MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION
Symbolic interaction
Launching Your Study of Communication Theory
1. Prof. Ernest Bormann - “an umbrella term for all
careful, systematic, and self-conscious discussion and
analysis of communication phenomenon.”
2. Judee Burgoon - “set of systematic hunches about the
way things operate. Informed hunches.”
Theory is a set of systematic, informed hunches
about how the way things work out. Meaning; we are
not yet sure we have the answer. Theories always
involve an element of speculation or conjecture.
Informed hunches a theorist’s hunch should be
informed—creating communication theory calls for a
careful, self-conscious analysis of communication
phenomena
3. Prof. Fred Casmir - Theories as sometimes defined as
guesses—but significantly as “educated” guesses.
Images of Theory
1. Theories as Nets - different kind of small nets to
capture distinct types of communication in local
situations.
2. Theories as Lenses - highlights the idea that theories
shape our perception by focusing attention on some
features of communication.
3. Theories as Maps - we need theories to guide us
through unfamiliar territory.
Communication is the relational process of creating
and interpreting messages that elicit response.
Messages is the core of communication.
Text is a record of a message that can be analyzed
by others
Symbolic Interactionism
George Herbert Mead
- was an early social constructionist.
- he believed that our thoughts, self-concept, and the
wider community we live in, are created through
communication or known as symbolic interaction.
Mind, Self, and Society, describes how language is
essential for these three critical human characteristics to
develop.
- isn’t just talk.
- term refers to the language and gestures a person uses
in anticipation of the way others will respond.
- verbal and nonverbal responses that a listener then
provides are likewise crafted in expectation of how the
original speaker will react.
- Berkeley, coined the term symbolic interactionism.
This phrase captures what Mead claimed is the most
human and humanizing activity that people can engage
in—talking to each other.
Idioglossia means a personal or private language.
Herbert Blumer stated three core principles of symbolic
interactionism.
MEANING: The Construction of Social Reality
- Humans act toward people or things on the basis of the
meanings they assign to those people or things.
- We are the one who gives meaning on everything and
it’s based on our own interpretation.
Interactionists are united in their disdain for
deterministic thinking. The closest they come to the
idea of causality is to argue that humans act on their
definition of the situation.
LANGUAGE: The Source of Meaning
- As human beings, we have the ability to name things.
- it’s also the way we learn to interpret the world.
Symbol is “a stimulus that has a learned meaning
and value for people.”
THINKING: The process of taking the role of the other
- An individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by
his or her own thought processes.
- Symbolic interactionists describe thinking as an inner
conversation.
- Mead says we don’t need any encouragement to look
before we leap. We naturally talk to ourselves in order to
sort out the meaning of a difficult situation.
- Mead’s greatest contribution to our understanding of
the way we think is his notion that human beings have
the unique capacity to take the role of the other.
THE SELF: Refelctions in the looking glass
- Once we understand that meaning, language, and
thinking are tightly interconnected, we’re able to grasp.
- Mead dismissed the idea that we could get glimpses of
who we are through introspection.
- Instead, that we paint our self-portrait
with brush strokes that come from taking the role of the
other—imagining how we look to another person.
- Interactionists call this mental image the looking-glass
self and insist that it’s socially constructed.
-Symbolic interactionists are convinced that the self is a
function of language.
SOCIETY: The socializing effect of others’ expectations
- To summarize, there is no “me” at birth. The “me” is
formed only through continual symbolic interaction—first
with family, next with playmates, then in institutions such
as schools.
A Sample Applied of Symbolic Interaction
- Goffman claims that we are all involved in a constant
negotiation with others to publicly define our identity and
the nature of the situation.
-Creating Reality.
Meaning-ful Research - The participant observer
adopts the stance of an interested—yet ignorant
—visitor who listens carefully to what people say in
order to discover how they interpret their world.
Generalized Other - The sobering short story
“Cipher in the Snow” tells the true account of a boy
who is treated as a nonentity by his parents, his
teachers, and other children. Their negative
responses gradually reduce him to what they perceive
him to be—nothing. He eventually collapses and dies
in a snowbank for no apparent reason. The interactionist
would describe his death as symbolic manslaughter.
Naming - Name-calling can be devastating because
the labels force us to view ourselves in a warped
mirror.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - That each of us has a
significant impact on how others view themselves.
Symbol Manipulation - Saul Alinsky was a product
of the “Chicago School” of sociology at a time when
Mead was having his greatest influence. Similar to
Barack Obama, Alinsky became a community
organizer in Chicago when he finished grad school,
and applied what he learned to empower the urban
poor.
ETHICAL REFLECTION: Levinas Responsive “I”
- European Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas agrees
with Mead that the self is socially constructed. He states
that “without the other, there is no ‘I.’ (Note that Levinas
uses the term “I” to refer to what Mead calls the self—the
“I” and the “me.”)
- Mead contends that the looking-glass self develops
through the way others respond to us; Levinas insists that
the identity of our “I” is formed by the way we respond to
others.
- That ethical echo has existed since the beginning of
human history and is summed up in the words, “I am my
brother’s keeper.” The way each of us meets that
obligation shapes our “I.”
- Arnett suggests that our interpersonal communication
will be characterized more by listening than telling.
CRITIQUE: Setting the Gold Standard for Three
Interpretative Criteria
- “Viewing theory as testable explanations of directly or
indirectly observable social regularities, Mead’s ideas are
seriously flawed.”
Clarification of values - Mead proclaimed that
humans are free to make meaningful choices on how
to act when facing problems. Of course, this freedom
and dignity are dependent upon our ability to
communicate.
Understanding of people - how humans socially
construct their concept of self as well as the way
society influences—yet doesn’t dictate—that
construction project.
Ethnographic research - this theory inspired that
describes individuals in similar situations responding
in strikingly different ways.
Coordinated Management of Meaning
- Is the study on the actions and reactions while having a
social interaction.
- Developed by W.Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen in
1980.
- Lays down the process that helps us to socially
communicate that makes us create meaning and also
manage the social reality.
- Articulation of a process on developing preposition on
given situation by the people.
-
There are two major rules in this theory
1. Constructive rules - Communicators made an
interaction to understand the event or message from
others
2. Regulative rules - More about how communicators
react for the message and how they respond or behave
towards the message they received.
This Theory relies on Three Process
1. Coherence - people can interpret things particularly
others story in the same way.
2. Coordination - a collaboration , particularly the
correspondence of individuals stories lived ,is vital to
communication

CMM as practical theory stories from the field
- Pearce and Cronen believed that practical
communication theory should offer a variety of tools to
help understand flawed of patterns of interactions,
identify critical moments in our conversation and it
should suggest ways to talk that will create a better social
environment.
CMM as interpretative theory picturing persons in
conversation
- The experience of a person in conversation is the
primary social process of human life.
- The way people communicate is often more important
than the content of what they say.
CMM as an interpretive theory stories lived and
stories told
1. Stories lived - limited by physical reality constructed
actions that we perform with others.
2. Story told - individually created to interpret, analyse or
reconcile stories lived, narrative and imaginative
narratives that we used to make sense of stories lived.
3. Mystery - there are things in life that are not wholly
objective and measurable communication is subjective
and subtle.
Terms
Strange Loop - An unwanted repetitive communication
pattern
Dialogic Communication - Conversation in which
people speak in a manner that makes others want to
listen.
Social Constructionists - Language theorists who
believe that person-in-conversation construct their own
social reality
Logical Force - The moral pressure or sense of
obligations.
Reflexibility - The process by which the effects of our
words and actions on others bounce back and affect us.
Hierarchy of meaning - A rank order of he relative
significance of context.
Speech Act - Any verbal or non-verbal messages as part
of an interaction.
EXPECTANCY VIOLATION THEORY
- People tend to expect or predict people to behave in
certain ways during any conversation which is violated
sometimes due to relationship status of communicators,
situation they are in and their mental state.
- Judee Burgoon, a communication scholar at the
University of Arizona, wrote the journal article. (Personal
Space)
Personal space is the invisible, variable volume of
space surrounding an individual that defines that
individual’s preferred distance from others. She applies
this theory in classroom setting.
Edward Hall coined the term proxemics to
refer to the study of people’s use of space as a special
elaboration of culture.
Intimate distance: 0 to 18 inches
 Personal distance: 18 inches to 4 feet
Social distance: 4 to 10 feet
Public distance: 10 feet to infinity
A Convoluted Model Becomes an Elegant Theory
- She originally stated that people felt physiologically
aroused when their proxemic expectations were
violated. Later she softened the concept to “an orienting
response” or a mental “alertness” that focuses attention
on the violator.
Concepts in Expectancy Violation Theory
- People do not want their personal spaces to be
breached. People give freedom only to their near and
dear ones to get close to them.
 Cognitive questions - aimed at discovering who the
other person is as a unique individual.

Expectations are of two types Berger’s theory addresses—cognitive rather than

1. Predictive expectations - are behaviour and behavioral uncertainty.
communication happening according to the
expectations in a particular environment, situation or Uncertain reduction - Increased knowledge of what
context. kind of a person another is, which provides an
2. Prescriptive expectations - are the way people display improved forecast of how a future interaction will turn
their behaviour and communicate in a particular out.
environment, situation or context.
AN AXIOMATIC THEORY: CERTAINTY ABOUT
Feedback is determined by the initial message which is UNCERTAINTY
unexpected in this case. It happens in verbal as well as
non-verbal communications. If the person who violates Axiom - Self-evident truth that requires no additional
personal spaces is favourable then the violation is not proof.
taken as negative. Another aspect of personal space is
territoriality or ownership, which can be of a place or a Axiom 1: Verbal Communication
thing. - As uncertainty reduces the amount of verbal
communication increases.
Assumption of this theory is that people are driven by
expectations. Axiom 2: Non-Verbal Warmth
- As nonverbal affiliative expressiveness increases,
Threat threshold is the distance or proximity of any uncertainty levels will decrease in an initial interaction
person coming close which causes physical or situation.
psychological discomfort.
Axiom 3: Information Seeking
Violation valence is the amount of positive or - As uncertainty levels decline, information-seeking
negative affect of unexpected behaviour. behavior decreases.

Axiom 4: Self-Disclosure
ANXIETY/UNCERTAINTY MANAGEMENT THEORY - Low levels of uncertainty produce high levels of
intimacy.
“the beginnings of personal relationships are fraught with
uncertainties.” - Berger Axiom 5: Reciprocity
- Low levels of uncertainty produce low levels of
Reduce uncertainty about new acquaintances reciprocity.
gets a boost from any of three prior conditions:
1. Anticipation of future interaction: We know we will Axiom 6: Similarity
see them again. - Similarities between persons reduce uncertainty, while
2. Incentive value: They have something we want. dissimilarities produce increases in uncertainty.
3. Deviance: They act in a weird way.
Axiom 7: Liking
UNCERTAINTY REDUCTION: TO PREDICT AND - Increases in uncertainty level produce decreases in
EXPLAIN liking.

- “As the ability of persons to predict which alternative or Berger presents 28 theorems of Axioms.
alternatives are likely to occur next decreases, uncertainty
increases.” Theorem - A proposition that logically follows from 2
axioms.
Attribution Theory - A systematic explanation of how
people draw inferences about the character of others
based upon the observed behaviour.

Kinds of Uncertainty
Behavioral questions - good manners go beyond
common sense.
Message Plan - Mental representation of action
sequences that may be used to achieve goals.

Approach on Uncertainties
1. Seeking Information
1.1 Passive Strategy - Impression formation by
observing a person interaction with others
1.2 Active Strategy - Impression formation by
asking a third party about a person
1.3 Interactive Strategy - Impression formation
through face-to-face discussion.

2. Hedging - Use of strategic ambiguity and humor to

provide a way for both parties to save face when a
message fails to achieve its goal.

3. The Hierarchy Hypothesis - The prediction that when

people are thwarted in their attempts to achieve goals,
their first tendency is to alter lower-level elements of their
messages.

AUM Theory - An intercultural theory that claims high

level of uncertainty and anxiety lead to greater
misunderstanding when strangers don’t communicate
mindfully.

Anxiety - The feeling of being uneasy, tense, worried or

apprehensive about what might happen.

Effective Communication - The extent of which a

person interpreting a message does so in a way that’s
relatively similar to what is intended.