User:Leahcormier/Coordinated management of meaning

Meaning
In the social sciences, coordinated management of meaning (CMM) provides an understanding of how individuals create, coordinate and manage meanings in their process of communication. Generally, it refers to "how individuals establish rules for creating and interpreting the meaning and how those rules are enmeshed in a conversation where meaning is constantly being coordinated". "Human communication is viewed as a flexible, open and mutable process evolving in an ongoing joint interaction, which enables movement, shifts and evolving ways with each other". CMM embodies this vision and allows interpersonal connection and open conversation among individuals or groups, and can be applicable across multiple academic fields and social scenarios.

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In simple terms, CMM is how people manage and process the way they communicate with others.

History
The theory was first introduced in the mid 1970s by Barnett Pearce and Vernon Cronen and in 1980 they published Communication, Action, and Meaning: The Creation of Social Realities.

Their scholarly collaboration at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst offered a major contribution to the philosophy of communication as story-centered, applicable, and ever attentive to the importance of human meaning. Pearce also famously said, "the three principles of CMM are, there are multiple social worlds, these social worlds are made in interactions and through conversations with others, and we are all active agents in the making of social worlds" and by this, our social worlds are ever-changing through which the conversations that we exchange throughout time.

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Models
To help make everything easier CMM theorists created models to help analyze communication.

Daisy Model
The daisy model is used to describe the characteristics of the parties involved in the coordination. In some ways, it lists a description of who or what they are or what they are seeking in the relationship. This allows perspectives to be formed. According to Parker, "facilitators suggest that they share with each other aspects of their backgrounds and their careers relevant to their peer coaching goals, as mentioned before, by first drawing a diagram in the shape of a daisy using the petals to depict how they would describe themselves". They later say, "petals would also include key influences that have helped them shape their narrative". Some questions this model addresses would be: "what are the different influences/voices/perspectives that are influencing me? and what are the perspectives that are influencing the other person?. These are very important questions to consider when we want to unpack how coordination, management, and meaning occur if perspectives are the lens.

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Hierarchy Model
The hierarchy model is a tool for an individual to explore the perspectives of their conversational partners while also enabling them to take a more thorough look at their own personal perspective. The elements at the top of each list form the overall context in which each story takes place and have an influence on the elements below them. The levels of meaning from lowest to highest are: content, speech act, episodes, relationship, life scripts, and cultural patterns.

The hierarchy of meaning model addresses questions of: "what are the different contexts that are happening simultaneously?, which layers are most foregrounding or relevant?, how are they shifting as you share your story?, and how might I be personalizing this too much or not enough?".

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Serpentine Model
The CMM theorists take the hierarchy model a step further by reinforcing the importance of interaction and adding the aspect of time. Pearce stresses that communication cannot be done alone and that furthermore, this usually occurs before or after another's actions. Therefore, understanding past events and their impact on individuals is essential to improving communication. This new model is called the serpentine model and visually demonstrates how communication is a back and forth interaction between participants rather than just a simple transmission of information.

This model addresses questions of: "what do I want to make in the next turn?, how am I marking the beginning and end of this episode?, and how would it be different if I went further back or further forward?".

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Benefits
Communication can be difficult and especially when the people involved are not on the same page. Coordinated Management of Meaning helps bring purpose and clarity to a conversation and help extinguish those blurred lines. People are prone to misunderstanding others and creating catastrophic miscommunication within a relationship, ultimately deteriorating the connection. CMM is beneficial towards interpersonal relationships for this reason. Per Columbia University this theory allows people to understand their own feelings while also learning to understand others and creating harmony between the two, which in the end creates a more sustainable relationship.