Making Better Social Worlds

Robyn Penman (PhD, UMelb) has devoted her scholarly career to the development of a practical-theoretic approach to understanding communication as a relational practice. She has been equally as focused on asking questions about what makes for good communicating and what this can mean in the public sphere.Robyn has been an independent communication scholar and consultant to the Australian government on communication and social policy matters. She was also a Founding Director of the Communication Research Institute of Australia (1987-2000) and an Adjunct Professor in Communication at the University of Canberra (1999-2005). Robyn is a past President (1985-6) and Life Member of the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association, has served on the International Communication Association board (2002-3) and is a Visiting Senior Member, Linacre College, Oxford (1987-). She was also the associate editor of the Australian Journal of Communication (1984-2003) and has served on the editorial boards of Communication Theory and Human Communication Research. She is currently a board member of the CMM Institute and a co-director of the Cosmopolis2045 project. The Cosmopolis2045 project and this current book provide an extraordinary opportunity for Robyn to show how her understandings of communicating can be used for making for better social worlds.

Do you despair about the divisiveness, the hatred, and the lack of compassion in our social world? Are you looking for a better way to manage the complexities and demands of 21st century social life? Well, this book offers just such a way.
Following the adage of Einstein, that you cannot solve problems with the mindset that created it, you are introduced to a new way of thinking and acting that opens up possibilities for a more hopeful future than the one we currently face. The new mindset presumes that we create our social worlds in communication, that our relationships with people matter deeply to the quality of our lives and that living with difference enriches us.
The authors draw on the Theory of the Co-ordinated Management of Meaning for inspiration, making dense concepts and technical language more accessible so that you can use the theory. You are introduced to such notions as relational beings, self-reflexivity and storied worlds, along with what it can mean to engage in joint action, dialogue and cosmopolitan communication. By drawing on these ideas and implementing them in our everyday interpersonal communication, the authors show how changing our communication practices can bring about social and cultural change.