Coordinated management of meaning (CMM), in the social sciences, provides an understanding of how individuals create, coordinate and manage meanings in their process of communication. According to the textbook Introducing Communication Theories, CMM examines "how individuals establish rules for creating and interpreting the meaning and how those rules are enmeshed in a conversation where meaning is constantly being coordinated." Others add that, within CMM, "human communication is viewed as a flexible, open and mutable process evolving in an ongoing joint interaction, which enables movement, shifts and evolving ways with each other". In essence, CMM highlights how communication fosters interpersonal connection and open conversation among individuals or groups, and can be applicable across multiple academic fields and social scenarios.
CMM has been characterized as "a multi-level structural theory in which rules describe the movement or linkages among meanings and actions. From this perspective, it's two persons conversing compromise on an interpersonal system with two interpersonal component systems". Pearce and Cronen, who created the theory, emphasize that CMM is "encouraging us to look at the process of communication and the ways meaning is made" and to "think about the ways that we might act in a critical moment". This framework "enables us to take a collaborative approach" and "arrive together at a shared understanding and agreed plan moving forward". Generally, CMM is a "theory of social construction that posits how we create our relationships and even the world itself through communication". The exchange of information and interpretation of meaning happen through "hierarchies and coordination of the meanings in our messages".
In simple terms, CMM explains how people manage and process their communication with others.
In interpersonal communication, people assign meanings in their messages based on past conversational experiences from previous social realities. Through communication, individuals negotiate common or conflicting meanings of the world around them, thereby creating a new social reality. CMM proposes that meanings can be managed productively to improve communication by coordinating and managing the meaning-making process. It is identified as an "interpersonal theory that describes causal forces in a conversation in two forces: logical force and practical force. This process assumes that people transform sensory perceptions into implications for meaning and action, and that the process for this transformation may be usefully described in terms of the actors' rules".
According to the theory, our social world can be understood through "managing our meanings in our messages based off our values". CMM suggests that it is "our task in interactions to actively manage the meanings that make up our lives and to co-ordinate these with meanings to others, to bring coherence to our social world". Communication follows "rule-governed patterns of interactions" that emulate the logic behind how people act and respond. Social and cultural norms have also been known to influence how we disclose or process information and interpersonally communicate.This is where messages in communication can have disparities in their meaning due to cross-cultural or contextual disclosure differences in how we communicate.
CMM relies on three interdependent elements: coordination, management, and meaning. Together, these elements explain how social realities are created through conversation, and serve as foundations for further applications and models within the theory.
History and orientation The theory of CMM was developed in the mid-1970s by W. Barnett Pearce (1943–2011) and Vernon E. Cronen. Communication Action and Meaning was devoted to CMM, is a thorough explication of CMM, which Pearce and Cronen introduced to the common scholarly vernacular of the discipline. Their scholarly collaboration at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst offered a major contribution to the philosophy of communication as story-centered, applicable, and ever attentive to the importance of human meaning. Pearce also famously said, "the three principles of CMM are, there are multiple social worlds, these social worlds are made in interactions and through conversations with others, and we are all active agents in the making of social worlds" and by this, our social worlds are ever-changing through which the conversations that we exchange throughout time.
The cluster of ideas in which CMM emerged has moved from the periphery toward greater acceptance, and CMM has continued to evolve along a trajectory from an interpretive social science to one with a critical edge and then to what its founders call a "practical theory".
Aware that the intellectual footing for communication theory had shifted, the first phase of the CMM project involved developing concepts that met the twin criteria of (1) adequately expressing the richness of human communication and (2) guiding empirical investigation. Pearce describes the creation of CMM through the following story:Pearce 2004.
CMM is one of an increasing number of theories that see communication as "performative" (doing things, not just talking "about" them) and "constitutive" (the material substance of the social world, not just a means of transmitting information within it). In CMM-speak, "taking the communication perspective" means looking at communication rather than through it and seeing communication as the means by which we make the objects and events of our social worlds.
The "communication perspective" entails a shift in focus from theory to praxis.Cronen 2001. According to Rose, language and communication "creates, shapes, and limits the diverse social worlds in which we live, and the coordinated management of meaning is the most comprehensive statement of social construction and emphasizes recursiveness. The level of praxis is fundamental in this recursive process in that communication is a primary social process".
CMM concepts and models are best understood as providing tools for naming aspects of performance. To date, CMM has found greater acceptance among practitioners than among scholars. Taking the communication perspective confers something like "communication literacy"—the ability to inscribe and read the complex process of communication in real-time. Among other things, CMM's concepts and models guide practitioners in helping clients become aware of the patterns of communication which make up aspects of the social world. They want to change and help both clients and practitioners identify openings or "bifurcation points" in everyday lives. Many CMM practitioners have an explicit commitment not only to describe and understand but to improve the conditions in which they and those around them live. They believe that the best way of making better social worlds is to improve the patterns of communication which generate them.Pearce 2002.
As mentioned, Pearce and Cronen together have set the stage for CMM and have unpacked this theory various times in order to give it the depth it needs. One of their studies, in particular, gained some speed when they wanted to analyze how rules and form of a conversation lead to the significance of the conversation and co-create verbal structures of communication within the social engagement. They found that in their game-like study, respondents reported more engagement based on the structure, or in this case coordination, produced different articulations for determining the value and action of said rules given to them. "Logical force does affect the ability of person's to coordinate conversations and respond to them".
Since this theory has been developed and tested in other disciples, there is a bountiful amount of definitions for CMM. Keeping in mind Pearce and Cronen's contributions, some other definitions entail it as not just a practical theory but also a "social constructionist theory that traces its lineage to the work of American pragmatists". Pearce also says it is a "non-objectivist, realist position that foregrounds the process of communication". That being said, many of these theorists agree it is a practical angle to communication, and communication itself is a "primary social process".
Basics It has been said that "CMM theory is a kind of multi-tool (like a Swiss Army knife) that is useful in any situation".Holmgren 2004, p. 91. It is not a single theory but rather a collection of ideas to understand how humans interact during communication. According to CMM, individuals construct their own social realities while engaged in conversation. To put it simply, communicators apply rules in order to understand what is going on during their social interaction. Based on the situation, different rules are applied in order to produce "better" patterns of communication.Pearce Associates 1999, p.12. Often at times, these "constitutive rules change, and so do the regulative rules" that allow transformative empowerment of self perspectives and those of other people. These rules are discussed below further in the management sections.
CMM theory is a fairly complex study focusing on both the complexity of the micro-social processes and the aspects of daily interaction.Holmgren 2004, p.92. Overall, it is concerned with how we coordinate and establish meaning during interactions. The theory can be complicated to teach and/or present to others, but it is best understood when it is broken down into the basics. The theory consists of three key concepts, which are further broken down into several different building blocks.
The fundamental building blocks of CMM theory focus specifically on the flow of communication between people. The three different concepts experienced either consciously or unconsciously are coordination, management, and meaning.
Coordination Coordination refers to "the degree to which persons perceive that their actions have fitted together into some mutually intelligible sequence or pattern of actions". It exists "when two people attempt to make sense out of the sequencing of messages in their conversation". That is, if people in the interaction can recognize what their partners are talking about, then we say the conversation comes to coordination. Scientists believe that people's desire for coordination in interaction arises from the subjectivity of meaning, which means the same message may have different meanings to different people. In order to avoid this pitfall in communication, people work together to share meanings. Research shows that sense-making is the foundation of coordination. By tokens within the information connected by means of a channel can the logic relationship emerge, then it contributes to the sense-making. Sense-making helps people to establish common understanding then further develops coordination between people.
The act of formulating speech and reaching the initial coordination is where the conversation co-exists between the two parties. The "actions of each person affect and are mutually affected by those of the other person in a coevolving conversation. The unfolding of action is reflexively interpretable within various levels of nested narrative or meaning of contexts". This in some cases, is similar to relational transformation, which is "thought to be and emerge out of this combination of increased awareness and strength regarding one's own needs, together with increased appreciation and compassion toward the needs of the other party" and where this understanding is taking place in coordination. Relational transformation occurs when, "recognition or other perspectives are happening for either parties".