CMNS 262 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Communication Theory, Auguste Comte, Antipositivism

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Communication
• Course: CMNS 262
• Professor: Daniel Ahadi

Document Summary

Social constructionism / social construction of reality: is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly constructed understandings of the world. Human beings rationalize their experience by creating models of the social world and share and reify these models through language (eg. media, extensions of language, help to construct this reality. Truth, knowledge, and so on, are discovered, made known, reinforced, and changed by members of society. We understand our world by social interpersonal interactions ( the mass media are especially in uential in shaping perceptions of reality. ) When we say that something is socially constructed, we are subscribing to the following reasoning: In the present state of affairs, x is taken for granted; x appears to be inevitable: x need not have existed, or need not be at all as it is. A systematic, empirical, and cumulative process by which we seek to solve theoretical and applied problems.