Schedule for Today

1. Schedule for Today • Discuss review questions • Finish up with Symbolic Interactionism • Presentation – Cultivation Theory • Discussion – Cultivation Theory

2. Question 1 • You are developing a public service announcement to persuade people to do something and have decided to apply Social Norm Theory. What type of social norm would you want to use and why? • Injunctive norms, subjective norms, moral norms. These have more impact on our behavior.

3. How are cognitive dissonance theory and Social Judgment Theory related? • In this answer, you will have to explain both theories to make the connection clear. Use diagrams if necessary. • The key point is that dissonance is the key to persuasion in social judgment theory

4. What is the basis for “perception is reality” in terms of comm. theory? • Based in constructivism. We all create our own ‘reality’ because we modify our perceptions based on our past experience.

5. “You can’t every compare what is seen with what really is.” • What does that mean and how is it relevant to communication? • We cannot get outside our own perceptions to objectively ‘see’ reality. It means that what we ‘see’ and what our intended audiences ‘see’ will always differ to some degree.

6. How does cost-benefit analysis apply to designing a communication strategy. • You have to create a communication strategy that is perceived to have a greater ratio of benefit to cost than other options at that time and place. • That benefit must be obvious on first glance. • The actual benefit to cost ratio must at least meet the perception.

7. Information or topic driven approach or message or schema-driven approach? • Information driven is organized and driven by topic. Organized like an encyclopedia. • Message driven is organized by message or schema – organized the same way our brain organizes information. • So reduce cognitive load with schema-driven approach.

8. What is Symbolic Interactionism? • Symbolic interactionism is essentially interacting through a shared set of symbols. • It implies that we cannot think without those shared symbols.

9. Key Tenet of Constructivism We actively construct knowledge by blending sensory input, including words, with what we already know based on our past experience.

10. Continuum of Constructivism Radical Cognitive Tenets #1 & #2 #3 #4 Social

11. Basic tenets of constructivism 1. Knowledge is not passively accumulated, but rather is the result of active cognizing by the individual. 2. Cognition is an adaptive process that functions to make an individual’s behavior more viable given a particular environment.

12. Cognitive Constructivism Accepts the two basic tenets, but believes you can still construct knowledge that reflects an objective reality.

13. Social and Radical Constructivists Accept first two tenets. 3. Cognition organizes and makes sense of one’s experience, and is not a process to render an accurate representation of reality.

14. Whatever worldview we construct, we do not have any means to validate it. Sextus Empiricus c. 200 CE

15. “Objectivity is the delusion that observations can be made without an observer.”Heinz von Foerster

16. Social Constructivists 4.Knowing has roots both in biological/neurological construction and in social, cultural and language-based interactions. • Lev Vygotsky • George Herbert Mead • Ludwig Wittgenstein

17. Lev Vygotsky 1896-1934 1850 1900 1950 2000 1859 Origin of The Species

18. Vygotsky’s stance • You don’t learn to become social; you become social to learn. • Learn from the outside in.

19. George Herbert Mead 1863-1931 1850 1900 1950 2000 1859 Origin of The Species

20. Mead’s stance There is not subjective reality or objective reality, only inter-subjective reality.

21. Symbolic Interactionism • Humans act toward people and things based on meanings they assign to those people and things. • Meaning arises out of social interaction that people have with each other in the exchange of symbols. • An individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by their own thought process.

22. Key points • We can’t think reflexively before we have symbols to think with. • Language is the software that activates the mind, so we need to become social to learn.

23. Mead’s great contribution • Idea that we can put ourselves in the role of others, which is responsible for the development of self-concept and reflexive thought. • Self is a function of language. Without language, we have no self-concept.

25. Ludwig Wittgenstein1889-1951 1850 1900 1950 2000 1859 Origin of The Species

26. Stance • We can’t know anything outside of language – it is all we have to think with.

27. Fritz Maulthner Language is an instrument designed to satisfy a multiplicity of human needs. As such, it is an imperfect tool for exploring and depicting reality.

28. “Truth is not to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth, in the process of their dialogic interaction.”Mikhail Bakhtin

29. Key Question How would a human develop cognitively without language? Develop a personal symbol system that would allow them to think at a reasonably high level.

30. Einstein

31. Mozart

32. What does work of Einstein and Mozart Suggest? That perhaps knowledge is translated into language rather than being defined by it.

33. Baggage of Language An individual’s subjective reality is overlain by society’s collective subjective reality. Emile Durkheim

34. What about self-image and reflexive thought? I believe you would develop some type of self-image based on the language of gestures used by other biological organisms.

35. Where does that take me?

36. Ernst von Glasersfeld1917- 1850 1900 1950 2000 1859 Origin of The Species

37. An epiphany! Understanding another language is not just about learning the vocabulary, syntax and grammar. It required a different way of thinking about things – a different way of seeing, feeling and experiencing the world.

38. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis How people see and think about the world is to a large extent shaped by their language, which is shaped by their environment. Also known as linguistic relativity.

39. “In order to discover whether a picture is true or false, we must compare it with reality.”Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1933

40. Each language entails and reflects a conceptually different world.

41. Radical Constructivism • Accepts the first three tenets – active construction, cognition as an adaptive tool and subjective realities. • Does not deny the existence of an objective reality. • Plays down the importance of social influence.

42. Continuum of Constructivism Radical Cognitive Symbolic Tenets #1 & #2 #3 #4 Social

43. Symbolic Constructivism We use symbols to actively construct our schemas, whether those symbols are personal or shared.

44. How does that relate? • We interact with symbols – both language and others – to construct a shared reality. • It combines semiotics – the use of symbols – and symbolic interactionism – the sharing of symbols.

45. How does that affect communication? • You must find/create a shared set of symbols in order to communicate. • What you communicate will never be exactly what you are envisioning because of the unique background of others.

46. Communication Process

47. Semiotics • The use of non-verbal symbols • Tying a yellow ribbon around a tree • Professional wrestling

48. Terminology • Signifier (image) • Signified (concept) • Sign (signifier plus the sign = schema or meaning)

49. Signs in other cultures • What are some signs unique to your culture that serve in a communicative capacity? • What are some experiences where you have misinterpreted signs here?

50. How does semiotics affect us? • Think about the ELM – peripheral route. We use symbols to give us clues. Make sure you give the right symbols.