Chapter 5 - The ‘Great Smoky Dragon’

Summary

5. The tremendous interest in the theory of social representations led to many understandings and interpretations of Moscovici’s theory. The structuralist approach became the most well known, although it was not originally derived from Moscovici’s theory. Its success was due to its simple structure, to methodological rigour, and to its excellent suitability for experimental exploration. The socio-dynamic approach of the Geneva School is directly derived from Moscovici’s theory. Willem Doise’s organising symbolic principles are linked to specific social relations at the level of the individual, group, and society in psychology and sociology. The defining concept of the socio-cultural/anthropological approaches is the interdependent and unique relation between the inner world of humans (individuals, groups) and an outside world (other groups, ‘society’, culture). Imagination, images, and social imagery play central roles alongside other defining capacities of the human mind such as forms of thinking and knowing, language, and symbolic activities. The major theoretical contribution to the sociogenetic approach by Gerard Duveen and his followers was the emphasis on the dynamic structures of social representations. Communication and social representations condition one another. Interpersonal conversation/dialogue is a primary communication genre, and diffusion, propagation, and propaganda are three secondary genres in mass communication.