Talking our world into realities that shape usThe philosopher George Herbert Mead proposed some ideas that his students, including Herbert Blumer who coined the term "Symbolic Interactionism," published posthumously under the title Mind, Self, Society (1934).  Dada comics art manipulation by Crummy Blumer based his Symbolic Interactionism theory on three (3) core principles gleaned from Mead (as quoted from Griffin 56-58):
The self, according to Mead and echoed by Blumer, are portraits of ourselves made by “taking the role of the other” and by distinguishing the “I” from the “me” through talk/language. The "me" is also a product of the community, as the expectations of society that make up our mental image of a generalized other. Because meaning is usually a product of this dialogic minding between the individual and his/her community, Symbolic Interactionists proposed participant observation as an ethnomedological approach to research. Erving Goffman also proposed his concept of “framing” the self within the context of "social interaction as a dramaturgical performance." This "drama," according to his associate Joan Emerson, is what accounts for how doctors and nurses "frame" themselves as impersonal medical personnel attending to a gynecological examination. Because the doctors and nurses play these roles, the patient is put at ease (Griffin 62). Symbolic Interactionism also accounts for how "naming" becomes constitutive of identities, and how our individual expectations contribute to the "self-fulfilling" actions of others. However, Saul Alinsky provides a positive application of the theory in his concept of “symbol manipulation” as an emancipatory technique in community organizing. Symbolic Interactionism, according to Griffin, is often criticized for its "fluid boundaries" and "vague concepts" (for instance, the differences between the "I" and "me"), as well as for its "undisciplined approach" to analyzing communication phenomena. Also, Griffin points to the "overstatement on the human capacity for language" as rather biased against those with speech or mental impairment. However, these critiques aside, the principles of Symbolic Interactionism allowed other interpretive communication scholars to propose their own theories. 
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Topics
Orientation Theory in Communication Interpersonal Communication Theories
 Symbolic Interactionism by Nino Soria de Veyra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.  |
