia Stohl

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA–SANTA BARBARA

Jane Stuart Baker

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

In a special issue of Communication Studies (1990), we voiced concern that communication researchers were studying small groups as if they were separate from their social and temporal contexts. Challenging the research community to move beyond container models of group communication, we advocated that scholars should develop constructs and methods to enable an understanding of the multilevel and interpretive processes of groups. All groups, we argued, influence and are influenced by the environments in which they are embedded.

For almost 20 years, small group researchers have heeded this ...