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You might recall from our first class the
Newcomb model.
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One of the basic models we covered in our first
week.
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The model contains the elements A, B and X.
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A is the sender, B is the receiver and X is some
shared social factor that
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1) influences the relationship between A & B and
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2) is influenced itself by this relationship.
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Let’s say A is Anton and B is Barbara.
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Anton and Barbara are friends and both like the
movies of the famous director Xavier.
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Xavier’s new movie comes out and Barbara
absolutely hates it,
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she thinks it’s pretentious and boring.
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The relationship between Barbara and Xavier has
changed.
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She is not such a big fan anymore.
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As a result the relationship between Anton and
Barbara might change as well,
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since they now completely disagree on their
appreciation of this movie and Xavier’s directing.
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Also, Anton’s relationship with Xavier might
change,
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perhaps he will start to see this movie in a new
light as a result of Barbara’s criticism
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or he will defend him avidly and as a result
become an even bigger fan.
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Newcomb's model is important because it's one
of the first communication models
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that includes the idea of a social environment
that influences the communication process
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and is itself influenced by the communication
process.
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It contains the idea that communication is used
to construct and maintain a social reality.
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A reality that’s very personal for every individual.
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This theory, that communication is a building
block of a social reality,
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became popular in the nineteen sixties.
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In their influential book ‘The Social Construction
of Reality’,
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Berger and Luckmann's argue that all knowledge
about everyday reality,
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all knowledge that we take for granted,
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even simple and even objective ‘truths’,
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are actually born from and maintained by social
interactions.
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We ‘know’ that
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lying is
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wrong,
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that
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boys play with
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cars,
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that
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motorcycles are
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cool,
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that we should
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obey
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the law,
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because as children and adults
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we are programmed by parents, friends, family,
classmates,
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and indirectly by mediated communication,
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with ideas of what is real.
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We are socially taught seemingly fixed ‘rules’
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and ‘truths’ that in reality are social constructs.
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This reality is unique for every individual.
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Our own reality lives, evolves and dies with us
and in a way we are at the center of it.
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This is the theory of social constructionism that
was further developed
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by scholars in the sixties and seventies.
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A key element of social constructionism is that
people do not construct reality by themselves.
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We need to communicate with others to make
sense of the world.
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To understand the ‘rules of live’ and know where
we belong and don’t belong.
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This perspective completely challenged the idea
that reality is fixed and objective,
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and that the truth of that reality can be proven by
scientists.
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This meant that scientists – according to social
constructionists -
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had to study how reality was formed in the mind
of people,
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how they use social interaction and mediated
communication
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to create and maintain their personal image of
reality.
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New, more qualitative, deeper and explorative
methods were required for this.
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Communication scientists borrowed new
methods from anthropology,
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sociology, political sciences and literature
studies
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to gain insight in how reality, or culture, is
formed with use of communication.
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New popular methods were in-depth interviews,
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textual analysis
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and historical and socio-political analysis.
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Scientists were also more and more interested
in the social and political context
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in which communication was produced and
received.
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We’ll discuss that further next.