The concept of modernity and post modernity in relation to sociological theory

Question 1

What do modernism and post modernism refer to?

Answer 1

Beliefs and theories which are associated with 2 periods in human society known as ‘modernity’ which began in the 1700s and post modernity around the 1800s.

Question 2

Bauman
Chaos, uncertainty and the collapse of social structures

Answer 2

See society in a constant state of change which is unpredictable and marked by chaos and uncertainty - Liquid modernity.

Question 3

What are modernist theories part of?

Answer 3

The enlightenment project - the idea that society can progress through the use of human reason.

Question 4

How was society changing according to postmodernists?

Answer 4

In a way that modernist social theories could no longer provide adequate explanations of society.

Question 5

What factors meant that traditional sources of identity were becoming irrelevant?

Answer 5

Rise in new media
Rapid technology changes
Growth of service and knowledge based industries
Globalisation
Consumer culture

Question 6

What are people more focused on now instead of political parties?

Answer 6

New social and political partied which are interested in single issues concerning culture, identity, lifestyle and quality of life which reflect their personal interests.

Question 7

What did social change mean peoples lives were becoming?

Answer 7

More insecure and unpredictable.

Question 8

What did science become to be seen as when postmodernism emerged?

Answer 8

The cause of problems rather than the solution.

Question 9

What do many sociologists argue we are now increasingly affected by?

Answer 9

Globalisation

Question 10

How has globalisation affected technological changes?

Answer 10

Satellite communications, internet etc have created time, space compression between people.
This brings risks on a global scale.
Beck risk society - threats from human made as well as natural disasters.

Question 11

How has globalisation affected economic changes?

Answer 11

• electronic economy production of info instead of goods
• 24 hour financial transactions
• Trans national companies e.g. Coca Cola - 500 of these toegther = 1/2 of the total value of commodities produced.
• Sklair - global capitalist class.

Question 12

Political changes due to globalisation
Why does Ohmae call the work ‘boarderless’?

Answer 12

Transnational companies and consumers have more power than national governments.

Question 13

How has globalisation affected changed in culture and identity?

Answer 13

• Harder for cultures to exist in isolation from each other.
• We live in a global culture - western opened media companies spread western ideas
• economic integration encourages global culture
• increased movement of people
• undermines traditional sources of identity

Question 14

What does Giddens call disembedding?

Answer 14

The way social relations are lifted out of social contexts and no loner confined by time and space.

Question 15

What undermines national identities?

Answer 15

Tourism, travel, immigration, emigration, migrant labour, illegal immigrants and asylum seekers.

Question 16

What are national cultures and what are they increasingly becoming?

Answer 16

Diluted and increasingly becoming global cultures - the same food, consumer goods, films, music and fashions found around the world based on Western cultures.

Question 17

What do people form identities around?

Answer 17

Images and consumer lifestyles drawn from global culture e.g. through TV and internet rather than traditional sources of identity like their local community, social class, gender or ethnicity.

Question 18

According to Browne what has gloablisation meant?

Answer 18

Modernist sociology formed around concepts such as structure/ action and social class, gender and ethnicity within the framework of the national state need to be rejected or reformulated to take into account the new contexts of globalisation and global interconnectedness.

Question 19

What does Lyotard argue people no longer believe n?

Answer 19

The myth of truth - society can no longer be understood through general theories or metanarratves.