Invited comment: Framing, Actions and Feedback

Abstract

As a longstanding fellow-traveler and occasional critic of symbolic interaction, I read Dave Snow's paper with the following five basic Scientific Interest (S.I.) assumptions in mind: (1) there are no immaculate perceptions; (2) no object, actor, action, or situation has intrinsic stimulus properties; (3) therefore there are no inherent meanings for any object, actor, action, or situation; (4) the meaning of any object, actor, action, or situation is the response made to it; (5) therefore, there are as many meanings for any object, actor, action, or situation as there are responses made to it. In other words, meanings are constructed. Hence the different responses – the different meanings for or meanings of – the Fall 2005 Paris Riots and the current Spring 2006 Paris protests. I am also mindful of William I. and Dorothy Swaine Thomas's (1928) statement of what has come to be known as the Thomas theorem: “Whatever men [sic] define to be real is real in its consequences.”

Citation

McPhail, C. (2008), "Invited comment: Framing, Actions and Feedback", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 30), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 29-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(08)30002-7