A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Society as a Communicative Process
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Date
1987-05Author
Whiting, Stephanie Misaki
Publisher
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
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Show full item recordAbstract
The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the Montgomery
bus boycott: the antecedent conditions surrounding the
participants, the actualization of the pretest activities, the
efforts to sustain unity despite the actions of hostile
authorities and the resultant successful litigation. This
effort seeks a better understanding of how protest movements
are shaped through social interaction and in turn, how
movements are involved in the social definition of reality.
The study of communication has amplified my vision cf
people in society and given me the keys to a framework which
would allow such an analysis. As a theory of communication,
symbolic interactionism looks at both the individual and
society as emergent products of symbolically mediated acts.
In symbolic interactionism meanings are central; they are
formed through defining activities as people interact and
communicate. This transaction involves a formative
interpretive process that continually defines reality; that
is, reality is socially defined. Our shared perspectives are
the product of communication, a process that is ongoing and
emergent and more importantly, a process that enables
coordination of action, what Blumer terms "joint action."