Communicative constructivism

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The communicative Constructivism is an approach in the sociological and communication- and media research (Keller & garlic & Reichertz 2012). It sees itself as a continuation of social constructivism (Berger & Luckmann 1969). However, if the latter emphasizes above all the importance of knowledge in building a social reality, communicative constructivism shifts the emphasis to the importance of communication in building reality (Knoblauch 1995, Knoblauch 2013 and 2017, Reichertz 2009 and 2017).

More detailed determination

In communicative constructivism, communication is not only understood as the means by which people intentionally send messages and try to control others. Communication is a human practice (Couldry 2012), with which identity, relationship, society and reality are created at the same time (Reichertz 2010). In this understanding, communication does not simply serve to convey (information), but rather to convey (social identity and social order). Based on such an action or practical theoretical communication concept, communicative constructivism focuses on the fact that today's communication processes are largely mediated by the media. This applies to personal communication between people (“mutual media communication”) as well as communication with produced media content (“produced media communication”) and communication in virtualized environments (“virtualized media communication”) (Hepp 2013: 57–62). In this sense, today's communicative construction of social reality is to a large extent a mediatized construction.

aims

On the one hand, communicative constructivism is about grasping the communicative processes (as direct or media-supported communication) of the social construction of reality and describing them scientifically - also because these have become more diverse and significant in the current world. On the other hand, communicative constructivism is about the further development and modification of social constructivist theory. Such a further development wants to take into account the growing importance of communicative action, of discourses and of communicative practice. The aim here is to include the various social contexts in which the communicative construction takes place in both the theoretical foundations and in the empirical analyzes (Keller 2005).

history

Communicative constructivism can be traced back to the beginnings of phenomenological social research. For example, Alfred Schütz already discussed the role of communication for social relationships in the social world in his publication on the “Meaningful Structure of the Social World” (1974 [1932]) (pp. 252–261). He already addressed the importance not only of letters but also of the medium of the telephone, which was still little widespread at the time, for the “indirectness” of social relationships. In the later publication by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann on the “Social Construction of Reality” (1969), communication is of great importance. The two authors see language as a prominent “objectivation” of the social (pp. 72–76). They describe everyday life as the “rattling of a conversation machine” (p. 163), which is the “most necessary vehicle for maintaining reality”. In later publications, Thomas Luckmann also dealt with language as the central authority in the production of the social. Stimulated by conversation-analytical research (Knoblauch 1995), he developed a communication-theoretical approach that goes beyond a pure sociology of language and which he later reflected in the concept of communicative construction (Luckmann 2006). The multi-layered role of media in the processes of communicative construction was just as little an issue as the analysis of complex discursive patterns. In this development, communicative constructivism is to be distinguished from “radical constructivism” in communication and media studies (inter alia SJ Schmidt 1994). Together they share a basic constructivist assumption, i. H. an understanding that human reality is not given, but is “produced” in a process of (communicative) action or (communicative) practice. The main difference is that “radical constructivism” argues on the basis of the assumption that humans are a cognitively (i.e. in their perception) closed system. Correspondingly, one has to deal with subjective constructions of reality which, however, are viable (“suitable”) for the wider (social) environment and accordingly enable social action. At the center of communicative constructivism, on the other hand, is the production of social reality, which is understood as a subjective as well as an intersubjective process.

Current developments

Communicative constructivism is currently mainly used in the theoretical discussion of the sociology of knowledge (e.g. Herbrik 2011, Knoblauch 2017, see also the anthologies Keller / Knoblauch / Reichertz 2012, Christmann 2016 and Reichertz / Tuma 2017, Reichertz / Bettmann 2018) and in the kommunikations - and media science research on media change and mediatization taken up and continued (Krotz / Hepp 2012, Hepp 2013: VIIIff, Couldry / Hepp 2017, Hasebrink / Hepp / Loosen / Reichertz 2017). The sociology of knowledge is particularly concerned with the further development of social constructivism through communicative constructivism. The communication and media science discussion is primarily about the question of how the processes of communicative construction change when this is mediated by the media. One such undertaking includes research on the “communicative figurations” (Hepp / Hasebrink 2014) of today's societies and cultures that are changing with media change.

literature

  • Peter L. Berger , Thomas Luckmann : The social construction of reality . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1969.
  • Gabriela B. Christmann (Ed.): On the communicative construction of spaces: Theoretical concepts and empirical analyzes . VS-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2016.
  • Nick Couldry: Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity Press, Cambridge, Oxford 2012.
  • Nick Couldry, Andreas Hepp: Conceptualizing mediatization: Contexts, traditions, arguments. In: Communication Theory. 23 (3), 2013, pp. 191-202.
  • Couldry, Nick / Hepp, Andreas: The Mediated Construction of Reality. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2016.
  • Uwe Hasebrink / Hepp, Andreas / Loosen, Wiebke / Reichertz, Jo (eds.): Constructivism in communication science. Special issue of the journal Medien & Kommunikationwissenschaft. Baden-Baden: Nomos. 2017.
  • Andreas Hepp: media culture. The culture of mediated worlds. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2013.
  • Andreas Hepp, Uwe Hasebrink: Communicative Figurations - An Approach to Analyzing the Transformation of Mediatized Societies and Cultures. In: Nikolaus Jackob , Oliver Quiring, Birgit Stark (eds.): From the Gutenberg galaxy to the Google galaxy. Old and new boundary measurements after 50 years of DGPuK. UVK, Konstanz 2014, pp. 343-360.
  • Andreas Hepp, Friedrich Krotz : Mediatized Worlds. Research fields and description approaches - as an introduction. In: Friedrich Krotz, Andreas Hepp (Ed.): Mediatized Worlds. Research fields and description approaches. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2012, pp. 7-23.
  • Regine Herbrik: The communicative construction of imaginary worlds. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011.
  • Reiner Keller: Knowledge-sociological discourse analysis. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005.
  • Reiner Keller: Discourse Research. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007.
  • Reiner Keller, Hubert Knoblauch, Jo Reichertz (eds.): Communicative constructivism. Springer, Wiesbaden 2012. (Abstract)
  • Hubert Knoblauch : communication culture. The communicative construction of cultural contexts. de Gruyter, Berlin 1995.
  • Hubert Knoblauch: Sociology of Knowledge. UVK, Constance 2005.
  • Hubert Knoblauch: Communicative constructivism and mediatization. In: Communication Theory. 23 (3), 2013, pp. 297-315.
  • Hubert Knoblauch: The communicative construction of reality. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. 2017.
  • Hubert Knoblauch, Bernt Schnettler: From sensible structure to communicative construction. In: Michael Gabriel (Ed.): Paradigms of Actor-Centered Sociology. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, pp. 121-138.
  • Friedrich Krotz, Andreas Hepp (ed.): Mediatized worlds. Research fields and description approaches. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2012.
  • Thomas Luckmann: Knowledge and Society. UVK, Constance 2002.
  • Thomas Luckmann: The communicative construction of reality. In: D. Tänzler, Hubert Knoblauch, Hans-Georg Soeffner (ed.): New perspectives of the sociology of knowledge. UVK, Konstanz 2006, pp. 15-26.
  • Pfadenhauer, Michaela, Tilo Grenz: From objects to objectification. To the place of technical materiality in communicative constructivism. In: social world. 68 (2-3) , 2018, pp. 225-242.
  • Jo Reichertz : The power of words and the media. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2007.
  • Jo Reichertz: Communication power. What is communication and what can it do? And why is it capable of this. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2010.
  • Jo Reichertz: The importance of communicative action and the media in communicative constructivism. In: Special issue of the journal Medien & Kommunikationwissenschaft. 2017. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Pp. 252-274.
  • Jo Reichertz, René Tuma (ed.): Communicative constructivism at work Weinheim: Juventa. 2017
  • Jo Reichertz, Richard Bettmann (Ed.): Does mediatization research need communicative constructivism? Wiesbaden: VS Springer. 2018.
  • Siegfried J. Schmidt: Cognitive autonomy and social orientation. Constructivist remarks on the relationship between cognition, communication, media and culture. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1994.
  • Bernt Schnettler: Thomas Luckmann. UVK, Constance 2006.
  • Alfred Schütz: The meaningful structure of the social world. An introduction to understanding sociology. [orig. 1932]. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ An earlier use of the term can be found in: Markus Costazza: The turning away from the truth paradigm in the philosophy of science. In: Roland Fischer, Markus Costazza, Ada Pellert (eds.): Argumentation and decision: on the idea and organization of science. Profil, Vienna 1993, pp. 193-242; also with Thomas Luckmann: Knowledge and Society. UVK, Konstanz 2002, pp. 207ff.
  2. ↑ For the tradition and history of communicative constructivism see also http://soziologie.de/blog/?p=2941 and also Schnettler 2006.