More handpicked essays just for you.
Application of symbolic interactionism
Application of symbolic interactionism
Application of symbolic interactionism
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Daniela Hunt
Dr. Garrard
Communication
9/15/14
Symbolic Interaction
Symbolic interaction is a theory based on the premise that humans depend on and interpret meaning during social interactions with one another. Symbolic interactionism attempts to explain social interactions by analyzing how people attach various interpretations to words, symbols and ideas, which identify with them and society. Herbert Blumer introduced the theory of Symbolic interaction and it was based on concepts and observations by earlier social scientist such as George Mead. Mead believed that human’s thoughts, self-concepts and shared societal views were all created through communication. This theory consists of three core concepts: meaning, language, and thought. Through Communication people can determine a personal and social identity. Through meaning, Blumer proposed “humans act towards people or things on a basis of the meaning that they assign to those people or things.” Blumer believed that
…show more content…
The movie is about a high school girl named Cady who moves to a new high school after growing up in Africa. Cady had previously been homeschooled all her life and she suddenly forced to face the challenges of adapting to her new high school and fitting in with her peers. When she first arrives Cady immediately befriends two outcasts, who explain the school's social scene. The schools social scene is controlled by a group of girls known as the Plastics. The Plastics have a reputation for being popular, mean and ruling the school. The girls take interest in Cady because she is the new girl and they invite her into their social group. Meanwhile Cady’s original friends warn her about the girl’s reputation and encourage Cady to hang out with them with the agenda of exposing the mean things they do. Cady originally pretends to be friend with the girls, but as she spends more and more time with them she becomes exactly like
The main protagonist of the film, Scotty Smalls, is introduced as a straight-A, friendless young boy who has just moved into a new neighborhood in new state. While
The film Mean Girls is about a young girl, Cady Heron, born and raised in Africa by her zoologist parents, who were also her homeschool teachers for sixteen years. When Cady moves to the United States, she enrolls in a public school for the first time. Here she realizes that high school students have the same hierarchy as the animals she observed in Africa. The lowest ranking group in this high school hierarchy is the outcasts, who also happen to be Cady’s first friends in the U.S. The highest on the high school food chain are the “plastics”. The “plastics”, are the most popular girls in school. The plastic’s notice Cady’s charming personality and stunning good looks and invite her to join their clique. In order to avenge her first friends,
"Cold, shiny, hard, PLASTIC," said by Janice referring to a group of girls in the movie Mean Girls. Mean Girls is about an innocent, home-schooled girl, Cady who moves from Africa to the United States. Cady thinks she knows all about survival of the fittest. But the law of the jungle takes on a whole new meaning when she enters public high school and encounters psychological warfare and unwritten social rules that teen girls deal with today. Cady goes from a great friend of two "outcasts", Janice and Damien to a superficial friend of the "plastics", a group of girls that talks about everyone behind their back and thinks everyone loves them. Adolescent egocentrism and relationships with peers are obviously present throughout the film. I also noticed self worth in relationships, parenting styles, and juvenile delinquency throughout Mean Girls.
The movie main character is Cady Heron who is a homeschooled girl. Her and her family lived in Africa for 15 years. They return back to the states and place Cady into a public school for the first time. Cady meets her classmates and finds a few good friends the introduce her to a group of girls called the Plastics. She ends up joining the plastics with the motive of bring them down because her new friend don’t like them very much and thought it would be funny. However, she eventually gets assimilated into the group of three unkind girls and starts to be just like them.
This movie is full of social psychology topics, such as, self presentation, agression, group behaviors, stereotypes, and conformity. To begin, when Cady tells the girls that she is from Africa, Karen blurts out something very stereotypical by saying, “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?” Here, she is representing
We understand and perform on social objects. Our most important form of social objects are people. Symbolic interactionism is also called symbolic interaction perspective, the major framework of sociological theory as we know it today. People rely upon interaction with others; socializing has become the key factor of our everyday lives. Symbolic Interactionism is the meanings that we impose on objects, people, and sometimes even behaviors. Our society is a huge structure built by human interpretations.
The movie starts with an unusual situation: fifteen-year-old Cady Heron starting public school for the first time because she was born and raised in Africa with her parents. Clearly Cady has no conception of what a “normal” high school experience is like as she wanders lost around the school on her first day. This experience for Cady is one that many teens experience as they try to find where they belong in a high school setting. From here, the plot takes off with Cady’s blossoming friendship with Janis (Lizzie Caplan) and Damian (Daniel Franzese). In a turn of events, Cady is invited to sit with The Plastics, Regina George (Rachel McAdams), Gretchen Wieners (Lacy Chabert), and Karen Smith (Amanda Seyfried), at lunch. This pivotal scene provides not only several of the film’s best lines, Gretchen’s first use of the word fetch and Karen’s line “If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”, but also allows for a fresh approach into the world of the popular girls. That approach is the hook for the film because nearly every teenage girl has asked themselves, “What would it be like to be popular?”. Janis hatches a plan for Cady to spy on them every day, which leads to a downward spiral that results in Cady adopting the Plastics’ ways. This is where the reality of the film sets in, and due to the fact that most of the film is focused on
Mean Girls is a comedy film aired in 2004 this film captures the influences on lifespan development during adolescence. The main character Cady Heron was home schooled in Africa and now she must transition into high school where she is tested in different areas of her development. Throughout the film she becomes known as the new girl who is trying to figure out her self-identity. Cady integrates herself into a clique of girls known as the Plastics, soon enough Cady understands why they are known for their name. The Plastics run the school by the norms they have created and must always be followed otherwise it will lead into exclusion from the group. In order to be socially accepted social norms determining attitude, behavior, and status must
Mean Girls is a story of a teenage girl named Cady, she used to be homeschooling from Africa all her life. Her parents decide to move to Chicago, Illinois. For the first time in her life she was going to school. The very first day she tries to make friends but everybody rejects her, she even had to eat lunch at the girl’s restroom. The next day was better for her. Janis and Damien who looked to be reserved with her the day before, this day were more open to her and they explained to her a few things about the school, the different groups and the assigned table at the cafeteria for each group.
An interpersonal element that is hugely represented in Mean Girls is culture, which is defined as the system of learned and shared symbols, language, values, and norms that distinguish one group of people from another. Cady Herron is forced to move from Africa to America, where society is extremely different. On her first day at an American public high school, Cady enters the lunchroom and notices a group of African American students sitting at a table together. Growing up around African people, she identifies with them and she assumes that they are her in-group, so she approaches them hoping that they will let her sit with them, but they are confused as to what she is doing. To them, she is part of the out-group because she is white. They do not identify with her, so one of the girls puts her purse in the empty seat next to her, communicating that Cady
Cady has zero friends when entering high school, but soon is befriended by Janis and Damian, labeled by others as “art freaks”, and Cady eagerly accepts their friendship. Cady is informed of the “Plastics”, three socialites who are adored by most of the student body. When the Plastics befriend Cady, Janis uses Cady to sabotage the group. However, Cady succumbs to the fame of being Plastic and her personality changes, ruining her friendship with Janis and Damian. Meanwhile, the head Plastic, Regina George, discovers Cady’s initial intentions and, in anger, uses a book of insults for girls in the school to frame Cady and the other Plastics. Cady makes a tough decision to admit she wrote the
This film is favorite of many teen girls and is still raved about today. This movie a comedy and made many people laugh. It is about a girl named Cady that was raised and homeschooled in Africa. Lindsay played Cady in this movie. She moves to the U.S. in Illinois because she wanted to see what it was like to live in America. She learns how to act like a normal American teenager. She befriends “the plastics”, which is the popular girls at the high school. She then begins to act snobby like them and tries to get revenge on the head leader of the plastics. Her character then realizes she is acting exactly like them and tries to change her ways. She breaks up the plastic group and then they are not hateful towards each other anymore. ( McCormick)
Symbolic interactionism tends to observe things by paying full attention to the micro level of sociology. Instead of focusing on broader aspects you look at things depending upon the individual and their interactions in society. Through the use of symbols we are able to assign meaning to people and things and then develop our own interpretations of those symbols.
The movie that I chose to do my analysis on, is Mean Girls because it is my all-time favorite movie. I watched it a million times, it never gets old and plus I know every single line in the movie. The main character Cady, played by Lindsay Lohan, exhibits how to go from being a nerd, popular, hated and rehabilitated all in one school year. It’s hilarious movie about high school but, it also covers many interpersonal concepts that we learned in class like: verbal communication, conflict and relationship dynamics. Before I provide my analysis, I’ll present my brief summary on the movie Mean Girls.
To most people the movie Mean Girls is simply a silly teen chick flick and is not good for anything but pure entrainment. Even though Mean Girls is slightly dramatized, high school in reality is perfectly portrayed through this movie. Every high school varies but there is always a domain group of students. The socially powerful are the rich and beautiful girls and everyone else are the loyal subjects to their castle. However, there is a twist in Mean Girls, the message is actually positive. Mean Girls is sending a message that women should not criticize one another to feel empowerment, it is unattractive to men to be mindless, and that White Americans have domains over other races. This movie also implies that nothing wrong with being different from what society accepts.