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 * I will be adding to current sub-headings/ adding my own with cited information below it as I edit this article ***

Background
Petronio's communication privacy management (CPM) theory is built on Altman's dialectical conception of privacy as a process of opening and closing a boundary to others. '''It was reading about Social Penetration Theory that Altman's argument on privacy sparked her interest. Learning about the two dimensions of intimacy (both breadth and depth), led Petronio to wonder how people decide when to share private information, and the problems they run into when doing so.''' Altman and Taylor's social penetration theory focused on self-disclosure as the primary way to develop close relationships. She concluded that Altman and Taylor's Social Penetration Theory stood on the shoulders of Communication Privacy Management Theory. However, openness is only part of the story. We also have a desire for privacy. When Petronio first developed this theory in 1991, it was called communication boundary management. In 2002, she renamed it to communication privacy management, underscoring private disclosure as the main thrust of the theory. CPM is not only a process of disclosure, but it also factors in the notion of privacy in the form of private information.

 ** Communication Privacy Management, originally called Communication Boundary Management, was developed by Sandra Petronio in 1991. '''The theory began to develop alongside Petronio's interest and work in self-disclosure. CPM was originally developed as a model, thus its name being Communication Boundary Management. As of 2002, the theory was published in Communication Theory, making a jump from a model to a theory. This theory has been in the works since then for 20 years and counting. During this time, there was only one related theory that existed called Social Penetration Theory by Altman and Taylor. While each of these scholars played an important role in the development of Communication Privacy Management Theory, it wasn't until Petronio's insight into dialectical tensions that this theory fully emerged. Petronio felt that it was difficult to fully dive into understand the disclosure of private information without defining it as a dialectical tension. She provided four criteria as a foundation to form the theory as a rule-based management system: **'''


 * 1) Privacy Rule Foundations - some privacy rules already exist within certain family dynamic and social situations (e.g. - not discussing family conflicts with your close friends)
 * 2) Privacy Rule Development - how we establish these rules are affected by gender, culture, motivation, context, and risk-benefit scenarios
 * 3) Boundary Coordination Operations - linkage (strength and quality of connection among people), ownership (control over the information), permeability (whether access to this information is open or closed), coordination patterns (who is the target person, how much trust and risk are involved with that target, and how open or closed you are to one another)
 * 4) Boundary Turbulence - turbulence can occur when both partners in the relationship might have different rules and expectations for disclosing information (e.g.- dating partners early stages)

Theory applications
Communication privacy management can be applied across different contexts, primarily include: (1) family communication, with a particular focus on parental privacy invasions, (2) online social media, (3) health, and (4) relational issues, and (5) work environments.

Family communication
Specific applications of CPM highlight family privacy management. Research focused on secrets and topic avoidance, such as questions of concealment to stepfamily members feeling caught, and parents-adolescent conversations about sex. Family privacy research over the decades are also inspired specifically by the chapter of parental privacy invasion. For example, work by Hawk and his colleagues explore perceived parental invasions from the view of adolescents in reaction to such issues as control attempts, solicitation of information, and conflict outcomes. Another way that family communication uses CPM is with child bearing or the lack thereof; whom childless-couples choose to disclose to that they voluntarily do not want children is another way CPM has been explored.

Pregnancy loss due to miscarriage could be a unique CPM case in the family setting as couples often manage this information jointly as they decide whether to share the miscarriage with people outside the dyad. The research found that couples frame miscarriage as a shared but distinct experience and that both members exert rights of ownership over the information. Couples' privacy rules centered on issues of social support and others' need to know about the loss. Even though couples described their privacy rules as implicitly understood, they also recalled having explicit conversations to develop rules. We discuss how the management of co-owned information can improve communication and maintain relationships.

**Family as a Context for Learning about Privacy**
'''CPM can also be applied to family upbringings, and how those upbringings shape the way we know and understand privacy. From the time infants are born, they have no physical or informational privacy. They are too young to fully adapt to the norms and rules their family develops regarding privacy. Parents and family members are often the first teachers of the concept of privacy, in socializing children into societal expectations for privacy in terms of information (e.g., what information can be shared and what should be kept private), bodily privacy (e.g., nudity vs. clothing, bodily functions), and physical/environmental privacy (e.g., rules about privacy of places, property, and observation). As children get older, their influences of privacy come from their peers at school, and their communication starts to shift as they develop friends. For instance, girls begin to learn what it means to "keep a secret" and how much self disclosure is tested as they move up the adolescent ladder. Mothers often play an important role in helping their teens contextualize these societal norms.'''

Online social media
Recent researchers apply CPM to investigate privacy management for online blogging, Facebook usage and online dating. Further, there have been investigations into parental behavior that is enacted through online social media; specifically when parents 'friend' their children and the management of privacy that ensues from that. ** Privacy practices in social network sites often appear paradoxical, as content-sharing behavior stands in conflict with the need to reduce disclosure-related harms. Some study explore privacy in social network sites as a contextual information practice, managed by a process of boundary regulation.

Similar research has been done on the perceptions of teachers' disclosures on Facebook and their impact on credibility. The relevance and valence of disclosures were compared between disclosures made in the classroom and those made on Facebook and were found to be significantly different. Students' perceptions of teacher credibility were shown to decrease as relevance of disclosures increased and as negativity increased.

 ** There have been reported issues with Facebook in regard to the sense of publicness in social networks. '''Sometimes, making things "too" public can be a form of disclosing too much unnecessary information, which could lead to people forming negative views of someone. To add, often times social media outlets such as Facebook can put a bad taste in the mouths of employers who are seeking out to hire new faces. Using the teacher-student example from above, a student would form a negative view of his/her teacher if they were seen to be using Facebook.**'''

Another popular SNS Twitter was examined as well. In the research, Twitter was regarded as an onion with multiple privacy layers. The research found out that there were significant differences at the descriptive and inferential levels among the multiple dimensions of private information, including daily lives, social identity, competence, socio-economic status, and health. Private information regarding daily lives and entertainment was disclosed easily and located at the outermost layer of the disclosure onion. In contrast, health-related private information was concealed and located within the innermost layer of the disclosure onion. What's more, there were significant differences among current Twitter users, nonusers, and dropouts with regard to personality traits and privacy concerns about Twitter.

Young people especially highschool and college students are an important part of SNS users. A recent study examined college students' privacy concerns and impacts on their Twitter usage behaviors. Regression analyses concluded that Control and Boundary Rules of Private Information on Twitter significantly predict daily minutes spent on Twitter accounts. However, the same CPM variables did not predict college students' other Twitter usage behaviors (e.g., weekly inquiries and total months of using Twitter). This shows the intricate connection between students' privacy concern and their usage behavior.

Health communication
Informed by principles of CPM, health communication research using CPM to explore health privacy issues has become a growth area. Earlier study investigated physician disclosure of medical mistakes. Recently there have been a number of studies focused on ways that privacy issues influence patient care, confidentiality and control over ownership, choices about disclosure, for instance, with stigmatized health-related illness such as HIV/AIDS, e-health information, reproductive information , and the digitization of healthcare.

One recent study about how overweight and obese individuals handle their personal history after they become a normal weight. The result shows that the vast majority of participants perceived more benefits from disclosing their larger identity than risks, regardless of weight-loss method.

Using CPM, Celebrity Health Narratives & the Public Health offers the "first extensive look at celebrity health sagas, this book examines the ways in which their stories become our stories, influencing public perception and framing dialog about wellness, disease and death. These private-yet-public narratives drive fund-raising, reduce stigma and influence policy. Celebrities such as Mary Tyler Moore, Robin Roberts, Michael J. Fox, and Christopher Reeve—as well as 200 others included in the study—have left a lasting legacy."

''' ** CPM theory suggests that privacy orientations are influenced by rules that regulate disclosure. In a recent study, women were asked to answer questions about sensitive topics including contraception use, STDs, and different risk behaviors such as smoking, drug use, and alcohol consumption. Women were found to be less honest to answer questions regarding those topics with a physician that they did not feel comfortable around. First impression is key in order to establish a well-rounded doctor-patient relationship. CPM offers us a lens through which we can understand this relationship and how self-disclosure plays an important role in this type of interaction. Social desirability is one of the factors that determines a patients' willingness to share or withhold certain information. For example, social desirable patients claimed that they were more likely to withhold information regarding their sexual history, versus patients who were not socially desirable. Similarly, physician characteristics are also another factor in privacy rules and regulations that a patient considers. Young girls may be more hesitant to relinquish answers about their sexuality to an older man, making them more likely to not self disclose. This is where gender and age play an important role in how women disclose information about themselves. Overall, certain mannerisms and impressions may prohibit or facilitate disclosure.**'''

Relationship issues
Many studies emphasize the use of CPM in relationships because of the concepts of disclosure and boundaries. Not only romantic relationships, but also friendships are a factor when thinking of CPM. Briefly, work on conflict and topic avoidance, considering the relational impact of privacy turbulence, students and faculty relationships, and workplace relationships have all produced useful information that opens new doors regarding CPM-based research.

The mobile phone and its impact on romantic relationships is a good example. After investigating mobile phone usage rules that are negotiated by adolescents and young adults in romantic relationships, findings are that the negotiation of rules is a crucial part of young adult relationships while enhancing trust and fostering harmony were important factors in the rule development process.

CPM also appears in the friendship. The study intended to addresses the issue of whether personal traits and predispositions can predict the tendencies to either reveal or conceal secrets shared in confidence by a best friend suggested that a combination of several traits could successfully distinguish those who revealed secrets from those who did not. Significant discriminators included tendency to gossip and depth of disclosure. Implications of the study and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Although privacy violations can be uncomfortable and disruptive, they have the potential for positive outcomes in relationships if addressed. Using CPM theory as a framework, a study surveyed a community sample of 273 adults to examine their retrospective accounts of privacy violations in personal relationships. Results showed that less than half of the sample offered explicit rules for information management, and the majority of participants blamed the confidant for the privacy turbulence. Findings indicated that people often do not share similar information with the violator in the future, but if they do, less than half offer explicit privacy rules during the privacy recalibration process. Confrontation efficacy was positively associated with initiating a conversation about the privacy turbulence and that people who engaged in privacy recalibration were more likely to report forgiveness and relational improvement and less likely to report relational damage than those individuals who did not.

Work environments
CPM has become very applicable in the workplace as personal mobile devices have increasingly been allowed to be brought to work. The concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) has stirred conversation on the concept of privacy, security and boundaries between employee and employer. Companies have had to take measures to further secure their network or even decide whether they want to have employee access personal accounts (i.e. email) or devices while on the job. By the same token, some employees argue that companies should not be able to track what is being done on their personal devices or even on company computers even if they are in the work place. Even before stepping foot into the workplace, much can be said about CPM and interviewing. How much we decide to reveal within an interview and the boundaries we have in that situation is directly related to CPM. Even interviewing within a job (as a cop, for example) requires a certain sensitivity to people's boundaries and how much private information they are willing to reveal.

**Self Disclosure at the Work Place**
'''Self-disclosure at the work place can be a very tricky situation for some. Work place environments can either be close knit, or more distant. People in a close knit work environment tend to divulge more personal information to their co-workers. For others, self-disclosure in the work place is strictly prohibited. In a study examining self-disclosure in the work place, one participant stated, I do not disclose private information at work because my work- place really discourages it. We can infer from this participant that organizational culture is central in deciding whether or not disclosing private information to co-workers is acceptable. It is also important to mention that some participants in this study reported that they would rather be independent from the rest of their co-workers to avoid judgmental remarks or feelings of envy, jealousy, or lack of respect at the work place. For others who do disclose private information at work, they discussed the benefits of having a friend whom they trust at the office. Trust is one of the key factors that needs to exist between the speaker and the recipient. In summary, people consider personal characteristics when deciding to disclose information.'''

Based on a study done by Smith and Brunner entitled To Reveal or Conceal Using Communication Privacy Management Theory to Understand Disclosure in the Workplace, they collected information from 103 full time employees in their study.   The goal of the study was to determine when individuals disclose information, when they do not, and why or why not this happens. '''  It was found in some instances that many people chose to disclose private information, because in a sense it made them feel more of a close-knit relationship with co-workers. Unless the information was truly uncomfortable, many people feel due to the trust they have with their co-workers, they were able to disclose information within the workplace as they would similarly do out of the workplace. Others surveyed did not choose to disclose private information simply because their organization discouraged it. Some individuals also felt the importance to separate professional and personal business primarily due to their fear of repercussions of doing so. Repercussions included lack of respect from co-workers, jealousy or gossip. While some individuals felt that sharing personal information could be beneficial to their workplace environment, many others felt sharing personal information in the workplace would only be viewed negatively.'''

Intercultural communication
Several studies tested CPM within intercultural contexts. For instance, a study that examined intercultural privacy management between foreign English teachers and Japanese co-workers uncovered cultural premises. This "study highlights four cultural premises that garner intercultural privacy management between foreign English language teachers (ELTs) and Japanese coworkers (JCWs) in Japan. The analysis revealed that ELTs: (a) expected not to be a "free space" for privacy inquisition by JCWs, and (b) expected voluntary reciprocity in (egalitarian) workplace relationships. JCWs viewed: (a) privacy inquisitions as acts of kindness/caring and (b) soliciting help from a supervisor as providing opportunities for better care. This study calls for attention to intercultural privacy management and enhances CPM's cultural criteria." Within the same context, foreign English teachers "employed the following management strategies: (a) withdrawal, (b) cognitive restructuring, (c) independent control, (d) lying, (e) omission, (f) avoidance, and (g) gaijin smashing. Japanese co-workers defined privacy as information that should be hidden and managed such information by: (a) drawing clear boundaries by not talking or changing contexts, and (b) being pre-emptive by demarcating privacy boundaries early on within a relationship."

Related theories
There are a few communication theories that are worth noting after understanding CPM in more depth.

Expectancy violations theory discusses the importance of personal space, territoriality and the expectations individuals have of another's non verbal communication. Though dealing with physical proximity, we can see the relation between expectancy violations theory and CPM as it pertains to privacy and how close we allow another to come to us. Both physical and intimate proximity requires boundaries to be crossed or permeated.

Social penetration theory explains how two individuals grow in intimacy and move from one level to the next in their relationships. The popular idea behind social penetration is that individual are like onions; they have layers and as you go deeper, the more intimate you become. For this intimacy to occur, we can safely say that private information needs to be shared and exchanged. As one does this, boundaries are permeated and become co-owned.

Finally, coordinated management of meaning explains how people establish rules for both creating and interpreting meaning. Similar to CPM, coordinated management of meaning has stages were coordination is achieved, not achieved, or partially achieved. Similarly you can have boundary ownership, boundary turbulence or boundary linkage. Moreover, in order to achieve meaning there needs to be an exchange of information between individuals to decipher. This exchange of private information falls directly into CPM.

Academic integration
Communication privacy management theory utilizes a socio-cultural communication tradition within an interpersonal context, and employs both a positivistic and interpretive approach to knowing.

Values
Altman speaks to the values of this theory as it advances our thinking by incorporating different "levels" or combinations of participants in communication processes (Altman 2002). Whereas earlier research and theorizing on privacy-disclosure focused on dyads or individuals, a most complicated set of dynamics has been carefully enunciated by Petronio. Petronio also describes communication within families and between family members and outsiders, within and outside work and social groups, and between many combinations of individuals, dyads, and others within and across social boundaries. In addition, her analysis of privacy-disclosure "turbulence", or breaches of desired communication patterns, is articulate and systematic.

Criticism
Some researchers have questioned whether CPM theory truly is dialectical in nature. It has argued that CPM takes a dualistic approach, treating privacy and disclosure as independent of one another and able to coexist in tandem rather than in the dynamic interplay characteristic of dialectics. This accusation of dualistic thinking might result from the theory's use of the terms balance and equilibrium in the early versions of CPM theory. Petronio argues that CPM is not focused on balance in the psychological sense. "Instead, [CPM] argues for coordination with others that does not advocate an optimum balance between disclosure and privacy. As an alternative, the theory claims there are shifting forces with a range of privacy and disclosure that people handle by making judgments about the degrees [emphasis in original] of privacy and publicness they wish to experience in any given interaction" (pp. 12–13). Thus, Petronio argues that it is legitimate to call CPM theory dialectical in nature.

