SOC 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: The Sociological Imagination, The Digital Age, Mass Media
12 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
CED 512 F. Thurs 12-1, Fri 12:30-2:30.
*Need textbook. *Print out course schedule. *Hegemony important for quiz and midterm.
Broadly defined: Study + analysis of the relationships which develop between ppl as they organize
themselves and are organized by others.
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Sociology examines personal troubles in social context.
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Individuals <--> Society never divorced from each other.
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How society works
a.
How society works in terms of my personal life.
b.
Sociological knowledge examines:
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What is Sociology?
Key figure in development of sociology.
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Prof at Columbia University in NY.
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Challenged conservative ideas of his colleagues and US Gov in 1950's.
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Published 7 books, including The Sociological Imagination (1959).
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C. Wright Mills (1916-1962)
Mills refers to "sociological imagination" as principle goal that scholars and students should strive to achieve.
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Way of seeing the world that reveals the world in a way that deepens our agency.
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Individual experience seen in general social context.
Get coffee every day at Starbucks.
Seeing the general in the particular.
1.
See the world as if I'm an alien.
See how weird it is that the same coffee have different vocabulary.
Each time you buy a different coffee, you're more so buying an idea of yourself rather than the
coffee.
Seeing the odd in the familiar.
2.
Always look for 3rd barrier.
Men or women + dive thru. 3rd barrier = kids.
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Correlation ≠Causation.
Reconsider common sense ideas.
Seeing patterns.
3.
2, 4, 8 ; 3, 6, 12 ; 4, 8, 16
Often we come up w/ simple explanation for something we see.
Try out theories that don't work instead of only testing correct ones.
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^Doubling but actually: pattern is simply that the next number is bigger than the previous.
Not taking anything (common sense) for granted.
4.
4 key attributes:
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The Sociological Imagination (Quiz, midterm, final)
Sociological Imagination can help us to become aware of confirmation bias: tendency to look for information
and evidence that supports our pre-existing beliefs.
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Confirmation Bias
Sociological Imagination plays out in 3 principle ways
Individual <--> Society
Biography <--> History
Self <--> World
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How individuals shape society, and how society shapes individual
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Microsociology > < Macrosociology
Emergence of reality television wasn't due to viewer's desire, but to fill content on TV as ideas ran out.
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How it has shaped moral world.
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How digital age changes the following
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More access to digital info = impact on culture on how we are attentive, processing info.
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Goal is to quickly get meat of the information so we skim and find key words.
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Attention gets diverted. Interesting link leads to other links.
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Access to far more information = harder to know what to pay attention to/focus on when you're
bombarded by information. Attention becomes dispersed.
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Information and attention
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Privacy: Willing to reveal more of ourselves on social media. Privacy not being invaded but definition of
privacy is being changed w/ growing technologies.
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Privacy and freedom
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Economy and work
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The Digital Age
Week 1 - Sociological Imagination
Friday, January 15, 2016
10:03 AM
SOC 202 Page 1
