3.1 How we ‘build worlds’ through communication

* Consider the social constructionist perspective. How do you “build worlds” through communication?

In the course of a lifetime one could not experience everything in order to conclude what is real or not. Let’s think for a moment about the big achievement of the first man who stepped on the moon in 1969, the American Neil Armstrong.

We believe Armstrong was the first man who actually walked on the moon because this historic moment was actually captured by television cameras and photographs taken by Armstrong. Otherwise, without evidences that Armstrong stepped on the moon, how could us believe him?
In the words of Trenholm ((2008), “most of what we know and believe about the worlds comes to us through communication rather than through direct experience” (p. 30).

Most of the things we believe, we do so not because we experienced those things ourselves. Instead, other people experienced them, documented them, and the evidences collected became ‘the truth’ we ultimately believe in. One of the major critics made by Trenholm (2008) about the constructionist perspective is on how one can distinguishes truth and reality.

In my view reality is a social constructed thing. Although human beings can experience certain things on their own, e.g., a woman who had a baby but has never walked in the moon. On the one hand this woman knows what the delivery moment is because she delivered her baby. On the other hand this same woman believes that it is feasible to walk in the moon because she read about it, which turned to become reality to her. But because there is so much to be experience and not so much time to do so, humans often go on simply assuming that “what is out there” is true.

Ibirapuera