Symbolic Interactionism Analysis

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When we have interpersonal communication with others, we tend to take a symbolic interactionism approach to suggest an interconnectedness between us. Here, symbolic interactionism is described as the use of familiar meanings and thoughts behind our phrases or words. There is a desire to want our individuality to be understood and accepted in a social environment because we want to communicate with that social environment’s culture. Thus, Carly Rae Jepsen’s song “I Really Like You” (CarlyRaeJepsenVEVO, 2015) and its complementary music video (CarlyRaeJepsenVEVO, 2015) will be looked at from a symbolic interactionist perspective. Ideologically, we do not form close bonds with our peers and do not know what our peers truly think of us because …show more content…

First, I will discuss why her lyric video and music video demonstrates that we are less likely to want to learn more information about others through our interactions to reduce uncertainty and our initial impressions. For last, I will discuss how these relations are less likely to develop where interpersonal communication is less likely to move from the non-intimate level to a more intimate level in her lyric video and music video. The possibility for our individuality to be understood and accepted in a social environment’s culture is low depending on how we manage the effects of uncertainty reduction theory and relational uncertainty. Uncertain reduction theory is described as “a lack of confidence about how an interpersonal interaction will proceed because of the challenge to describe, to explain, and to predict behaviour by gaining …show more content…

The focus will be on how interaction adaptation theory affects the moods and politeness levels in Jepsen’s “I Really Like You” lyrics and music video. Interaction adaptation theory focuses on one-on-one interpersonal interactions and the way that nonverbal actions are reciprocated and compensated in these interactions because its concern is how we adjust to each other in our interactions (Toma, 2014). From the lyric video, we see a linear display of photographs of smiling people with the lyrics of “I really really really really really really like you/And I want you, do you want me?/Do you want me too?” at 2 minutes and 9 seconds to 2 minutes and 15 seconds (CarlyRaeJepsenVEVO, 2015). From the music video, we see Hanks communicating with his assistant director and pushing away a male who wants to take photographs of him from behind at 1 minute and 55 seconds to 2 minutes and 2 seconds (CarlyRaeJepsenVEVO, 2015). The lyrics video and music video demonstrate that if the social relation grows farther apart, then the level of politeness increases and our mood becomes negative. Thus, a negative mood can help us be more aware of the context and nature of an interpersonal interaction and the connection to our peers (Morse

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