Chapter Six

Theories of Symbolic Organization

Social Scientific Approaches to Symbolic Organization

Metaphors for Understanding how people make sense of social lives

Consistency seeker (e.g., cognitive dissonance theory)Naïve scientist (e.g., attribution theory)Cognitive miser (e.g., schema theory)--efficiency

Schema Theory:What are schemas?Schemas are templates that help us understand the social world (cognitive economy)—have been studied as what (content) and how (process of activation)Many types of schemas – self, other people, roles, and events (Table 6.1)Exist at various levels of abstraction and may be organized into memory organization packets

Schema Theory:How do schemas work?

When are schema developed and activated? When new situations arise or when the current situation “matches” an already developed schema

How are schema changed? Several models have been proposed: bookkeeping, conversion, and subtyping (most empirical support)

Schema Theory:Applications in Communication

Consideration of memory organization packets (MOPs) to understand conversationConsideration of schemas that guide our expectations about relationshipsConsideration of schemas in imagined interactionsConsideration of schemas we hold for mass communication programming

Schema

What are some schemas for funerals?

Are there MOPS?

How might the schema be altered?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfDyTUiL8xs

Schema in the media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvyelwDA0Ws

Attribution Theory: Basis Concepts

Views people as “naïve scientists” who look for causal explanations in social life (“why” questions)

Locus of attributions can be internal (within the person) or external (within the situation)

Fundamental attribution error (negative vs. positive behaviors)

Attributions can also be seen in terms of the stability and controllability of social behavior

Attributions in Interpersonal Contexts

Part of day-to-day talk

Influenced by relationship quality (satisfaction)—see example, next two slides

Whether making an attribution in public or privately to partner

If we believe that resistance is based on controllable and internal attribution, we are more persistent in persuasive strategies such as guilt or appeals to altruism

Patterns of Attribution in Relationships: Satisfied

Partner’s Behavior Your Attribution Partner’s Response

Positive

Negative

Internal

Stable

Controllable

External

Unstable

Uncontrollable

Positive

Positive

Patterns of Attribution in Relationships: Dissatisfied

Partner’s Behavior Your Attribution Partner’s Response

Positive

Negative

External

Unstable

Uncontrollable

Internal

Stable

Controllable

Negative

Negative

Attribution Theory in Mediated Communication

Media provides attributions for events/behaviors

Movies influence viewers’ attributions

Third-person EffectWe assume that others are more strongly influenced by the media than we are (we have more common sense)

Interlude

Schema theory and Attribution theory in social scientific theory building

What are the variables?

What are some propositions?

Humanistic Approaches to Symbolic Organization

Humanistic approaches—not looking for cognitive structures or causal explanations

Looking for ways to making sense of or understand the social and symbolic world

Subjective and value-laden

Narrative Theory: Walter Fisher The narrative paradigm can be

distinguished from a “rational world paradigm.” (Table 6.3)“Humans experience and comprehend life as a series of ongoing narratives, as conflicts, characters, beginnings, middles, and ends.”“…the narrative paradigm is a philosophical statement that is meant to offer an approach to interpretation and assessment of human comm.”

Narrative Theory:Analysis of Narrative Rationality

The “goodness” of a story can be judged in terms of narrative coherence and narrative fidelityNarrative coherence considers the integrity of a story’s structureNarrative fidelity considers whether the story “rings true” with the beliefs of listeners

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjV2AWzBQNo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylvAovoO2kk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJl-lDFNGPg&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHD1uxujnFQ&feature=related

Question to consider: FidelityIn some measure, fidelity is a judgment call—what is truthful and humane in everyday lives and the world

Fisher: imagines an audience that believes in the values of truth, the good, beauty, health, wisdom, courage, temperance, justice, harmony, order, communion, friendship, and oneness with the Cosmos

Do the stories of modern culture (rap music, reality tv, movies, etc.) offer this?

Narrative Theory:Applications and critiques

Applications have included consideration of parental support groups (Toughlove story) and of political party platforms

Some critiques of the narrative paradigm have been raised about its use in the analysis of a wide range of texts

Fisher, however, believes that all forms of communication be analyzed as stories

Kenneth Burke’s DramatismWide-ranging influence in rhetoric and communication disciplineBurke’s work can be used to analyze

(1) language as a form of action

(2) human action as dramatic in form

(3) human action as rhetorical

(4) pluralistic and dialectical program for analysis of human behavior

Dramatism:Language as a Form of Action

Distinction between motion and action is what distinguishes humans from other animals—humans have agencyHumans engage in symbolic actionSeveral implications, including (1) separation from natural world, (2) reflexivity, (3) introduction of “the negative,” and (4) introduction of hierarchy

Humans arethe symbol-making, symbol-using, symbol-misusing animalinventor of the negativeseparated from our natural conditionby instruments of our own makinggoaded by the spirit of hierarchyacquiring foreknowledge of deathand rotten with perfection (qtd. in Coe 332-333). http://www.cla.purdue.edu/dblakesley/burke/human/index.html

Dramatism:Action as Dramatic

Can consider the “grand sweep” of life’s drama through the process of guilt and redemption

This process involves mortification and scapegoating

Can also consider smaller “dramas of life” through consideration of dramatistic pentad (act, scene, agent, purpose, and agency)—language as a terministic screen

Act: What happened? What is the action? What is going on? What action; what thoughts?

Scene: Where is the act happening? What is the background situation?

Agent: Who is involved in the action? What are their roles?

Agency: How do the agents act? By what means do they act?

Purpose: Why do the agents act? What do they want?

Of dramatism, Burke said: "If action, then drama; if drama, then conflict; if conflict, then victimage.

http://rhetorica.net/burke.htm

An example: http://burton.byu.edu/Composition/Burke-Pentad_files/frame.htm

Question for Burke

How might a communication scholar analyze the Iraq War using the dramatistic pentad (act, scene, agent, purpose, and agency) from the perspective of someone

A. Opposed to the war (pull out now)

B. Supports finishing the war

ConsubstantiationIt’s more than credibility

Dramatism: Application

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFKtgTsKDIg&feature=related

How does the speaker build (or not build) consubstantion?

Choose an “act” in the story (e.g., “this spectacle”)—who is the agent? Walk through the rest of the pentad. Who are the villains (devil-term)? Who can provide redemption?

Can you determine a pentadic ratio?