COMS 393 Chapter 1: Leeds-Hurwitz: Social Construction of Reality
6 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Reading 1: leeds-hurwitz: social construction of reality (891 894) Social construction theory addresses the process by which people jointly construct their understanding of the world. Term can refer to both process & movement of scholars who use. In coms field, 2 most relevant elements: assumption ppl make sense of experience by constructing model of social world & how it works, emphasis on language, most important system through which reality is constructed. Conversation = critical tool for reality maintenance. Construction is social b/c req. collaborative rather than individual effort. Each culture/social group create own understanding of world, own behaviour meanings & how its understood. Each generation reaffirms & maintains some parts of social world, repairing/recreating/discarding other parts. Ppl create social meanings for parts of the physical world (e. g. , money physical w/ social conventions) Some things have social reality w/o prior physical existence (e. g. , social roles, relationships, religion)
