Midterm 1 Flashcards
sociological perspective
seeing the influence of society in our everyday lives
>seeing the strange in the familiar, general in the particular, the relationship between “self & world” and “history & biography”
common sense approach vs. sociological perspective: bus example
CS: -mode of transportation
-lots of people do it
SP: why do you take it? how did you learn? is it easy?
“introduction: the discipline of sociology” by Bauman & May focuses on:
- sociology as common sense
- how sociology is different from other disciplines
- how and why we distinguish disciplines
sociology is distinguished from other disciplines by…
- the kinds of questions it asks
- its relationship to common sense
Primary objects of sociological inquiry include (4)
- figurations
- webs of mutual dependence
- reciprocal condition of action
- expansion or confinement of actor’s freedom
4 ways to distinguish sociology from common sense:
1) the size of the field
2) they explain the world in different ways
3) sociology focuses on the situation in which the actor’s live, not the individual actors
4) makes an effort to subordinate itself to the rigorous rules of responsible speech
sociologists ask 3 main questions about media:
1) how are we and our relations defined by it?
2) how is society shaped by it?
3) how is it effected by the communities in which it operates?
6 characteristics of all types of media:
1) are human communication systems
2) use technology for producing messages
3) generally aim to reach a larger audience/to be used my many people
4) aim to allow for communication across distance or time
5) is in the middle, allows for connections between sender and receiver
6) are shaped by economic interests
the 4 main points to look at when classifying between new and old media..
1) the audience/media consumer
2) the goal of the media/communication
3) the media producers
4) technology
commercial vs public media
commercial: cooperation, make profit
public: create a sense of national identity and producing Canadian content
old media:
- one to many form of communication
- single standardized message
- transmitted to a wide audience
new media:
- many to many form of communication
- multiple users produce content
- specialized types of audiences
- audience participates
- many different messages, no common experience
- no needed skill to produce news (amateurs)
the body is an…
- absent presence
- malleable entity that cannot speak back
- socialized
- not natural, fixed or unchanging
biologism
refers to arguments that reduce the complexity of human psychological and social life to the biological makeup of individuals
ex) mate attraction because of genes or ‘hormone smells’
essentialist (essentialism)
refers to the reduction of the “complexity” of life to essential components of our biological makeup that is viewed as fixed and predisposed