As I write this post I am being incredibly distracted by the
girl next to me taking pictures of herself. We are up to about the 15th
photo and she still does not seem happy with the outcome, I'm not sure whether it’s
because I'm blatantly staring and its putting her off or if her arm is sore....
Anyway, back to symbolic Interactionism!
This post is a brief summary of the week 4 reading: Roberts,
B 2006, 'Symbolic interactionism 2: developments', in Micro Social Theory
The reading examines the development, diversity, influences
and critique of ‘symbolic interactionism’ and focuses on the work
of Herbert Blumer, the man who created the term in 1937.
From what I can understand, Symbolic Interactionism is a
theory which analyses social contexts and is an approach to studying particular
and distinctive features of interaction between human beings.
It has been applied to the micro sociological study of
social interaction and encounters through observing the meanings people give to
social situations, objects and events, the setting of social interactions and
the exploration of the nature of social interaction itself.
Blumer states that human interaction is mediated by the use
of symbols, by interpretation, or by ascertaining the meaning of one another’s
actions. So basically, when two people are interacting, their response is not made directly to the actions of one another but
instead is based on the meaning which they attach to those actions.
The three
important principles of Symbolic interactionism:
1st: human beings act towards
things on the basis of the meanings that things have for them
2nd: The meaning of things is
derived form, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with one’s
fellows
3rd: These meanings are handled in
and modified through an interpretive process used by the person dealing with
the things he encounters
The criticism of Blumer’s symbolic interactionism is that
some believe his work to be orientated too far towards the individual creation
of subjective meanings. The theory is
great for understanding and analysing individual behaviours within a micro
social setting, yet is still to delve more in to the macro social theory.
Again, this is just my brief and general understanding of the reading
and what symbolic interactionism is all about. If there is something that I've got wrong about this, please tell me ;)
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