Social Construction in Communication Re-Constituting the Conversation

Abstract

In this chapter, we offer a response to Shotter and Gergen’s (1994) proposal in Communication Yearbook for social construction (SC) as a framework for communication by reconstituting its impact in our field. We provide an overview of SC research in the communication discipline to illustrate the ways in which scholars have developed specifically communication-oriented SC approaches. After wresting SC from the realm of epistemology and placing it into that of practical theory, we select three areas of research and praxis where social constructionist thinking about communication makes a dramatic difference in thinking and practice. These areas—gender, crisis, and therapy— allow us to move beyond the confines of an American academic forum and engage the concerns of an audience of practitioners in a more global exchange. Additionally, these three topics give us the opportunity to address relevant and still pressing critiques that we take to be consequential to both SC and communication: materiality, agency, and critical applications of practical theory that allow social construction scholars to speak politically on matters heretofore considered extradiscursive. A section on future directions for and challenges to social constructionism concludes our reflection.

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