Concept
symbolic interactionism
A micro-level approach in sociology that sees society as a process people continually build in interaction through shared meanings; Blumer gave it its name in 1937.
Symbolic interactionism starts from the assumption that people live in a symbolic world: people act toward things on the basis of their meanings, meanings arise from interaction, and they are interpreted and changed within interaction. Blumer summed up these three premises in 1969; he had coined the term in 1937.
Its roots reach back to Chicago pragmatism and Mead, and also to Cooley and W. I. Thomas. Cooley’s looking-glass self, Mead’s “I”/“me” and generalized other, Thomas’s definition of the situation and Goffman’s dramaturgy are among its basic concepts.
It is placed at the micro level. Critics have said it neglects social structure, power relations and historical context; theorists such as Stryker answered with versions that take structure into account. Three main trajectories are distinguished: Chicago (Blumer), Iowa (Manford Kuhn) and Indiana (Stryker).
Example
A teenager calls a series trailer “weird”, the meaning is built in talk with friends, and it changes with later episodes.