scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Journal ArticleDOI

Nick Crossley, Towards Relational Sociology

21 Dec 2011-Canadian Journal of Sociology (University of Alberta Libraries)-Vol. 36, Iss: 4, pp 395-397
About: This article is published in Canadian Journal of Sociology.The article was published on 2011-12-21 and is currently open access. It has received 3 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Relational sociology.

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

Citations
More filters
Dissertation
01 Nov 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a case study of the use of social network analysis and an anthropological approach to the analysis of the Singaporean blogosphere from 2009 to 2010, and assesses which of White's three disciplines and relative valuation orders the Singapore blogosphere adheres.
Abstract: This thesis questions on one level the assertion that the Internet is a force for democratisation in authoritarian regimes (Habermas, 2006), and at the same time another means for disseminating propaganda, fear and intimidation (Rodan, 1998). It overcomes the limitations of using automated data collection and analysis of blogs by supplementing these techniques with a prolonged period of participant observation and a detailed reading of the textual extracts in order to allow for meaning to emerge. It analyses the discourses and styles of discourse of the Singapore political blogosphere. Hurst (2006) and Lin and Sundaram et al., (2007) described the same blogosphere as isolated from the global blogosphere and clearly demarcated with no central topic. Countering the social ignorance of such automated data collection and analysis techniques, this study assigns meaning to data gathered from January 2009 to February 2010. This case study will help highlight the analytic framework, benefits and limitations of using social network analysis and an anthropological approach to networks. It has targeted blogs using hyperlink network analysis and measured ‘importance’ with ‘betweenness centrality’ (de Nooy & Mrvar et al., 2005) in order to demarcate the boundaries of the sample of blogs that are archived for semantic and discourse analysis. Beyond a brief introduction to betweenness centrality, and the merits or otherwise, of combining various ranking of blogs such as Google’s PageRank, Hits and Blogrank algorithms it avoids the algorithm fetishism within hyperlink data collection and linguistic analysis of corpus collected from blogs; allowing for culture, identity and agency. It assesses which of White’s (2009) three disciplines and relative valuation orders the Singapore blogosphere adheres. The contention raised here is that social network analysis, or rather those elements within it that are focused exclusively on algorithms, are in danger of co-option by states and multinational corporations (Wolfe, 2010:3) unless they acknowledge sociocultural forces. The tools of social network analysis and data mining are moved beyond mere description, while avoiding prescription – and at the same time advancing its contribution to substantive theoretical questions (Scott, 2010). Ensuring space for agency in a field dominated by sociograms, statistics and algorithms with theory that places persons lacking recognition at its centre is important to this thesis. Focusing only on the relational aspects of the interaction and in the individual persons linked (Wolfe, 2010: 3) creates a limited representation of the wider phenomena under study and a narrow awareness of the context in which these networks exist. A people governed by one political party since 1963 (The People’s Action Party) with the government of Singapore is the focus of this case study. This paper also highlights the use of various software technology; blogs, IssueCrawler, HTTrack, NetDraw, and Leximancer while using an ethnographic approach to counter the social ignorance of automated electronic software. The analysis of the Singaporean blogosphere from 2009 to 2010 provides a descriptive analysis of the argument that the non-democratic nature of Singapore society shapes the development of online public spheres.

20 citations


Cites background from "Nick Crossley, Towards Relational S..."

  • ...One criticism cited by Dépelteau (2011) is that Crossley too easily dismisses Latour’s need to integrate non-human actors into sociology....

    [...]

  • ...Structures are networks, conventions and resources that are the result of interactions and then in turn constrain or enable actors (Dépelteau, 2011)....

    [...]

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a hybrid management, leadership and coaching work involved navigating complex webs of relations.Strategic interaction generated "buy-in" and space and time to carry out key agendas.

8 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2018
TL;DR: In this paper, the uses and descriptions of relational sociology, collective action, and football fandom in the social scientific literature are discussed, and the foundations for the concepts and dynamics (relations/relationships, interaction, networks, social actors, and power/counter-power) are discussed.
Abstract: This chapter centrally unpicks the uses and descriptions of ‘relational sociology’, ‘collective action’, and ‘football fandom’ in the social scientific literature. In doing so, it lays down the foundations for the concepts and dynamics (these are (i) relations/relationships, (ii) interaction, (iii) networks, (iv) social actors, and (v) power/counter-power) that are core to cultural relational sociology and discusses them up in a way that can be applied to issues emerging in the study of both collective action and football fandom.

3 citations