1. Dr. Holly Kruse Communication Theory
Self & Society
Dr. Holly Kruse
Communication Theory

2. Symbolic Interactionism
Seeks to understand how humans create symbolic worlds (through language and other symbols) and these how worlds affect human behavior.
Views communicators as active participants in social world.

3. Symbolic Interactionism
Influential in communication studies (e.g. in Carey’s work).
Rooted in early 20th century Chicago School.
Concern with community: made of individuals making choices, acting together to reach societal goals.

4. Symbolic Interactionism
Mead: people act based on symbolic meanings in a given situation.
3 main principles of symbolic interactionism –
Meaning
Language
Thought

5. Symbolic Interactionism
Meaning:
Herbert Blumer, “Humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things.”

6. Symbolic Interactionism
Language:
Herbert Blumer, “Meanings arise out of the social interaction that people have with each other.”
So meaning doesn’t arise out of essences of objects.

7. Symbolic Interactionism
Thought:
Herbert Blumer, “An individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by his or her own thought process.”
Interior conversation: “minding.”

8. Self The Looking Glass Self (Cooley):
We can only understand ourselves through interaction with others and seeing selves from their perspective.
Happens through symbols (language and other signs)

9. Self-Concept
How we see ourselves; mental representation of who we are.
Qualities we think describe us and relationship among qualities.
Usually different from how others see us and how we want to present self to others.

10. Self-Concept Developed through: Social feedback Group associations
Roles we assume
Self-observation/self-labels
Social comparison

11. Semiotics
The study of signs (visual, aural). A way to understand meanings of messages and how those messages make up culture. Looks at:
Signs and Texts
Codes: systems of meaning
Culture: total set of meanings

12. Culture
Culture is a historically transmitted patterns of meanings. It’s a web of meanings that we create and live in as if we didn’t create it.
Conveyed by signs
Meanings are culturally specific

13. Semiotics Two authorities:
C. S. Peirce (American philosopher, )
Ferdinand de Saussure (Swiss linguist, )

14. Peirce’s Semiotics Peirce’s triangle of meaning:
Sign: Something that conveys meaning. Refers to something other than itself.
Object: Reality to which sign refers.
Interpretant: Mental concept produced by sign and user’s experience.

15. Peirce’s Semiotics

16. Peirce’s Semiotics

17. Peirce’s Semiotics

18. Saussure’s Semiotics Sign composed of:
Signifier: Physical existence of sign
Signified: Mental concept related to sign
Process is “signification.”

19. Saussure’s Semiotics

20. Saussure’s Semiotics Relating sign to external reality not important.
Relationship of sign to other signs in system is what matters: what is it similar to? What is it different from?

21. Saussure’s Semiotics
If your language has the word “bush” and/or “shrub,” “tree” will mean something different that if it didn’t.
“Mrs” and “Miss” meant something different before “Ms” was introduced.

22. Saussure’s Semiotics Meanings of signs are arbitrary
Otherwise, all signs would be iconic (or “more motivated” in Saussearean system).
Relationship between signifier and signified culturally specific.

23. Other Theories Related to Self
Coordinated Management of Meaning
Cognitive Dissonance
Expectancy Violation

24. Coordinated Management of Meaning
We coordinate our meanings with others in conversation, using rules
“Persons in conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create.”

25. Coordinated Management of Meaning
We make adjustments because of other person/people: coordinated.
We have to adjust our stories to fit with our realities: management of meaning.

26. Coordinated Management of Meaning
Must understand and adjust to context:
Specific episode being presented
Relationship between people
Self-concept of speaker (life scripts)
Speaker’s culture

27. Coordinated Management of Meaning
“Loops” in conversation:
Strange loop: people locked into destructive pattern
Charmed loop: self-confirmatory; system is working well

28. Strange Loop

29. Cognitive Dissonance
Is the mental state in which people find themselves doing things that don’t fit with what they know, or having opinions that do not fit with other opinions they hold.
“Mrs. Keech” example.

30. Cognitive Dissonance
Discomfort created by dissonance makes us avoid doing things that distress us.
The more important issue is to us and/or the greater gap between beliefs & behavior…
The greater the dissonance.

31. Cognitive Dissonance Hypotheses related to cognitive dissonance:
Selective exposure
Post-decision dissonance
Minimal justification

32. Cognitive Dissonance Coping with dissonant information:
Ignore (“Shoplifting isn’t really stealing.”
Justify behavior (“This store is a rip-off and really owes me.”)
Change behavior (“I won’t shoplift anymore.”)

33. Expectancy Violation
When what we expect to occur in communication doesn’t happen
Originally in non-verbal, but now also in verbal, communication.
Valence of violations can be positive or negative.

34. Expectancy Violation
Originally mostly about personal space violations based in proxemics (intimate, personal, social, and public space).
We learn what to expect in social contexts and use knowledge to predict how others will act.