mass-communication-theory

328 Section 4 Contemporary Mass Communication Theory
signs
In social construction
of reality,
objects
explicitly designed
to serve as
an index of subjective
meaning
typification
schemes
In social construction
of reality,
collections of
meanings assigned
to some
phenomenon,
which come from
a social stock of
knowledge to
pattern interaction
with the environment
and
things and people
in it
But unless you speak German or Spanish, respectively, or understand the third
symbol to be a drawing of a butter knife these symbols have no meaning for you;
there is no correspondence between our meaning and yours. We share no common
sense about the reality of the object being symbolized.
But who says that knife means what we all know it to mean? And what’s
wrong with those people in Germany and Mexico? Don’t they know that it’s knife,
not messer or cuchillo? In English-speaking countries, the culture has agreed that
knife means that sharp thing we use to cut our food, among other things, just as
the folks in German- and Spanish-speaking lands have agreed on something else.
There is no inherent truth, value, or meaning in the ordered collection of the letters
k-n-i-f-e giving it the reality that we all know it has. We have given it meaning, and
because we share that meaning, we can function as a people (at least when the issue
is household implements).
But Berger and Luckmann (1966, p. 35) recognized that there is another kind
of meaning we attach to the things in our environments, one that is subjective
rather than objective. They call these signs, objects explicitly designed “to serve as
an index of subjective meaning”; this is analogous to symbolic interaction’s concept
of symbols. If you were to wake up tomorrow morning, head on your pillow, to
find a knife stuck into the headboard inches above your nose, you’d be fairly certain
that this was some sort of sign. In other words, people can produce representations
of objects that have very specific, very subjective agreed-upon meanings.
What does the knife in the headboard signify? Says who? What does a Lexus signify?
Says who? What do several pieces of cloth—some red, some white, some
blue—sewn together in a rectangle in such a way to produce thirteen alternating
red and white stripes and a number of stars against a blue field in the upperleft-hand
corner signify? Freedom? Democracy? Empire? The largest car dealer on
the strip? A place to buy breakfast? Says who?
Remember that symbolic interaction defines signs and symbols in precisely the
opposite way than does social construction of reality theory. This small problem
aside, how do people use these signs and symbols to construct a reality that allows
social order to be preserved? Berger and Luckmann (1966) developed Schutz’s notion
of typifications into what they refer to as typification schemes, collections of
meanings we assign to some phenomenon that come from our stock of social
knowledge to pattern our interaction with our environments and the things and
people in it. A bit more simply, we as a people, through interaction with our environment,
construct a “natural backdrop” for the development of “typification
schemes required for the major routines of everyday life, not only the typification
of others … but typifications of all sorts of events and experiences, both social
and natural” (p. 43).
Of course, media theorists and practitioners, especially advertisers and marketing
professionals, understand that whoever has the greatest influence over a culture’s
definitions of its symbols and signs has the greatest influence over the
construction of the typification schemes individuals use to pattern their interactions
with their various social worlds. In other words, social institutions have the most
influence in or control over the social world because they often are able to dominate
how typification schemes get created and used. Why, for example, is one beer
more “sophisticated” than another? Are we less likely to serve an inexpensive local
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