Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
Symbolic-interaction theorists call this process the social construction of reality.
To understand how mass media constructs reality, think about how movie-makers, TV producers and news casters design their programs to entertain, and sometimes inform, the audience.
With this in mind, develop a skeptical attitude toward the media. Ask yourself these questions when you view a program that is
"based on a true story":
What emotions does the DVD encourage the viewer to feel (fear, happiness, anxiety, sadness, etc.)?
What sound or visual effects are used in the movie to encourage these emotions?
How does the program slant or spin its depictions of subcultures, groups or leaders in the movie?
What actually happened that the DVD shows accurately and what is fictionalized?
Whose perspective does the DVD present?
Whose perspective does the DVD neglect to present?
What definitions of reality does the movie create? How accurate are the definitions?
What are key aspects of the culture in the DVD that a viewer would need to understand in order to interpret the people’s actions and interactions accurately?
Does it show the groups or individuals with more positive or negative imagery and music?
Mass media?
Economic conditions?
Government policies?
Religious doctrines?
Educational opportunities?
"Soft Reality"
&
Disagreement
In the video you are about to view, Shannon and Joseph disagree about several topics. The disagreements occur in this order:
1. Is Grace's status a "dancer" or a "tramp"?
Consider the labels they use to describe Grace. How are these labels related to the values and norms that they learned from their families?
2. What type of relationship does Joseph have with the Ward Boss?
Consider the experiences that the two people have and how they affect their ideas about relationships between boss and worker. Whose version of reality is more accurate?
3. Why doesn't Shannon recognize Joseph's success by complimenting him about his hat?
Consider how Joseph identifies his many new hats and suits as a symbols of his upward mobility (achieved status). Why is it important that Shannon acknowledge his performance of success?
Force = physical control, threat of control, or intimidation.
How does Joseph use force to gain power over Shannon?
Does he succeed?
Power = the ability to force or persuade another person to do what you want them to do, even when they don't want to.
Persuasion = using language, argument and reason to convince someone that your wishes are beneficial.
What arguments and words do Shannon & Joseph use to convince each other that their own perspective on people is real?
Sometimes disagreements arise during the process.
Culture gives us language, symbols, ideas, values, norms which we use in our interactions.
When people define a situation differently from each other...
When socialization is successful, the individual interacts with many others in the culture with little problem.
Joseph lost the fight and the Ward Boss and his friends lost a large amount of cash that they bet. The Ward Boss took the money that Joseph and Shannon earned and banished them from the Irish enclave.
Think back to the argument between Joseph and Shannon about the relationship of Joseph to the Ward Boss. Considering their actions after the fight ("hard reality"), which "soft reality" in this argument was more accurate?
Joseph's or Shannon's?
According to the Thomas Theorem, this is "hard reality", something we know through our physical being.
A Common
"Definition of the Situation" &
Negotiated Action
Joseph and Shannon disagree about appropriate work for a woman (dancing at the social club). However, they agree on the type of work that is appropriate for a man (boxing & plucking chickens).
Joseph has different standards of behavior (norms) for men and women. He argues that Shannon should not sell her body in a dance, but it is different when he sells his body in a fight.
On the other hand, Shannon argues that both men and women sell their bodies and there is little difference in the meaning of the act.
When Joseph is offered a large sum of money for his performance as a fighter, they negotiate about the proposal. They agree that the money is more important than the moral implications of fighting and Joseph steps into the ring.
Negotiations about the appropriate action to take require examination of the possible consequences of actions.