When talking about organizations we must start from the fact that they are made up of social actors that interact within them. It is as a result of these interactions that the construction of a common reality ("vital world") (1) in which people share and develop their work is achieved, mediated and coordinated by the organization to which they belong.
In this line of thought, I base myself on the Erwing Goffman concept that the daily life of institutions (for the purposes of this writing understood as organizations) are the theatrical representation of society (2) in a “closed system” (3) in which dynamics of technical, political, structural and cultural types develop.
These organizational dynamics are framed within the daily routine of daily life; from a routine perspective in which “the subject observes and is observed in a known world (her work environment), where everything happens as planned.
From the text by Manuel Canales Cerón, “Sociologies of Everyday Life” (4), I borrow the two ways in which he identifies the obvious (a product of constant daily life) to analyze how, from a symbolic interactionist approach, it can be studied the daily dynamics of organizations and in turn, as the role of communicator towards a new concept of communication; the obvious as what is not seen and what is taken for granted.
The routine repetition of this process makes the communication applied an organization focus only on the elaboration of a clear message for the emission and the evaluation of the results after they have been transmitted (a technical dynamic), thus neglecting the interactions that that occur in the meantime, when considering the subjects belonging to the organizational environment as an ideal public (5) in which contradictions do not arise.
It is due to this situation that, despite some (immediate) profitable results for the organization, there are spaces for these contradictions to generate conflicts in the construction of a common reality, and that due to their daily life, it may become conflicts that affect the considerable other organizational dynamics (cultural, structural and political) product of unequal symbolic interpretations between their interactive activities in a mediate time.
To delve into the different dimensions and the importance of bidirectional internal communication, I invite you to read the PDF «Internal Communication», produced by Doc. Paul Capriotti (1998) from the Rovira y Virgili University at the following link: http: //www.bidirecional.net/Blog/Comunicacion_Interna.pdf
As an alternative for the prevention of similar situations, from the point of view of symbolic interactionism, he proposes us to go from an instrumental communication, arisen and applied from administrative and economic theories, to one in which the role of interaction is read and carried out. for the formation of the vital world of the subjects that are within closed organizational systems.
The new role of the communicator proposed from this approach lies in the active involvement of the professional in situations generated in their organizational environment, ceasing to take for granted that internal communication exists as an irremediable situation, to use it as tools in the preparation of proposals for common benefit (both from the point of view of the company and the worker).
Following this logic, the role can be revalued in its position as an informant to pass to that of mediator of the interactions that arise in the contexts of an organization. In his role as mediator, or as an “active observer”, the communicator will find himself in the ability to design strategies for the improvement of dynamics (technical, cultural, political and structural), starting from the analysis of social situations (by understanding to the social subjects involved in said conjuncture), understanding the common ways in which individuals make their daily experiences reasonable and explainable and identifying the processes with which the social members produce and sustain the social structure in which they interact.
I consider the interactionist approach influences the vision and study of organizational dynamics to stop interpreting them as a series of mechanical-instrumental processes based on the idea of action-reaction, to understand them from a social perspective where the dynamics, in addition to being improvable Through mediation with the subjects, they can also improve the planning and development of processes preventing (not ignoring) the contradictions and conflicts that may arise within a company, allowing “to understand both the macro (institutional) and the micro (that of perceptions as impressions and actions of individuals) ”the interactions“ generated and generators of social life ”in an organization.
Bibliography
- Rad, Philipp, Rita. Jürgen Habermas's theory of communicative action. A framework for the analysis of socializing conditions in modern societies. pp. 103 Erving Goffman, in: Rizo, Martha. Symbolic interactionism and the Palo Alto School. Towards a new concept of communication. In: The Communication Portal - Portal Lessons. Aula Abierta. Erving Goffman (bis) Canales, M. Sociologies of everyday life. Available at: http://inicia.es/de/cgarciam/Canales.htm Erving Goffman (bis)
