Contemporary Communication Theories

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Contemporary Communication Theories

• A. Goldrick-Jones
• Centre for Academic Writing
• 786-9324 rm 3G08

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Week 4 Social Reality

• Basic principles Reality and truth are
  constructed by humans through symbolic and
  practical acts

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Week 4 Social Reality

• Symbolic interactionism
• focuses on the subjective experience of an
  individual as the basis for understanding and
  studying society. When interacting socially, we
  constantly adjust our behavior to the actions of
  others. We represent various actions and actors
  symbolically, creating meaning, which allows us
  to interpret these actions and adjust our own
  behavior accordingly. (Source Symbolic
  Interactionism Site, Univ. of Colorado)

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Week 4 Social Reality

• Symbolic interactionism major historical
  figures
• G. H. Mead-- I ME (Wood, pp. 90 - 91) the
  generalized other (Wood, pp. 92-93)
• H. Blumer--interpretation of meaning social
  construction of reality (Wood, p. 94)

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Week 4 Social Reality

• Basic principles symbolic acts
• Kenneth Burke language as symbolic action

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Week 4 Social Reality

• Constructivism
• People create knowledge to function pragmatically
  in the world
• People project themselves into what they
  experience

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Week 4 Social Reality

• Social Constructivism
• Knowledge is a product of symbolic interaction
  within social groups

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality
• (You can get the Berger Luckmann reading
  here)
• 1.Communicative (symbolic) action is voluntary
  but delimited by meanings, rules, roles that we
  interactively construct

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality
• 2.Knowledge is a social product it does not
  derive from a source beyond human construction

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality
• 3.Knowledge is contextual (see Wood pp. 79 - 81)

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality
• 4.Theories create worlds or worldviews.
• 5.Scholarship is value-laden.

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Now on to Berger Luckmann . . .
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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality key concepts
• Humans together produce the TOTALITY of
  socio-cultural and psychological formations.

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality key concepts
• World-openness or chaos is always transformed
  by social order into world-closedness

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality key concepts
• World-closedness
• Fewer choices, more boundaries, more direction
  stability

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality key concepts
• Habitualization any action repeated frequently,
  cast into a pattern, reproduced with an economy
  of effort, and subsequently performed in the same
  manner and as economically.

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality key concepts
• Habitualization precedes institutionalization

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Week 4 Social Reality

• The Social Construction of Reality key concepts
• Institutionalization a reciprocal typification
  of habitualized actions by types of actors
  typifications are always shared.

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Week 4 Social Reality

• OK . . . Which are examples of institutionalizati
  on?

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Week 4 Social Reality

• OK . . . Which are examples of institutionalizati
  on?

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Week 4 Social Reality

• OK . . . Which are examples of institutionalizati
  on?

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Week 4 Social Reality

• OK . . . Which are examples of institutionalizati
  on?

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Thats it for this week . . .