Mitchell and Cameron

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The social context surrounding Cameron and Mitchell’s conversation can be understood through the social constructionist model of communication. The social constructionist model of communication is based on the idea that people live in multiple social worlds. Social worlds are created with boundaries that outline meaning for those that interact within the world. Social worlds are shaped by interactions that create what is considered appropriate and inappropriate language and behavior. Examples of different social worlds include the way a teenager interacts with friends versus how a teenager acts around their grandparents – each group involves a different set of standards or expectations that are created and followed. Cameron and Mitchell belong to certain social worlds as well: how they interact at home with their daughter, how they interact with their gay friends and how they interact with extended family, to name a few. According to the social constructionist model, communication is a way of making these social worlds. Within social worlds, words do not have meaning, but instead, meaning is negotiated between the people. Communication is something that people live and experience instead of something people execute. No message can be received the same due to contingencies and its constitutive nature. Contingencies relate to the absence of certainty in how a message will be interpreted within a certain event. A message being constitutive relates to its many meanings and the power of people to create these meanings. When keeping in mind contingencies and constituencies, communication becomes a complex, strategic process that can no longer be considered common sense. The social context of Cameron and Mitchell’s conversation is s... ... middle of paper ... ...irth rates, Angier focuses on “the baby boom for gay parents.” More same-sex couples are raising children and the children of these same-sex parents are “academically and emotionally indistinguishable” from those of heterosexual parents. These statistics support a trend for families that differ from the nuclear family popular in the 20th century. A nuclear family is defined as a married man and woman living together, taking care of their biological children. The documented, quantitative trend showing the shift in the American family structure will create generations of young people who view this as the new societal norm. Mitchell understands the situation in the park through a mindset that was more common a decade ago, while Cameron represents a new mindset that is beginning to address the invisible ideologies that society has followed unquestioningly in the past.

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