Concept of Community

As I was reading the concept on community, found in chapter 5, I came across the term generalized other. It is how we see ourselves perceived in social settings and attitudes of groups in social settings.

I volunteered as a grant writer for a neighborhood association for five years. During that time I encounter a lot of interaction with the community, which was under represented. I believe that at first I was perceived as an outsider who didn’t understand what they were going through. I perceived that there was a lot of animosity in the group. This made me feel out of place and in turn my attitude and actions when interacting with this group were effected.

It took some time for me to realize that my own perception of how they felt about me was wrong. They had many people come into the position I was in and did not have good results. So my misinterpretation of their attitude was misguided and it took some time for me to come to this conclusion.

7 Established Traditions of Communication Theory, Chapter 4

In this section of my blog I will be discussing one of the seven established traditions of communication theory presented by Robert Craig, University of Colorado Communications department. The tradition is called semiotics. Semiotics is defined as, “the study of verbal and nonverbal signs that can stand for something else, and how their interpretation impacts society” (Griffin, 2008, p.46).

An important aspect of semiotics is the name we assign to things that convey a symbol we then in turn interpret based on our own learned meaning. Let me try and give you an example to better understand what a symbol is. The giving of a red rose, a simple gesture, conveying a term of endearment usually interpreted as romantic in western cultures. The red rose is a symbol of romance. A purple Iris would not convey they same message.

Since we have such a diverse group I am interest to know if there any other representations of love or gestures of romance in your culture that are symbols. So please make a comment, I am curious to know.



References

Griffin, E. (2008). A First Look At Communication Theory. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Symbolic Interaction (minding), Chapter 5

The concept that I will be discussing is minding. This comes from George Herbert Meads teaching and his student, Blumer’s third premise of Symbolic Interaction; thought. Minding is defined as, “an inner dialogue used to test alternatives, rehearse actions and anticipate reactions before responding self talk” (Griffin, 2008, p. 62).

The concept of minding is something that I have personally experience and that is why I find it so meaningful. I also believe that many of you have experienced this concept as well. How many times have you said something to someone or found yourself in an awkward situation where you pause to ask yourself the outcomes of different reactions to the situation, before you speak (inner dialogue)? I have done this quite a bit. It’s that point in the conversation where you go, ummm.

I came across a television ad that exemplified my interpretation of the concept minding and would classify this commercial as a great example of minding, one of the concepts of Symbolic Interactionism. It’s the newest Twix commercial and the conversation happens to focus on blogging, how ironic is that. If you haven’t seen the commercial click on the link:

http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=726082 (Writers Write, Inc. 2008).

If the link doesn’t work please try to copy and paste.


Let me know what you think.


References

Griffin, E. (2008). A First Look At Communication Theory. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Writers Write, Inc. (2008, July 26). Guy gets girl with blogging Twix commericial. Retrieved August 31, 2008, from http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=726082