Making Social Worlds

Making Social Worlds: A Communication Perspective offers the most accessible introduction to the tools and concepts of CMM – Coordinated Management of Meaning – one of the groundbreaking theories of speech communication.

• Draws upon advances in research for the most up-to-date concepts in speech communication
• Defines the 'critical moments' of communication for students and practitioners; encouraging us to view communication as a two-sided process of coordinating actions and making/managing meanings
• Questions how we can intervene in dangerous or undesirable patterns of communication that will result in better social worlds

Preface.

1. Critical moments that shape our social worlds.

2. Taking a communication perspective on social worlds.

3. Paradigms and the “physics” of social worlds.

4. Communication: Coordinating Actions and Making/Managing Meanings.

5. Doing things in communication: Speech acts.

6. Episodes and patterns of communication.

7. Selves and forms of consciousness.

8. Relationships and relational minds.

9. Afterword: Something of a guide for using CMM.

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"Making Social Worlds is an exciting and gutsy volume readable by a range of audiences. The focus on critical interaction moments allows intelligent probing communication–based analyses of everything from couples fighting to wars and international relations. The conversational writing style kept me engaged from beginning to end." Stanley Deetz. Professor Director of Peace and Conflict Studies National Communication Association Distinguished Scholar International Communication Association Past-President and Fellow

"This is not only a marvelously lucid updating of CMM theory, it also demonstrates the broad applicability of this important conceptual work to problems and potentials of human communication." Kenneth J. Gergen, author of An Invitation to Social Construction

W. Barnett Pearce is Professor in the School of Human and Organization Development, Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. Dr. Pearce has published extensively on communication theory and is one of the principal developers of the theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) currently in use by scholars and practitioners. How one acts during “critical moments” can change the world. The tools and concepts of CMM – Coordinated Management of Meaning – show us how to discern and to act wisely during the critical moments that shape our world and define our future. This text presents the most accessible introduction to CMM, one of the groundbreaking theories of speech communication.

In an age in which what happens anywhere affects us everywhere, and in which we must become accustomed to interacting with people whose customs are different than our own, more sophisticated patterns of communication are demanded. This book provides the concepts and models to help us understand these. By analyzing examples from everyday life – everything from intimate family conversations to speeches by heads of state – the author demonstrates how the tools of CMM enable special insights into our social interactions. Written in an informal yet intellectually stimulating way, Making Social Worlds opens up the theory of CMM to students, scholars, and practitioners.