Extending the Theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) Through a Community Dialogue Process

Abstract

CMM is a communication theory that has most often been used as an interpretive heuristic in interpersonal communication contexts. Within the past 5 years, however, CMM has guided the work of the Public Dialogue Consortium, a not-for-profit organization involved in a multiyear, citywide collaborative community action project. This project has extended CMM from an interpretive to a practical theory and from interpersonal to public contexts. This essay describes the coevolution of the theory and practices that occurred in that project, strongly confirming the utility of treating communication as the primary social process—CMM's central thesis. Six other CMM concepts, including coordination, forms of communication, episode, logical force, person position, and contextual reconstruction, were also significantly elaborated. Appropriately for a practical theory (Cronen, 1995a, p. 231), the extensions of CMM include both new forms of practice and additions and refinements to its grammar for discursive and conversational practices.