Symbolic Interactionism.

Symbolic Interactionism involves in understanding how individuals develop their own identity, which is drive from communicating with others. This post will focus on what is Symbolic Interactionism and its key terms of; Self and Society by using 'Drive Me Crazy', a film of 1999, as an example.

Movie poster

The definition of Symbolic Interactionism is, communicating or interacting with one another through symbols (Griffin, 2009, p. 60).  In the support of this definition, Priest (1996, p. 56) stated, “Mead argued that our sense of self is derived through interaction (or communication) with others.”  Pampel (2000) further explain, “Like Mead, Blumer claimed that neither society nor the individual precedes other: persons create society interaction, but symbolic interaction creates persons as social beings”. In other words, it simply means in order to for a mind to work as a self-individual or create a society, one must communicate with each other.


In Griffin (2009, p. 60), Blumer stated declared to deal with three central principles of symbolic interactionism; Meaning, Language and Thought, whereby each premises leads to the creation of a person’s self and socialization into a substantial community. 


A 'Meaning' of a certain object or a thing, for example; Brad Seldon is a jock in the movie. The meaning of jock does not exist by itself. It is through the social interaction of others that defines jock as a jock because a jock is often seen by others as an atheletic person and who is very much attach into doing sports than academic-wise. Different people have different views, and thus each individuals would have a different interpretation in defining their own meaning towards a certain object (Bryjak and Soroka, 1994, p.25). 


For the second premise, it involves with ‘Language’, where it is one of the examples of symbols, which already installed with negotiated meaning. Bonvillian (1997, p.1) stated, “Language is an integral part of human behavior. It is the primary means of interaction between people.” In the movie, prom is an essential part of high school life for most of the students, and for Sarah Maris a popular girl in her school, needs a perfect prom date as this would show that she has complete the cycle norm as a high school student. However if we were to bring prom in Bruneian context, some would not understand as we do not practice the culture of Sara Maris's society does. Therefore we would simply intepret it as a simple dance-party, instead of a formal party where we get to dress appropriate for the event.


The final premise, 'Thought' focuses on interpretation. Griffin (2009, p. 62) pointed out Blumer’s believes that, “An individual’s interpretation of symbols is modified by his or her own thought processes”. Griffin (2009, p.62) further adds, that Mead characterize this as ‘Minding’ which means “An inner dialogue used to test alternatives, rehearse actions, and anticipate reactions, before responding; self-talk.” Minding often engage in pre-rehearsed play or imagining different alternative outcomes in our mind before making a decision (LittleJohn, 1996, p. 163). In other words, minding allow us to do self-evaluation on our actions we intended to do, whether it is the best way to response to a certain situation. As mentioned, Sara Maris sees the prom as something that is essential to accomplish as a normal high school student. Therefore she interpreted that prom is important to her and is willing to go out with Chase with the condition she change him into her perfect prom date.


With Blumer's three premises, it complements together in leading to Blumer's theory on 'Self which is more known as 'The Looking Glass Theory'; where Griffin (2009, p.63) defined, “The mental self-image that results from taking the role of the other; the objective self; me”. Griffin (2009, p.63) noted that, “The self is an on-going combining the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’. ” ‘I’ is defined as the subjective; ordinary or unpredicted and not hampered by others, where as ‘Me’ is the objective; a self that is being socially constructed by others (Yun-Hee-Jeon, 2004, p.p 250-251).  For example, Chase Hammond as an 'I' is a school rebel where he acts as himself, wears a less 'cool' clothes and does not care what others would think of him. He would do what he wants and would not follow the mainstream cycle of a normal high school student, such as by refusing going to the prom. It was until Sara Maris who was in a desparate situation asks Chase to be her perfect prom date. This requires Chase to transform into a 'Me', as someone who is not the real Chase Hammond. Sara made him to change his way of clothing, his haircut and the way he behaves. In a way, this transformation was to make sure that Chase is acceptable as  Sara's perfect prom date in the eyes of other students. This leads to the concept of 'Self-Fulfilling Prophecy' where by Chase being a 'Me' means to be accepted in the circle of his school's society.

The prom picture from the movie

According to Chris Woo's notes, Society is defined as "mass aggregates of people who exist in 'a system of social relationships'". (Katovich and Maines, 2003, p.289). Generalised others plays an important role in society, where Griffin (2009, p.65) defined, "The composite mental image a person has of his or her self based on community expectations and responses". In other words, to play the role which is ideologically embedded it means in the society. For example, for Sara Maris to be a popular girl she needs to be socially active with the school news, events and wear pretty clothes. However, the disadvantage of this concept is that it tends to label people without getting to know the actual truth about one-self. For example, Chase is being labelled as rebel just because he does prank to the school in the beginning part of the movie. In actuality, he does for the fun of it.


In conlcusion for this post, Symbolic Interactionism is useful and relevant to our daily life. This is because it helps us to understand how one becomes a somebody or possess an identity to be able identified by others in a group of community. For the case of Chase, Sara had to transform him into someone who he is not. This leads him being open to more people than he had before; he gets to interact with the jocks and other popular kids. However, the disadvantage of this theory is that, it often sees others in a one-sided view and vague. This happens in 'Generalised Others', where it tends to label others based on how one would appear or behave. The theory of Symbolic Interactionism also does not allow a scientific research based nor is it quantitative. Most of the time, it needs a real conversation to actually get to know the truth whether what we interpret of others is correct or wrong.




 Refernces List:


 Bonvillian, N. (1997). Language, Culture and Communication: The Meaning of Messages. (2^nd Ed.). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Bryjak, G. J. & Soroka, M. P. (1994). Sociology: Cultural Diversity In A Changing World (2^nd ed.). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 

Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th Ed). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Katovich and Maines (2003, p. 289). In Chris Woo. Lectures Notes. AC-1201 Introduction to Communication: Symbolic Interactionism, Universiti Brunei Darussalam.

Priest, S. H. (1996). Doing Media Research: An Introduction. California: SAGE Publications,Inc.

 Yun-Hee Jeon (2004). The application of grounded theory and symbolic interactionism. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Science, 18, 249-256.