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Coordinated Management of Meaning
W Barnett Pearce & Vernon Cronen

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION: INTERPERSONAL MESSAGES

Chapter 6
 Symbolic Interactionism
Expectancy Violations... 
Chapter 6
 Symbolic Interactionism
Expectancy Violations... 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction.
    1. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen bemoan the fact that most communication theorists and practitioners hold to a transmission model of communication.
    2. They’d say that definitions look through communication rather than directly at it.
    3. In contrast, Pearce and Cronen offer the coordinated management of meaning (CMM)as a theory that looks directly at the communication process and what it’s doing.
  2. First Claim: Our communication creates our social worlds
    1. Selves, relationships, organizations, communities, and cultures are the “stuff” that make up our social worlds.
    2. For CMM theorists, our social worlds are not something we find or discover. Instead, we create them.
    3. Barnett Pearce summed up this core concept of the theory by asserting that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create.
    4. As social constructionists, CMM researchers see themselves as curious participants in a pluralistic world.
      1. They are curious rather than certain.
      2. They are participants rather than spectators.

         

      3. They live in pluralist worlds rather than seek a singular Truth.
      4. They advocate community-based action research, a collaborative approach to investigation that seeks to engage community members as equal and full participants in the research process.
  3. Second claim: The stories we tell differ from the stories we live
    1. CMM uses the term story to refer to much of what we say when we talk with others about our social worlds—ourselves, others, relationships, organizations, or the larger community       
    2. CMM theorists distinguish between stories lived and stories told.
      1. Stories told are the narratives that we use to make sense of our stories lived.
      2. The management of meaning involves the adjustment of our stories told to fit the reality of stories lived—or vice versa.
      3. Stories lived are the co-constructed actions we perform with others.
      4. Coordination takes place when we fit our stories lived into the stories lived by others in a way that makes life better.
    3. Stories told: Making and managing meaning.
      1. The stories we tell or hear are never as simple as they seem.
      2. LUUUUTT is an acronym to label the seven types of stories. There’s always tension between our stories lived and our stories told.
        1. Lived stories
        2. Unknown stories
        3. Untold stories
        4. Unheard stories
        5. Untellable stories
        6. Story Telling
        7. Stories Told
    4. Stories lived: Coordinating our patterns of interaction
      1. There’s almost always a difference or tension between our stories told and stories lived.
      2. Pearce and Cronen are particularly concerned with the patterns of communication we create with others. 
      3. The serpentine model can map out the history and analyze any conversation.
      4. CMM describes this type of conversational sequence as an unwanted repetitive pattern (URP) which neither party wants to repeat but they keep reliving it.
      5. Coordination refers to the “process by which persons collaborate in an attempt to bring into being their vision of what is necessary, noble, and good and to preclude the enactment of what they fear, hate, or despise.”
      6. Pearce used the phrase coordination without coherence to refer to people cooperating, but for quite different reasons.
  4. Third Claim: We get what we make
    1. Since CMM claims we create our social worlds through our patterns of communication, it follows that we get what we make.
    2. Barnett Pearce urged that we ask three questions when we reflect on past interactions: how did that get made? What are we making? What can we do to make better social worlds?
  5. Fourth Claim: Get the pattern right, create better outcomes
    1. Barnett Pearce admitted he couldn’t be specific on what to do to make social worlds better.
    2. Barnett and Kim Pearce describe better social worlds as replete with caring, compassion, love, and grace among its inhabitants—not the stated goal of most communication theories.
    3. The theorists’ answer is that one does not need to be a saint, a genius, or an orator. The communicator, however, must be mindful
    4. Mindfulness is a presence or awareness of what participants are making in the midst of a difficult conversation.
    5. For an overall remedy to unsatisfactory or destructive patterns of interaction, CMM theorists advocate dialogue, a specific form of communication that they believe will create a social world where we can live with dignity, honor, joy, and love.
    6. Barnett and Kim Pearce have adopted the perspective of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber.
  6. Ethical reflection: Martin Buber’s Dialogic Ethics.
    1. Buber, a German Jewish philosopher, focused his ethical approach on the relationship between people rather than on moral codes of conduct
    2. He contrasted two types of relationships—I-It versus I-Thou.
      1. I-It treats the other person as an object to be manipulated
      2. I-Thou treats our partner as the very one we are.
    3. For Buber, dialogue is a synonym for ethical communication
  7. Critique: Highly practical as it moves from confusion to clarity
    1. By offering such diagnostic tools as the serpentine and LUUUUTT models of communication, CMM promotes a deeper understanding of people and of the social worlds they create through their conversation.
    2. CMM leaves no doubt as to the commitments and practices that make better social worlds.
    3. Although many objectivist theorists dismiss CMM because of its social constructionist assumptions, CMM has generated widespread interest and acceptance within the community of interpretive communication scholars.
    4. If changing  destructive patterns of communication in whole communities strikes you as a bit of a stretch, you should know that pursuit of this goal is why Barnett and Kim Pearce founded the Public Dialogue Consortium and the CMM Institute.
    5. Despite meeting the previous criteria with ease, lack of clarity has seriously limited CMM’s wider use.

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Instructors can get additional
resources. Read more













TEXT COMPARE

Archived chapters (PDF)
from previous editions
are available in
Resources by Type.
See list

New to Theory
Resources?
Find out more in this short
video overview (3:01).


Coordinated Management of Meaning
W Barnett Pearce & Vernon Cronen

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION: INTERPERSONAL MESSAGES

Chapter 6
 Symbolic Interactionism
Expectancy Violations... 
Chapter 6
 Symbolic Interactionism
Expectancy Violations... 

Chapter Outline 9th Edition

  1. Introduction.
    1. Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen bemoan the fact that most communication theorists and practitioners hold to a transmission model of communication.
    2. They’d say that definitions look through communication rather than directly at it.
    3. In contrast, Pearce and Cronen offer the coordinated management of meaning (CMM)as a theory that looks directly at the communication process and what it’s doing.
  2. First Claim: Our communication creates our social worlds
    1. Selves, relationships, organizations, communities, and cultures are the “stuff” that make up our social worlds.
    2. For CMM theorists, our social worlds are not something we find or discover. Instead, we create them.
    3. Barnett Pearce summed up this core concept of the theory by asserting that persons-in-conversation co-construct their own social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create.
    4. As social constructionists, CMM researchers see themselves as curious participants in a pluralistic world.
      1. They are curious rather than certain.
      2. They are participants rather than spectators.

         

      3. They live in pluralist worlds rather than seek a singular Truth.
      4. They advocate community-based action research, a collaborative approach to investigation that seeks to engage community members as equal and full participants in the research process.
  3. Second claim: The stories we tell differ from the stories we live
    1. CMM uses the term story to refer to much of what we say when we talk with others about our social worlds—ourselves, others, relationships, organizations, or the larger community       
    2. CMM theorists distinguish between stories lived and stories told.
      1. Stories told are the narratives that we use to make sense of our stories lived.
      2. The management of meaning involves the adjustment of our stories told to fit the reality of stories lived—or vice versa.
      3. Stories lived are the co-constructed actions we perform with others.
      4. Coordination takes place when we fit our stories lived into the stories lived by others in a way that makes life better.
    3. Stories told: Making and managing meaning.
      1. The stories we tell or hear are never as simple as they seem.
      2. LUUUUTT is an acronym to label the seven types of stories. There’s always tension between our stories lived and our stories told.
        1. Lived stories
        2. Unknown stories
        3. Untold stories
        4. Unheard stories
        5. Untellable stories
        6. Story Telling
        7. Stories Told
    4. Stories lived: Coordinating our patterns of interaction
      1. There’s almost always a difference or tension between our stories told and stories lived.
      2. Pearce and Cronen are particularly concerned with the patterns of communication we create with others. 
      3. The serpentine model can map out the history and analyze any conversation.
      4. CMM describes this type of conversational sequence as an unwanted repetitive pattern (URP) which neither party wants to repeat but they keep reliving it.
      5. Coordination refers to the “process by which persons collaborate in an attempt to bring into being their vision of what is necessary, noble, and good and to preclude the enactment of what they fear, hate, or despise.”
      6. Pearce used the phrase coordination without coherence to refer to people cooperating, but for quite different reasons.
  4. Third Claim: We get what we make
    1. Since CMM claims we create our social worlds through our patterns of communication, it follows that we get what we make.
    2. Barnett Pearce urged that we ask three questions when we reflect on past interactions: how did that get made? What are we making? What can we do to make better social worlds?
  5. Fourth Claim: Get the pattern right, create better outcomes
    1. Barnett Pearce admitted he couldn’t be specific on what to do to make social worlds better.
    2. Barnett and Kim Pearce describe better social worlds as replete with caring, compassion, love, and grace among its inhabitants—not the stated goal of most communication theories.
    3. The theorists’ answer is that one does not need to be a saint, a genius, or an orator. The communicator, however, must be mindful
    4. Mindfulness is a presence or awareness of what participants are making in the midst of a difficult conversation.
    5. For an overall remedy to unsatisfactory or destructive patterns of interaction, CMM theorists advocate dialogue, a specific form of communication that they believe will create a social world where we can live with dignity, honor, joy, and love.
    6. Barnett and Kim Pearce have adopted the perspective of Jewish philosopher Martin Buber.
  6. Ethical reflection: Martin Buber’s Dialogic Ethics.
    1. Buber, a German Jewish philosopher, focused his ethical approach on the relationship between people rather than on moral codes of conduct
    2. He contrasted two types of relationships—I-It versus I-Thou.
      1. I-It treats the other person as an object to be manipulated
      2. I-Thou treats our partner as the very one we are.
    3. For Buber, dialogue is a synonym for ethical communication
  7. Critique: Highly practical as it moves from confusion to clarity
    1. By offering such diagnostic tools as the serpentine and LUUUUTT models of communication, CMM promotes a deeper understanding of people and of the social worlds they create through their conversation.
    2. CMM leaves no doubt as to the commitments and practices that make better social worlds.
    3. Although many objectivist theorists dismiss CMM because of its social constructionist assumptions, CMM has generated widespread interest and acceptance within the community of interpretive communication scholars.
    4. If changing  destructive patterns of communication in whole communities strikes you as a bit of a stretch, you should know that pursuit of this goal is why Barnett and Kim Pearce founded the Public Dialogue Consortium and the CMM Institute.
    5. Despite meeting the previous criteria with ease, lack of clarity has seriously limited CMM’s wider use.

 
 
 
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