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
naturalist body
the body understood as a biological substance
-reduces a body down to its biological makeup
culturally inscribed body
the body understood to be shaped by social and cultural processes
mind-body dualism
the idea that mind and body are distinct entities
ex) overweight yoga instructor
socially constructed body
social construction or cultural inscription approaches examine how we (our body-self) are shaped by social and cultural processes
- this idea of the body rejects essentialism and biological reductionism
- the body as a vehicle for expression of self
Michel Foucault’s disciplinary power
- power is not repressive or constraining
- it is productive
- it involves self-monitoring and self-regulation
ex) the prison system
panopticon
a prison design in the 18th century
- the prisoners could be watched
- the prisoners behave because they do not know when they could be being watched (self regulation, self surveillance, and self monitoring)
the disciplined body in women:
- makeup
- regular body hair removal
- bodily stance (how to sit, walk, etc)
- diet habits
socially constructed disciplined body
- the body is malleable
- draws attention to internalized social norms that are seen through self-regulation practices
- these processes become ingrained and automatic
critics of the socially constructed disciplined body
- body becomes an “inert mass” (its just kind of there)
- reassertion of mind-body dualism
- the agency of the body is missing (it has no say in what happens to it)
- the body is seen as socially deterministic (materialistic, external to the will)
somatically felt body
- how we feel in our body (butterflies, tingling)
- highlights bodily sensations as more than just biological.. caused by social relations
muscular bonding
a sense of a group belonging to a body
- moving together through time
ex) dance, the military - rhythmic kinaesthetic stimulation
sleep is more than just a biological urge..
- there is a history to sleep
- rules on where you should sleep and who you should sleep with
- sleep is organized in different ways in different societies
3 interchangeable terms commonly used in reference to the body:
1) corporeality
2) materially
3) somatic
corporeality body
reference to the body without reducing it just to biological
materially body
emphasizes the material quality of bodies (we are made of flesh, bones, etc)
somatic body
from the Greek, means of or relating to the body, highlights the feeling body
queer theory
a theoretical approach that emphasizes society’s heterosexual bias,
-a set of ideas based around the idea that identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are
sodomite
any non-reproductive sexual practice
heteronormativity
attitudes, practices, and institutional processes that reinforce the idea of gender binary (man/woman) and naturalness of heterosexual
why is sociology different from common sense?
- it follows rules of reasonable speech
- draws insights from a wide social field
- begins from human figurations
- doesn’t take anything for grated
