SOAN 2120 Chapter 1: Chapter 1.docx

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SOAN 2120
• Professor: William Walters

Document Summary

Social research: a process in which people combine a set of principles, outlooks, and ideas with a collection of specific practices, techniques, and strategies to produce knowledge. Sometimes organizations or individuals give an appearance of authority so they can convince others to agree with something that they might not otherwise agree to. People may ding to traditional knowledge without real understanding, they assume that because something may have worked/been true in the past it will continue this way. Common sense: you rely on what everyone knows and what just makes sense: limitations: allows logical fallacies to slip into thinking. It is useful and sometimes correct, but it also contains errors, misinformation, contradiction, and prejudice. Media myths: television shows, movies and newspaper are important sources of information: limitations: they do not accurately reflect social reality. Tend to perpetuate the myths of a culture.