Introduction to Communication Science week 5: 5.3 Making Sense of the World

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Transcript of all Week 5 videos: https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/commscience/transcripts%2FTranscript_Week_5%20Coursera.pdf

This lecture in .webm: http://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/commscience/recoded_videos%2F5.3.32bd2cfd59779a20649a677c3a145091.webm

2. In the Coursera site, but apparently unaffected by the login block, for this lecture:

Subtitle text: https://class.coursera.org/commscience-001/lecture/subtitles?q=79_en&format=txt

Video mp4: https://class.coursera.org/commscience-001/lecture/download.mp4?lecture_id=79
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Week 5 description:
Communication as a social and cultural force
In the fifth week we cover theoretical approaches that understand communication processes as social and cultural forces, as building blocks of reality, and a binding element of power in society.

You might recall from our first class the
Newcomb model.

One of the basic models we covered in our first
week.

The model contains the elements A, B and X.

A is the sender, B is the receiver and X is some
shared social factor that

1) influences the relationship between A & B and

2) is influenced itself by this relationship.

Let’s say A is Anton and B is Barbara.

Anton and Barbara are friends and both like the
movies of the famous director Xavier.

Xavier’s new movie comes out and Barbara
absolutely hates it,

she thinks it’s pretentious and boring.

The relationship between Barbara and Xavier has
changed.

She is not such a big fan anymore.

As a result the relationship between Anton and
Barbara might change as well,

since they now completely disagree on their
appreciation of this movie and Xavier’s directing.

Also, Anton’s relationship with Xavier might
change,

perhaps he will start to see this movie in a new
light as a result of Barbara’s criticism

or he will defend him avidly and as a result
become an even bigger fan.

Newcomb's model is important because it's one
of the first communication models

that includes the idea of a social environment
that influences the communication process

and is itself influenced by the communication
process.

It contains the idea that communication is used
to construct and maintain a social reality.

A reality that’s very personal for every individual.

This theory, that communication is a building
block of a social reality,

became popular in the nineteen sixties.

In their influential book ‘The Social Construction
of Reality’,

Berger and Luckmann's argue that all knowledge
about everyday reality,

all knowledge that we take for granted,

even simple and even objective ‘truths’,

are actually born from and maintained by social
interactions.

We ‘know’ that lying is wrong,

that boys play with cars,

that motorcycles are cool.

and that we should obey the law,

because as children and adults

we are programmed by parents, friends, family,
classmates,

and indirectly by mediated communication,

with ideas of what is real.

We are socially taught seemingly fixed ‘rules’

and ‘truths’ that in reality are social constructs.

This reality is unique for every individual.

Our own reality lives, evolves and dies with us
and in a way we are at the center of it.

This is the theory of social constructionism that
was further developed

by scholars in the sixties and seventies.

A key element of social constructionism is that
people do not construct reality by themselves.

We need to communicate with others to make
sense of the world.

To understand the ‘rules of live’ and know where
we belong and don’t belong.

This perspective completely challenged the idea
that reality is fixed and objective,

and that the truth of that reality can be proven by
scientists.

This meant that scientists – according to social
constructionists -

had to study how reality was formed in the mind
of people,

how they use social interaction and mediated
communication

to create and maintain their personal image of
reality.

New, more qualitative, deeper and explorative
methods were required for this.

Communication scientists borrowed new
methods from anthropology,

sociology, political sciences and literature
studies

to gain insight in how reality, or culture, is
formed with use of communication.

New popular methods were in-depth interviews,

textual analysis

and historical and socio-political analysis.

Scientists were also more and more interested
in the social and political context

in which communication was produced and
received.

We will discuss that further next.