Coordinated management of meaning

In social sciences, coordinated management of meaning (CMM) provides 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 meaning and how those rules are enmeshed in a conversation where meaning is constantly being coordinated"

People live in a world where there are constant communication. In communicating with others, people assign meanings in their messages based on past conversational experiences from previous social realities. Through communication, an underlying process takes place in which individuals negotiate a common or conflicted meanings of the world around them thereby creating a new social reality. CMM advocates that meanings can be managed in a productive way so as to improve the state of interactions by coordinating and managing the meaning-making process.

CMM relies on three interdependent elements: management, coordination and meaning. These elements help to explain how social realities are created through conversation.

Theory developers

W. Barnett Pearce

W. Barnett Pearce was a teacher, facilitator, and theorist. He consulted with communities and organizations, facilitated public and private meetings, and trained professionals in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and Africa. He was a Professor in the School of Human and Organization Development, Fielding Graduate University, a member of the Public Dialogue Consortium, and co-principal of Pearce Associates, Inc.

Known for his work in developing communication theory, he wrote seven books and over one hundred scholarly articles and chapters. He was a Senior Visiting Fellow at Linacre College, Oxford University, in 1989, and a Fulbright Fellow in Argentina in 1997. He was awarded a PhD in 1969 by the College of Communication at Ohio University. He also served as a faculty member in the School of Human and Organization Development at The Taos Institute.

Vernon Cronen

Vernon Cronen is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He also serves as a member of the International Communication Association, the Speech Communication Association, and the Eastern Communication Association. He was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 1970 by the University of Illinois.

Cronen's primary research interests concern the development and application of CMM as methodology for: (1) analysis of situated communication, (2) critique of the forms of life that are created, recreated, and sustained by communication, and (3) helping practitioners join with clients for creative change. He has written and/or contributed to seventeen books and over eighty journal articles and convention papers.

CMM basics

It has been said that "CMM theory is a kind of multi-tool (like a 'Swiss army knife') that is useful in any situation." It is not a single theory, but rather a collection of ideas to understand how humans interact during communication. According to CMM, individuals construct their own social realities while engaged in conversation. To put it simply, communicators apply rules in order to understand what is going on during their social interaction. Based on the situation, different rules are applied in order to produce "better" patterns of communication.

CMM theory is a fairly complex study focusing on both the complexity in the micro-social processes and the aspects of daily interaction. Overall, it is concerned with how we coordinate and establish meaning during interactions. The theory can be complicated to teach and/or present to others, but it is best understood when you break it down into the basics. The theory consists of three key concepts, which are further broken down into several different building blocks.

The fundamental building blocks of CMM theory focus specifically on the flow of communication between people. The three different concepts experienced either consciously or unconsciously, are management, coordination, and meaning.

1. Management

Our interactions are guided and defined by rules. "Interactants must understand the social reality and then incorporate rules as they decide how to act in a given situation." From the use of rules, individuals manage and coordinate meanings in the conversation. "Once rules are established in a dialogue, interactants will have a sufficiently common symbolic framework for communication." For instance, it would be ambiguous if a friend of yours says "I hate you". Does the friend really hate you or he/she is just expressing his/her feelings at the moment. Rules will help clarify and explain this kind of meanings.

There are two type of rules: constitutive rules and regulative rules. Constitutive rules refer to "how behavior should be interpreted within a given context". It tells us what the given behavior means. In the example above, "I hate you" in some contexts counts as an expression of slight dissatisfaction. Regulative rules refer to "some sequence of action that an individual undertakes, and they communicate what happens next in a conversation." In other word, it means the behavior that is requested in certain situation. Regulative rules link the meanings in the interaction with the consequences they result to. Our body reaction can reflect on the contents of interaction.

Sometimes, there is also another undesirable consequence resulted by rules which is named "Unwanted repetitive patterns". It refers to "the sequential and recurring conflictual episodes that are considered unwanted by the individuals in the conflict." This phenomenon happens because "two people with particular rule systems follow a structure that obligates them to perform specific behaviors." Several reasons count for URP. First, people sometimes can't find other options other than being in conflict. Second, people may feel comfortable in the conflict situation because they have experience on what others will behave in this kind of situation. Third, people may be tired of finding resolution on the conflict situation.

There is also a concept that explains "not everything within communication can be explained." , which is called Mystery. It is the recognition that "the world and our experience of it is more than any of the particular stories that make it coherent or any of the activities in which we engage". Mystery has to do with the sense of awe or wonder when communication leads to a surprising outcome. Put more simply, it is that feeling (anything from attraction to hate) you experience when engaged in conversation that cannot be linked to the situation as a whole.

CMM theory sees each conversation as a complex interconnected series of events in which each individual affects and is affected by the other. Although the primary emphasis of CMM theory has to do with the concept of first person communication, known as a participatory view, once the concepts are understood they are more readily visible during other interactions. Furthermore, this knowledge can be applied to similar situations which will in turn lead to more effective communication.

2. Meaning

Coordinated Management of Meaning states that people "organize meaning in a hierarchical manner." Hierarchical meaning means that people deal with different situations by different constitutive rules and regulative rules. Theorists on CMM was in agreement on two points regarding hierarchical meaning. "First, the hierarchical of meaning defines the context in which regulative and constitutive rules are to be understood. Second, these contexts are arranged in a hierarchical af abstractness, such that higher levels of the hierarchy help to define -- and may subsume -- lower level."

There are six levels of meaning. Levels below are illustrated from lower level to higher level.

(1) Content

The content or message according to CMM theory relates to the raw data and information spoken aloud during communication. The content is essentially the basic building blocks of any language; however, it is important to note that the content by itself is not sufficient to establish the meaning of the communication.

(2) Speech act

Another integral part of the CMM theory includes the speech act. "Speech acts communicate the intention of the speaker and indicate how a particular communication should be taken." The simplest explanation of a speech act is "actions that you perform by speaking. They include compliments, insults, promises, threats, assertions, and questions". CMM theory draws upon the speech act theory, which further breaks down speech acts into separate categories of sounds or utterances. Though the speech act theory is much more detailed, it is important to have an understanding of both illocutionary and perlocutionary utterances.

• An illocutionary utterance is speech that intends to make contact with a receiver.
• A perlocutionary utterance includes speech that intends to alter the behavior of the receiver.

There are many different utterances or speech acts including questions, answers, commands, promises and statements. Having knowledge of each of these plays a large part in an individual being able to participate in a communications exchange.

(3) Episodes

An episode is a situation created by persons in a conversation. Using the building block of episode, you can begin to understand that the same content can take on different meaning when the situation is different. For example, a phrase used among close family or friends may take on an entirely different meaning in a job interview. In the interactions, people may punctuate differently on a same episode. This will result to people deal with the differences on their punctuations on subsequent episodes.

As you can see so far, speech act and episodes both affect the meaning of the content as they are not independent concepts but rather building blocks to communication.

(4) Relationship

Relationship is the higher level of the meaning, where "relational boundaries in that parameters are established for attitudes and behaviors." This building block is fairly easy to understand as it is the dynamic of what connects two (or more) individuals during an exchange of information. Examples of a relationship could be defined as a parent/child, teacher/student, strangers, etc. As you can see, communication between strangers would likely be different from conversations amongst family members.

(5) Life Scripts

Life scripts can be understood as the clusters of past and present episodes. On this level, "every individual's history of relationships and interactions will influence rules and interaction patterns" Life Scripts are similar to the autobiography of individuals. It is an individual's notion of who they are. It is the first person perspective of how an individual experiences life. Several CMM texts describe this building block as a "script for who we are" as the role an individual plays in the movie of life. For example, an individual may believe they are funny, and therefore may act according to that perspective while engaged in different conversations.

(6) Cultural Patterns

The concept of culture in CMM theory relates to a set of rules for acting and speaking which govern what we understand to be normal in a given episode. There are different rules for social interaction depending on the culture. To some extent, during communication individuals act in accordance with their cultural values. While we often don't even realize that culture impacts communication during day to day interactions, people must learn to be compatible with individuals from different cultures in order to have effective communication.

3. Coordination

Coordination refers to "the degree to which persons perceive that their actions have fitted together into some mutually intelligible sequence or pattern of actions" It exists "when two people attempt to make sense out of the sequencing of messages in their conversation.". That is, if people in the interaction can recognize what their partners are talking about, then we say the conversation come to a coordination. Scientists believes that people's desire for coordination in interaction arises from the subjectivity of meaning, which means the same message may have different meanings to different people. In order to avoid this pitfall in communication. People work together to share meanings. Research shows that sense making is the foundation of coordination. By tokens within the information connected by means of channel can the logic relationship emerges, then it contributes to the sense making. Sense making helps people to establish common understanding then further develops coordination between people.

The concept of coordination has to do with the fact that our actions do not stand alone with regard to communication. The words or actions that we use during a conversation come together to produce patterns. These patterns, also known as stories lived, influence the behavior used during each interaction as a way to collaborate. Pearce and Cronen are quick to point out that coordination does not imply a commitment to coordinate "smoothly", but rather the concept is meant to provide the basis for being mindful of the other side of the story.

There are three possible outcome of coordination. 1. People in the interaction achieve coordination. 2. People in the interaction failed to achieve coordination. 3. People in the interaction achieve some degree of coordination. If the interaction fail to achieve coordination or achieve partially coordination, the possible solution is to move the level of meaning to another level.

Models and applications

Pearce is adamant that CMM is not just an interpretive theory but is meant to be a practical theory as well. There is extensive literature involving the use of CMM to address family violence, intra-community relations, workplace conflict and many other social issues. A research employs CMM to understand the "perceived acts of discrimination manifested within the context of everyday interactions." By applying CMM into research, the researchers are able to explicate the rules of meaning-making that majority and minority groups followed in understanding the discrimination act. Another application example was done in 1994 when CMM was initially recognized by people. It believes that the framework of CMM provides an understanding of "the structure and process of consumer decision making by placing those decisions within the context of a family's social reality".

Along this line, CMM theorists have used or developed several analysis models to help understand and improve communication. The models addressed here are the Hierarchy Model, the Serpentine Model, and Charmed and Strange Loops. Examples for the first model have been adapted from ones Pearce uses in one of his writings where he analyzes the courtroom conversation between Ramzi Yousef, the individual convicted of bombing the World Trade Center in 1994, and Kevin T. Duffy, the federal judge who presided over his trial. In Yousef's statement before sentencing, he criticizes the US for its hypocrisy; he accuses the US of being the premier terrorist, and reasserts his pride in his fight against the US. At the sentencing, Duffy accuses Yousef of being a virus, evil, perverting the principles of Islam, and interested only in death. Neither individual really talks to the other, but rather at them.

1. Hierarchy model

Hierarchy model is the Hierarchy of Organized Meanings as illustrated in the "Meaning" section. 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 meaning from lower to higher is: Content, Speech Act, Episodes, Relationship, Life Scripts, Cultural Patterns.

2. 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.

3. Charmed and Strange loop

The embedded contexts illustrated in the Hierarchy Model represent a stable hierarchy. It suggests that higher levels subsume lower levels. Meanwhile, there is also sometimes that "lower levels can reflect back and affect the meaning of higher levels." This process is termed Loop. CMM believes that there is a stronger "contextual effect", which works from higher levels to the lower levels, and a weaker "implicative effect", which works the other way.

When loops are consistent to the hierarchy, it is identified as charmed loop. In this kind of interaction, each person's perceptions and actions help to reinforce the other's perceptions and actions. When the lower levels are inconsistent of the higher levels. It is called strange loop. Essentially, "a 'strange' loop is a repetitive interactional pattern that alternates between contradictory meanings". For example, the alcoholic identifies that he is an alcoholic and then quits drinking. Since he has quit drinking, he convinces himself that he is not really an alcoholic and so he starts drinking again, which makes him an alcoholic. He alternates between contradictory perceptions of being an alcoholic and not being an alcoholic. Charmed and Strange loop model also has its applications. In a research regarding the social construction of male college student logical forces. Charmed and Strange loop model was utilized in studying male college students' narratives in describing their memorable sexual experience.

Less occasionally, there is a third variation called "subversive" loop. Texts and contexts within a subversive loop are mutually invalidating and can prevent coherence and coordination. It may result in intentionally outrageous behavior, efforts to act in uninterruptible ways, or refusal to recognize the possibility that the outsider can understand the situation of the insider.

History and orientation

The theory of CMM was developed in the mid-1970s by W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon E. Cronen. The cluster of ideas in which CMM emerged has moved from the periphery toward greater acceptance and CMM has continued to evolve along a trajectory from an interpretive social science to one with a critical edge and then to what its founders call a "practical theory".

Aware that the intellectual footing for communication theory had shifted, the first phase of the CMM project involved developing concepts that met the twin criteria of (1) adequately expressing the richness of human communication and (2) guiding empirical investigation. Pearce describes the creation of CMM through the following story:

...I think that I am the first person ever to use the awkward phrase "coordinated management of meaning". Of course, tones of voice are often more informative than the verbal content of what is said, and struggle and frustration were expressed in the tones of voice in which "CMM" was first said. For years, I had been trying to bring together what I was learning from social science research, rhetorical studies, philosophy, theology, and, in my father's term, the "School of Hard Knocks". I felt that most of the models of communication that I knew were useful but that all were limited and limiting in some important ways, and that I had to invent something that was better. Communication is about meaning,... but not just in a passive sense of perceiving messages. Rather, we live in lives filled with meanings and one of our life challenges is to manage those meanings so that we can make our social worlds coherent and live within them with honor and respect. But this process of managing our meanings is never done in isolation. We are always and necessarily coordinating the way we manage our meanings with other people. So, I concluded, communication is about the coordinated management of meaning.

— W. Barnett Pearce

CMM is one of an increasing number of theories that see communication as "performative" (doing things, not just talking "about" them) and "constitutive" (the material substance of the social world, not just a means of transmitting information within it). In CMM-speak, "taking the communication perspective" means looking at communication rather than through it, and seeing communication as the means by which we make the objects and events of our social worlds.

The "communication perspective" entails a shift in focus from theory to praxis. CMM concepts and models are best understood as providing tools for naming aspects of performance. The hierarchy model of meanings, for example, does not purport to describe a fixed number of levels or a necessary relationship among those levels. Rather, it serves to discipline and guide perception of the process of communication by asking: What stories are the communicators using to make sense of their experience and to guide their actions? How have the communicators sorted these stories out in terms of their relative importance in this specific situation? What changes in these stories themselves or in the pattern of context-and-contextualized stories occur during or as a consequence of coordinated actions with others?

To date, CMM has found greater acceptance among practitioners than among scholars. Taking the communication perspective confers something like communication literacy"—the ability to inscribe and read the complex process of communication in real time. Among other things, CMM's concepts and models guide practitioners in helping clients become aware of the patterns of communication which make up aspects of the social world that they want to change and help both clients and practitioners identify openings or "bifurcation points" in which changes in the way we communicate have large effects in the continuing process of making social worlds. Many CMM practitioners have an explicit commitment not only to describe and understand, but to improve the conditions in which they and those around them live. They believe that the best way of making better social worlds is to improve the patterns of communication which generates them. Pearce discusses this emphasis on making better social worlds in a video conversation with Em Griffin: CMM Video

CMM has guided research in an array of context and disciplines. Further discussion of CMM concepts and applications for research can be found at the following location: CMM Research

Theory criticism

In order to provide criticism of the CMM theory, it is important to establish a baseline for what accounts for a "good" study. Many scholars use different criteria for determining what makes a theory relevant, but they most often surround the following six concepts.

• 1: Theories should be evaluated on their ability to produce hypotheses that are consistent with relevant evidence. CMM theory falls short under the criteria of rule 1 as it does not set out to provide measureable hypotheses that can be compared to any other situation. While CMM tries to outline the cause and effect relationship of communication, it fails to create consistencies as the theory dictates that each situation is different. 2: General theories are preferred to less general theories. From the perspective of this rule, CMM theory is very general; however it is also very vague. The theory has difficulty focusing on exactly what is important in each interaction thereby not allowing those who study the theory to understand what is considered critical in a communicative interaction. 3: Theories that produce several hypotheses are preferred to those that produce few. From this perspective, CMM theory fails as it neglects to have even a single hypothesis that is testable. 4: It is more beneficial to evaluate research programs rather than individual theories. As CMM theory focuses on levels of contact between two (or more) persons engaged in conversation, it is unsuccessful as a way to evaluate anything other than individual interactions. 5: The overall implications of a theory mean that those with several are preferred over those with few. CMM theory focuses on how we create our social environments in the present, however it fails to predict how the theory can affect future events. 6: Simplicity is considered a virtue. In accordance with this rule, CMM theory falls short. CMM is an extremely broad theory with many different terms, views and loopholes which makes a multifaceted study of communication even more complex

CMM has been criticized for too broad in its scope and highly abstract in its nature. "Poole wrote 'It is difficult ... to paint with broad strokes and at the same time give difficult areas the attention they deserve'.". In 1987, Brenders also stated that "in its broad - stroked approach to human interaction, CMM has missed many of the linguistic, international, and theoretical nuances necessary for an understanding of communicative meaning" It is also criticized for its conceptual apparatus as "incomplete with regard to a full examination of the material layering of practices"

From a humanistic perspective, CMM theory is seen as valuable as it seeks to provide a way to clarify communication for better interaction and understanding. Its utility lies in "how people achieve meaning, their potential recurring conflicts, and the influence of the self on the communication process is admirable." It promotes reform by encouraging individuals to explain particular viewpoints in order to reach understanding.

The final point can be seen as both a criticism and positive critique. Pearce and Cronen are constantly building upon the CMM theory which was originally outlined in the 1970s. By constant corrections and revisions, the theorists are working toward improving the examination of communication interactions; however, with each new update, minor course corrections alter the terms and meanings which increase the complexity of the overall theory.

Related communications theories

• speech act theory: idea that the meaning of a conversation is not limited to the meaning of the words. The words may gain new meaning depending on the situation or how they are used. Language is an action rather than just a means of sharing information. Important people: John Austin, Adolf Reinach, John R. Searle
• symbolic interaction: An influential perspective within sociology that purposed people's actions are guided by how they value things, which is in turn influenced by their society. Important people: Mead, Blumer
• Systems theory: A transdisciplinary study of the abstract organization of phenomena, independent of their substance, type, or spatial or temporal scale of existence. Important people: von Bertalanffy, Ashby, Rapoport, Paul Watzlawick
• Dialogism: Initially based on the interrelated conversation between works of literature and later expanded to the greater social experience. Important people: Mikhail Bakhiti

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