Sociocultural Tradition Mead Analysis
9. The Sociocultural Tradition
Dr. Martin Morris, Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
Saved on: 3/10/09 1:30 PM Printed on: 3/10/09 1:31 PM
Introduction
Reading 27. G.H. Mead, “The Social Foundations and Functions of Thought and Communication”
The principle which I have suggested as basic to human social organization is that of communication involving participation in the other. This requires the appearance of the other in the self, the identification of the other with the self, the reaching of self-consciousness through the other. This participation is made possible only through human communication Contrast with animal communication . . . Symbols => a human soci al product—that is, a product of interaction o What Mead discovers is that the self is ultimately a product of the human social use of symbols, the process of communication itself. Mead emphasizes the process of communication as constitutive of our very sense of self. The …show more content…
Dr. Martin Morris, Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
4
Reading 28. M. Poster, “The mode of information in postmodernity”
(Almost all bullets are quotes from the text—I have omitted page refs and quotes for readability)
My general thesis is that the mode of information enacts a radical reconfiguration of language, one which constitutes subjects outside the pattern of the rational, autonomous individual.
The spatial materiality of print—the linear display of sentences, the stability of the word on the page, the orderly, systematic spacing of black letters on a white background---enable readers to distance themselves from authors. These features of print promote an ideology of the critical individual, reading and thinking in isolation, outside the network of political and religious dependencies. o print culture constitutes the individual as a subject o the role of communications in the process of constituting such
Dr. Martin Morris, Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
Saved on: 3/10/09 1:30 PM Printed on: 3/10/09 1:31 PM
Introduction
Reading 27. G.H. Mead, “The Social Foundations and Functions of Thought and Communication”
The principle which I have suggested as basic to human social organization is that of communication involving participation in the other. This requires the appearance of the other in the self, the identification of the other with the self, the reaching of self-consciousness through the other. This participation is made possible only through human communication Contrast with animal communication . . . Symbols => a human soci al product—that is, a product of interaction o What Mead discovers is that the self is ultimately a product of the human social use of symbols, the process of communication itself. Mead emphasizes the process of communication as constitutive of our very sense of self. The …show more content…
Dr. Martin Morris, Communication Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University
4
Reading 28. M. Poster, “The mode of information in postmodernity”
(Almost all bullets are quotes from the text—I have omitted page refs and quotes for readability)
My general thesis is that the mode of information enacts a radical reconfiguration of language, one which constitutes subjects outside the pattern of the rational, autonomous individual.
The spatial materiality of print—the linear display of sentences, the stability of the word on the page, the orderly, systematic spacing of black letters on a white background---enable readers to distance themselves from authors. These features of print promote an ideology of the critical individual, reading and thinking in isolation, outside the network of political and religious dependencies. o print culture constitutes the individual as a subject o the role of communications in the process of constituting such