HOD-859 Communications Theory and Practice

4 semester credits

Module Two focuses on theories of the social construction of reality, which provide framing about the ways that many of the “realities” experienced in our social worlds are constructed by convention or agreement, including the way that we communicate about them. These theories help us to distinguish that which is socially constructed from the empirical realities of the natural world, and helps to account for multiple versions of “reality” across cultural and other social divides. This also helps us understand why conflicts occur between groups, and why some conflicts seem intractable. 

Module Three deals with theories of meaning-making and how they can serve as interpretive, critical, and constructive / interventional strategies. Convergences can be found between theories of social construction and communication such as the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), symbolic interactionism, the “Lifeworld Phenomenology” of Alfred Schutz, and the Dramatistic methods of Burke.  For example, each has a perspective on motives, structures or patterns, “speech acts” and alternate realities.

Module Four reviews several examples of research and scholarly practice that “takes a communication perspective” or draws upon social construction concepts as a way of framing an inquiry, and then consider a research question that you have and how this perspective could be a part of your own research.
Delivery Method: Online
Grading Default: Letter
Learning Outcome(s):

• Ability to trace the development of the scholarly field of social construction of reality and identify major theorists and their ongoing evolution in scholarship and practice. This will include works and contributions by Meade, Berger and Luckmann, Pearce, Cronin, and others.
• Explain the “communication perspective” of looking “at” (not “through”) communication, and apply various heuristics of CMM to analyze an episode or phenomenon of interest to identify what is being “made in communication,” and the roles of context, logical force, and other related conceptual tools.