Symbolic interactionism as thought of by Herbert Blumer (1990, p.145), is the process of interaction in the formation of meanings for individuals. According to Griffin (2009, p.60), symbolic interactionism is the most human and humanizing activity that people can engage in such as talking to each other, and also communication through symbols. According to Turner & West (2010, p.79), this theory is based on the "meanings that we assign to people or things or even events. "From my understanding, symbolic interactionism refers to the way of how people communicate to each other that gives meaning. Therefore from here we can interpret an individual in a large community in the form of socialization.
Herbert Blumer (1990, p.63) set out three basic premises of the perspective where the first one is ‘meaning’. Humans act toward things on the basis of the meanings they ascribe to those things. Secondly, it’s about 'language' where the meaning of such things is derived from, or arises out of, the social interaction that one has with others and the society. Lastly, it is about 'thought' where these meanings are handled in, and modified through, an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things he/she encounters.
In this modern society, most men and women have to be a certain someone or way to fit in the norms of our community. For instance, a female must have a very skinny figure in order to be a model and if you are a punk, you have to rebel. In short, our society tends to stereotype if you’re a person. An example that will be use for symbolic interactionism is this short clip below from the movie, 'Mean Girls'. This is a good example in America especially in high schools about how a certain group should act or behave in order to fit in which includes being ‘plastics’, being nerds, being desperate to be popular, being thin, being a plus size, being jocks and so on.
At the end of the movie, the characters in the ‘plastics’ group ended up joining different cliques, go with their separate ways and eventually became happy. This shows that, initially, there were not being themselves when they were in the ‘plastics’ group. This brings us to the “looking glass self” theory.
According to Griffin (2009, p.63), "looking glass self" theory is an ongoing process combining the “I” and the “me”. “I” is the spontaneous driving force that fosters all that is novel, unpredictable and unorganized in the self whereas “me” is the objective self, the image of self seen when one takes the role of the other. From my point of view, this is when an individual is slowly becoming someone else in order to fit the perceptions of others in a society where "me" can be in the form of multiple identities.
References :
Blumer, H. (1996). Symbolic interactionism: perspective and method. New York: Paperback Pages
Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies
West, R., Turner, L.H., (2010) Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application (4th Edition). New York : The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Aziimah binti Othman (11B8111)
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