COMN 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Medicinal Plants, Stained Glass, Marshall Mcluhan

• School: York University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMN 1000
• Professor: David Skinner

Document Summary

Social theory - representation or model of the world. Representation a thing or model that seeks to stand in for the real thing. Purpose- to provide explanation for how and why things are the way they are. Social theory is used to simplify the world. To guide action (eg. social policy, improve quality of life) Mar(cid:454): (cid:862)the purpose of theor(cid:455) (cid:374)ot si(cid:373)pl(cid:455) to e(cid:454)plai(cid:374) the (cid:449)orld (cid:271)ut to (cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge it. (cid:863) Problem: social world too complex for complete explanation hence, social scientists break it chunks, several steps: Defi(cid:374)e field of stud(cid:455) (eg. o(cid:272)iolog(cid:455), phycology, communication) Each approaches the world in different ways; makes a value judgment about what aspects of the social world to study. Keep in mind there are many different ways to look at the world. What is (cid:858)mass communication (cid:862)co(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)i(cid:272)atio(cid:374)(cid:863) is fro(cid:373) the lati(cid:374) (cid:862)ci(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)is(cid:863) mea(cid:374)i(cid:374)g to (cid:373)ake (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)o(cid:374)(cid:863)