Making Better Social Worlds:

Inspirations from the Theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning

Do you despair about the divisiveness, the hatred, and the lack of compassion in our social world?

Penman and Jensen provide a clear and comprehensive account of how the Theory of the Coordinated Management of Meaning can help us rise to the challenges of 21st century life with all its political turmoil, social divisiveness and increasing moral bankruptcy.

Making Better Social Worlds describes how we create our social worlds in communication, how our relationships with people matter deeply to the quality of our lives, and how living with difference enriches us.

Are you looking for a better way to manage the complexities and demands of 21st century social life?

Making Better Social Worlds offers a new mindset–one that is relationship-orientated, self-reflexive and morally attuned. Learn what it means to engage in joint action, dialogue and cosmopolitan communication. See how changing our communication practices can bring about social and cultural change.

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Operating manual for a complex world

“Making Better Social Worlds by Penman and Jensen is probably the most important book of our era! While not a self-help book, it will undoubtedly become the operating manual for 21st Century life in our complex, diverse global world.”

~ Sheila McNamee, Professor of Communication, University of New Hampshire & Vice-President, Taos Institute.

Crossing the gap

“Barnett Pearce invited us all to make better social worlds. Penman and Jensen show us how to begin—how to cross the wide gap between wanting to make a better social world and actually beginning to do so.”

~ Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director, Center for Intercultural Dialogue & Professor Emeritus University of Wisconsin-Parkside.

Clear and conversation-prompting

“This is the clearest and most conversation-prompting treatment of CMM that I’ve read … I’d relish conversing about each chapter with a group of upper-division undergraduates, grad students, or community members.”

~ John Stewart, Special Assistant to the President at the University of Dubuque.

No better introduction, no better encouragement

“In Making Better Social Worlds, you will read no better introduction to the conceptual and practical foundations of the Coordinated Management of Meaning and will receive no better encouragement to change the way you approach human interaction.”

~ Mike Hemphill, Director for Academic Programming for the Clinton Foundation.

Act wisely in a complex world

“Making Better Social Worlds acknowledges the myriad local and global challenges we currently face, while at the same time showing us how we can rise to those challenges: by developing a quality of mind and utilizing the tools of CMM to act wisely into the complex worlds that we are (re)making in our stories and joint actions.”

~ Kimberly Pearce, Co-founder CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution

Hope for creating better social worlds

“Penman and Jensen present the basic CMM concepts in ways that will appeal to anyone who wants to improve their communication and relationships. They show us that there is hope for creating better social worlds, and they provide us with tools to be more self-aware and reflexive and to expand our ability to engage in joint action.”

~ Benjamin Broome, Professor, Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, Arizona State University

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