Upload
marvin-evangelista
View
58
Download
2
Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
none
Citation preview
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
Introduction to Communication Theories
By Anne Cortez | Adamson University
Discussion Outline
• Interpersonal Communication
• Symbolic Interaction
• Creation of the Self
• Summary
Our thoughts, self-concept, and the wider community we live in are created through communication—symbolic interaction.
-George Herbert Mead
George Herbert Mead was an influential philosophy professor at the University of Chicago, but he never published his ideas. After his death, his students published his teachings in Mind, Self, and Society.
We find ourselves NOT through introspection, but through interaction with other people.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTION- The ongoing use of language and gestures in anticipation of how the other will react; a conversation.
Communication is the most human and humanizing activity in which people are engaged. -Herbert Blumer
Herbert Blumer - Mead’s chief disciple- coined the term symbolic interactionism.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
THINKING
LANGUAGE
MEANING
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM Premise 1: Humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things
art
terror prof
SYMBOL- a stimulus that has a learned meaning and value for people
Reality is a social construction. (Berger & Luckmann, 1996)
Principles of Early Economic Systems • Reciprocity • Redistribution • Householding
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
SHARED MEANING
The communal creation of the social
world in which we live.
People’s common interpretation or mutual understanding of what a
verbal or nonverbal message signifies.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”
What is reality?
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM Premise 2: Meaning arises out of the social interaction that people have with each other; meaning is negotiated through language
Words are symbols. Words do not have inherent meaning. We assign meaning to words.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION
STIMULUS INTERPRETATION RESPONSE
Meaning Making Process
The words that we use have default assumptions.
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM Premise 3: An individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by his or her own thought processes
Thinking is an inner conversation. Mead called this inner dialogue minding.
Taking the role of the other- the process of mentally imagining that you are someone else who is viewing you
“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.”
The SELF is the joining point between the individual and the society. Communication is the link that allows the intersection to occur.
THE SELF: I and Me I - the spontaneous, driving force that fosters all that is novel, unpredictable, and unorganized in the self Me - the objective self; the image of self seen when one takes the role of the other
Looking-glass self The mental self-image that results from taking the role of the other; the objective self; me.
We are born with no sense of self. Self arises in interaction with others.
Generalized other- the composite mental image a person has of his or her self based on societal expectations and responses
SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM • Humans act toward people or things on the
basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things
• Meaning arises out of the social interaction that people have with each other; meaning is negotiated through language
• An individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by his or her own thought processes
Our thoughts, self-concept, and the wider community we live in are created through communication—symbolic interaction. We use language and meaning making to create the self and the reality.
REFERENCES
Em Griffin, A First Look at Communication Theory, 2006. Stephen Littlejohn and Karen Foss, Communication Theory, 2010.
QUESTIONS?