Communication Privacy Management Theory: Boundaries

Communication Privacy Management Theory previously known as Boundary Management Theory is a relatively new communication based research method. Founded by Sandra Petronio in 1991, CPM has been used to investigate privacy management in family communication, online social media, and health communication (Petronio, 2013). This paper will summarize the key principles related to CPM and how this theory can be used for real-world applications. In addition, it will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of CPM theory. The first principle of CPM theory is privacy ownership which can be defined as people are the sole owners of their private information. People have the right to choose who they share their private information with and when they do, that person becomes a co-owner of their information. Privacy ownership creates the boundaries in which private information is confined. These boundaries should be discussed with co-owners to prevent privacy turbulence. Although people have the right to manage their private information, they should be careful where they are disclosing private information. The co-ownership role in health and online relationships has been investigated recently using privacy ownership (Petronio, 2013). Privacy control is how people manage their private

First, CPM offers a way to discuss private information with our families and how we can create boundaries/rules for members we wish to share information with. Second, online social media in regards to CPM. Communication researchers can study why people disclose certain information on social media. Turbulence that occurs when people disclose information on social media and preventative measures that can be taken. Third, health communication which can be used to explore physician disclosure of medical mistakes (Allman, 1998). Lastly, relational issues and how we deal with turbulence in our