Georg Simmel's Concept of the Stranger and Intercultural Communication Research (Everett M. Rogers, Communication Theory, 1999)

By Everett M. Rogers,

Communication Theory. Volume: 9. Issue: 1. Publication Year: 1999.

※ 자료: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=96436520

※ 메모: 유료 정보라서 요약만 볼 수 있다. 

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The stranger, defined by Georg Simmel as an individual who is a member of a system but who is not strongly attached to the system, influenced:

• (1) such important concepts as social distance, the marginal man, heterophily, and cosmopoliteness, 
• (2) the value on objectivity in social science research, and 
• (3) to a certain extent, the specialty field of intercultural communication.

Here we explore these influences of Simmel's theory of human communication, especially his concept of the stranger, and highlight certain implications for the contemporary study of intercultural communication.

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This present essay traces the evolutionary process through which the original conceptualization of the stranger by the German sociologist Georg Simmel at the turn of the century influenced several concepts important in communication research, the value on objectivity in communication study (and in other social science research), and, to a certain extent, the field of intercultural communication.

Our conceptual tracing of this history helps illuminate the largely unrecognized intellectual debt owed by contemporary communication scholars to the Chicago School of Sociology, which flourished from 1915 to 1935. The Chicago sociologists, in turn, based their pioneering empirical investigations on theories imported from Germany, especially the concepts of Georg Simmel (Rogers, 1994). Simmel's theory of the stranger has a low profile in the work of most contemporary communication researchers, who generally do not cite his concepts and theories.[1]`

This paper traces the intellectual influences of Simmel's theoretical perspective through the Chicago School sociologists into social science research on human communication, especially intercultural communication and stresses the implications of Simmel's theory for research on

intercultural communication.

Georg Simmel and Communication Study 

Georg Simmel's scholarly career flourished from 1880 until approximately 40 years later. Simmel's scholarly interests ranged widely, and his (... continued)