SOCIOCULTURAL

1. 7TRADITIONS PROJECT SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION

2. GROUP FOUR MEET THE TEAM ERIN ROBINSON LIZ RASMUSSEN JESSIE ORGAMBIDE DAVID ROBERTS

3. LIZ RASMUSSEN JESSIE ORGAMBIDE Liz Rasmussen is a 25 year old, Museum Assistant at the Kittitas County Historical Museum in Ellensburg, WA. She is working towards her Master’s degree in the Communication and Leadership Program through Gonzaga University. In the future, Liz would like to work in the administrative field of a nonprofit as an event and/or volunteer coordinator. During her spare time she enjoys reading, yoga, hiking, and spending time with friends and family. . Jessie Orgambide studied Technical Communication at Arizona State, earning her bachelor’s in May 2016. Jessie works for a large non-profit medical foundation in Sacramento, California as an Executive Assistant to two directors. Currently, she is studying in the Masters of Arts in Communication and Leadership at Gonzaga University, emphasizing in college teaching, and she hopes to go on to teach online communication classes. In her free time, Jessie likes to read, and spend time at the dog park with her three dogs. .

4. ERIN ROBINSON DAVID ROBERTS Erin Robinson is a recent graduate of Gonzaga University’s broadcast and electronic media program. Upon completion of her bachelor’s degree, she began pursuing her master’s degree in communication and leadership. Erin is passionate about broadcasting and is extremely interested in intercultural communication. Dave Roberts lives near Seattle, WA with his wife and two daughters where he is a Youth Director and the Director of Communications for John Knox Presbyterian Church. He has been in youth ministry for close to 25 years, spending time in Minneapolis, Spokane, and Seattle. He has just recently entered the communication field when his church added Communications Director to his title. Erin is currently a digital media producer for KREM 2 News in Spokane, Washington. Her responsibilities include content management, writing stories for digital platforms, social media, as well as newscast producing. Organizational communication is a big interest of Dave’s. He is intrigued by how organizations communicate effectively, both internally and externally and the impact that communication has on the organization and its mission. Originally from Seattle, Washington, Erin is a Pacific Northwesterner through and through. She enjoys spending time outdoors, visiting her home by the ocean and, most importantly, a great cup of joe.

5. 7 TRADITIONS PROJECT SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION The Sociocultural Tradition is an important tradition within the field of communication. This project is broken down into four main sections which includes: History of the Tradition Contemporary Research This section explores how the tradition was developed and introduces some early key proponents. This section gives the summary of one contemporary piece of research, showing how the tradition continues today. Understanding the Tradition Theoretical Examples This section breaks down the main points of the Sociocultural Tradition and provides general understanding of the tradition. The theories of a tradition are important to understand the tradition itself. This section introduces the key theories from the tradition.

6. UNDERSTANDING THE SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION

7. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION COMMUNICATION AS THE CREATION AND ENACTMENT OF SOCIAL REALITY The socio-cultural tradition in comparison to socio-psychological tradition is the study of ones relationship as a whole to a culture rather than individual differences (Dall’Agata, 2015). “Theorists in this tradition suggest that…our view of reality is strongly shaped by the language we’ve used since we were infants.” (Griffin, 2012, p.43) “The ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built upon the language habits of the groups.” (Griffin, 2012, p.43) The sociocultural tradition is based on the premise that as people talk, they produce and reproduce culture.

8. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION COMMUNICATION AS THE CREATION AND ENACTMENT OF SOCIAL REALITY The sociocultural tradition says that we are a product of how people see us and represent ourselves accordingly. • The socio-culture tradition offers help in bringing the culture gap that exists between “us” and “them.” (Griffin, 2012, p.43) In other words, shared systems of beliefs, values, language, political economy, and various other institutional arrangements make communication possible (Dall’Agata, 2015). Craig (1999) states that the socio-cultural tradition views communication as “symbolic process that produce and reproduce shared sociocultural patterns.” (Dall’Agata, 2015)

9. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION CREDIBILITY FOR THE SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION (Dall’Agata, 2015) Messages are perceptual so care must be taken in supposing that an individual “has” meaning, or “holds” credibility. Credibility is in the eye of the beholder. Credibility is basically composed of the degree of competence, character, composure, sociability, and extroversion attributed to sources of communication. Receivers point high, medium, or low credibility to people, organizations, church, military and institutions that are methods of communication sources.

10. HISTORY OF THE TRADITION

11. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION A BRIEF HISTORY The Sociocultural Tradition of communication stemmed from the need to explain the differences and difficulties in communication between different cultures. In the early half of the twentieth century there were many theorists developing ideas about the ways that language, its translations, its interpretations, and its nuances all affect the way in which we communicate with one another, and how the language we speak at birth shapes our understanding of the world (Griffin 2012). “ Infected by the entrenched prejudice that through speech we understand each other, we make our remarks and listen in such good faith that we inevitably misunderstand each other much more than if we had remained silent and had guessed. (Jose Ortega y Gassett, 1937 p. 55 as cited by Shepherd et al., 2006) LEARN MORE

12. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION HISTORY OF THE TRADITION • Franz Boas, commonly referred to as the “Father of Anthropology,” was one of the earliest scholars to express the idea that our perceptions are influenced by our language and culture (Benedict 1943). Boaz was also Edward Sapir’s teacher. • Perhaps the most famous of the early socio-cultural theorists were Edward Sapir, and his student Benjamin Whorf, who, while they never co-authored any papers, were fundamental in the development of linguistic relativity, commonly referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which states that one’s native language shapes one’s perception of reality (Griffin 2012, Whorf, 1956).

13. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION HISTORY OF THE TRADITION • C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards worked in the early 1920s. They state in their influential book The Meaning of Meaning that “with an understanding of the function of language and of its technical resources the criticism of translations provides a particularly fascinating and instructive method of language study” (Ogden and Richards 1923/2001, p. 235). They sought to answer questions about intercultural communication through the study of the translations of languages. • Leo Weisgerber was an early German theorist that influenced many mid century and modern socio-cultural theorists. One of his most important fundamental ideas was “that language must be studied in its totality” (Bynon1966). What Weisberger was saying was that you must study language and its culture together. In the 1950s and 60s, there were many theorists working in the sociocultural tradition, including Roger Brown and Eric Lenneberg who worked to summarize the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, and later Paul Kay and Willett Kempton that worked to prove the Sapir-Worf hypothesis through color experiments.

14. THEORETICAL EXAMPLES WITHIN THE TRADITION

15. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITIONL THEORETICAL EXAMPLES The Sociocultural Tradition of communication is best explained through theoretical examples. These include theories that work to explain that “as people talk, they produce and reproduce,” (Griffin, 2012). The Sociocultural Tradition is founded upon understanding how cultural identities, patterns and perspectives affect the way people communicate. SYMBOLICINTERACTIONISM: SOCIAL CONSTRUCT THEORY(SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM): ETHNOGRAPHY: Symbolic interaction, which is credited to George Herbert Mead, refers to the language, gestures, as well as verbal and nonverbal responses a person uses when communicating. Social constructionism is a communication theory credited to Jesse Delia. Social constructionism is the belief that people who converse with others shape their own social realities and are also shaped by the worlds they create. An interpretive approach to understanding the meanings that people within a culture share.

16. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITIONL THEORETICAL EXAMPLES SAPIR-WHORF HYPOTHESIS: MINDING: LOOKING-GLASS SELF: PHENOMENOLOGY: This theory was created by linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir and his student Benjamin Lee Whorf. It claims that the structure of language affects what people believe and how they act. The thoughts of cause and effect, alternatives and premeditated responses that one has with oneself.. The mental image that one pictures when imagining him or herself in the role of another person. Phenomenology was created by German philosophers Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger. It is the understood as the perception of everyday life seen from the person who lives it. OTHER TERMS WITHIN THE SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION OF COMMUNICATION:

17. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH What work is currently being done within the Sociocultural Tradition?

18. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION SUMMARY OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH • The Sociocultural Tradition continues to be explored today as a viable way humans interact and find meaning. With the rise of internet usage, social media, and online personalities, one might wonder how the Sociocultural Tradition helps us understand these new ways of interaction and being. In recent scholarship, Laura Robinson states, • I find that in creating online selves, users do not seek to transcend the most fundamental aspects of their offline selves. Rather, users bring into being bodies, personas, and personalities framed according to the same categories that exist in the offline world. (Robinson, 2007, p94) • . Robinson (2007) goes on to develop her theory that social interaction is key to understanding how individuals create their online or cyber-self and how that online self relates to their offline selves. She uses a Meadian framework of ‘I’ and ‘me’ to argue that the process of cyber-self-ing is like self-ing in the offline world. The online self is not distinct from the offline self, regardless of how the online self gets presented. To validate her point, Robinson states, “the corporeal body forces a type of cohesion even between dissonant self-identities because, online and offline, they are all housed in the same physically bounded, embodied form, causing them to act in unison much of the time (Robinson, 2007, p. 101).” Robinson (2007) argues that despite interactive limitations of computer-mediated communications, the self-ing process is the same online as it is offline.

19. SOCIOCULTURAL TRADITION SUMMARY OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH “The evidence corroborates the countervailing thesis of ‘socialized’ online selves drawing from the symbolic interactionist perspective. Like offline self-ing, cyberself-ing is rooted in interaction as understood by Mead (1934); the ‘I,’ the ‘me’ and the ‘generalized other’ inform each other as the core of the self-ing project. Offline cuing systems are redefined in online venues that preserve the dynamics of interactional cuing (Robinson, 2007, p. 107).”

20. REFERENCES Benedict, R. (1943). Franz Boas. Science, 97(2507), 60-62. Bynon, T. (1966). Leo Weisgerber’s Four Stages in Linguistic Analysis. Man, 1(4), p. 468-83. Dall'Agata, D. (2015, October 18). Craigs seven traditions of communication theory and "Psychological Operations" Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/craigs-seven-traditions-communication-theory-davide-dall-agata Griffin, E. A. (2012). A first look at communication theory (7th ed.. ed.). Boston: Boston : McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Ogden, C. K., & Richards, I. A.(2001). The meaning of meaning: A study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1923) Robinson, L. (2007). The cyberself: The self-ing project goes online, symbolic interaction in the digital age. New Media & Society, 9(1), 93-110. Shepherd, G. J., St. John, J., Striphas, T. G., Shepherd, G. J., St. John, J., & Striphas, T. G. (2006). Communication as-- : Perspectives on theory. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications. Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought, and reality: selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. .

21. 7 TRADITIONS PROJECT CONCLUSION The Sociocultural Tradition provides communication professionals with a wide breadth of understanding how culture is created through communication events and practices. Basic understanding of the Sociocultural Tradition can be achieved by: OVERVIEW HISTORY THEORY The theories within the Sociocultural Tradition are its backbone. Important theories include: Symbolic Interactionism, Social Construct Theory, and the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis In the Sociocultural Tradition, communication is the creation and enactment of social reality. Our view of reality is shaped by the language we use. The Sociocultural Tradition dates back to the early 1900’s. It really began to become an important tradition in the 1930’s and 40’s and continues today.