Symbolic Communication: Signifying Calls and the Police Response (Organization Studies series) - Softcover

Manning, Peter K. K.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0262514702 ISBN 13: 9780262514705

Publisher: MIT Press, 2003

Synopsis

This first major empirical work on the semiotics of social action goes a long way toward answering substantive, theoretical and pragmatic questions on how codes actually operate in a specific social setting. It underscores the important yet often ignored role of the police as "sign" or "information workers." Calls to the police represent a rich variety of human troubles, concerns, and needs by focusing on how police handle calls from the public, how they ascertain what a call means and what should be done with it, and how this is transformed through subsystems within the organization, Peter Manning provides a novel way of looking at organizational communication. Symbolic Communication provides examples of how members of an organization interpret their environment - in this instance, how the meaning of a call to the police is transformed as it moves across the boundaries of the organization (a transformation that involves a series of codings and recodings ensuring a continuous loose linkage of organization and environment). Manning shows why the police act in ways that differ from the way citizens and politicians would have them act, revealing the uncertainties that surround a policy agency's responsiveness. And he points out how today's computer technologies constrain the coding process, limiting in particular the effectiveness of the 911 systems used in most of our major cities. Peter K. Manning is a Professor of Psychiatry and of Sociology at Michigan State University and a member of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford. Symbolic Communication brings to fruition themes and ideas introduced in his previous books, Police Work and The Narc's Game. Symbolic Communication is included in the Organization Studies series, edited by John van Maanen.

About this title

About the Author

Peter K. Manning is a Professor of Psychiatry and of Sociology at Michigan State University and a member of the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at Oxford. Symbolic Communication brings to fruition themes and ideas introduced in his previous books, Police Work and The Narc's Game.

Edition details

• Publisher: MIT Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0262514702
• ISBN 13: 9780262514705
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 330