Social Constructionist Perspective

The social constructionist perspective sees communication as a process whereby people, using the tools provided by their culture, create collective representations of reality.  It emphasizes the relationship between communication and culture.  I believe we "build worlds" through communication by in fact communicating.  If we look back at any of our world wars, we can see that communication was a key factor in provoking the war and also by ending the war.  Through the Cold War, we were in an arms race with the Soviet Union to see who could have the biggest nuclear weapon.  Although we did not physically, verbally communicate, our actions on both sides did the communicating for us.  The entire world was greatly affected by the Cold War and it built the world in which we now live.  Actions have consequences and sometimes are actions are much louder than our words.  I believe our actions it was "builds worlds" more than physically communicating with other nations or within our own nation.  In our culture, we talk about how important it is to help out the less fortunate, how it is our duty to help those in need, and we take great pride in helping out other countries and civilizations that cannot help themselves.  There are many countries who also perpetuate this same behavior, but not all countries are in the place to be able to lend a hand to those less fortunate, those who are truly in need of the help.  By helping out the less fortunate, rather it is here in the US or it is in a third world country, we take great pride in helping others out.  I also cannot help but think about how reality television has become such a mainstream in so many American family homes.  Personally in our home, we try to avoid them as much as possible, but it seems that it has become somewhat of an epidemic upon our society.  We see these virtually nobody's rise to their fifteen minutes of fame for lacking any real skill or talent (okay, so clearly I am not referring to all of the talent based reality television programs, I am thinking more along the lines of, "The Jersey Shore" or any of the "Housewives" reality programs).  We see these people on the television and many attempt to emulate them in their everyday lives.  Many people think that if that person can be a reality television star, than they could be one as well.  I think this has affected our nation more than most other nations.  Granted, I have not done a statistical research on other countries and their reality television programming, but I know it is huge in the US.  After the former reality television stars fifteen minutes is up, the person once again becomes obscure and we soon quickly forget about him or her.  Communication is everywhere and although we may not realize it, it is a huge form through the television programs we watch and are influenced by as well.

Kate