Haleigh Gershon The Break Up 2.1 Summary

Writing Exercise #1 by Haleigh Ammon
According to Gershon, second-order information is defined as “Not what is actually said but rather the background knowledge of a situation and expectations of communication that allows one to interpret words.” (2010: 123) Second-order information is extremely malleable because, depending on the context that it is in, its meaning can change entirely. That’s why second order-information is so important to pay attention to and understand, especially if the stakes of misinterpreting it are high, as you will see in the following two examples.
Gershon’s “The Break Up 2.0” focuses particularly on how second-order information acts via breaking up through social media sites. Second-order information is extremely
The white police saw Bourgois walking down the street in East Harlem and, unlike the crack dealers, the police believed that “the only reason for a “white boy” to be in the neighborhood after dark was to buy drugs” (Bourgois 2002: 19). Based on the police’s prior experiences and basic understanding of who Bourgois was stereotypically, they used that second order information to make an assumption about Bourgois.
Sometimes, like with the crack dealers, second-order information is used as a self-defense mechanism. Other times, like with the boyfriend attempting to decipher Facebook wall posts, it is used to help understand better the situation that they are in in. There are many different ways it can be used as a tool because second-order information functions differently based on the context that the person receiving the information is in, as proved above.
Symbols are how we communicate with one another. A word, an object, a hand gesture – they are all arbitrary symbols that have meaning behind them. But there is no universal meaning, no matter how clearly translated, of these symbols because of the cultural dimension that is inherently within them. Both of my examples of symbols are similar in that they do not have the same meanings when looked at universally, although one encourages different interpretations whereas the other symbol attempts to prove a certain meaning of its
He concludes that,
Moreover, this suffering may leave no physical trace at all or become buried in water bottles, shoes and other items left behind. These objects can tell us a great deal about what happens in the desert, and we diminish their voices when we reduce them to mere ‘trash’. [De Leon 2013: 341]
Not only are these symbols, he says that they are voices. These are the messages left by the people who attempt to leave their homeland in order for a better life in America. With each one of these pieces of “trash” there is a story of extremely hard times that is original to each individual artifact. The message that comes with each of these symbols provides researchers with more depth and understanding then they may have been able to get from the individual by communicating verbally. Without symbols like these, the culture of these people and their travels may have never been communicated. Their stories rely on the symbols that prove that their words are