The Two Sociologies

Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict

This article proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing both mass media logic as a driving force for social change and, probably more importantly, that change itself as caused by the mass media. Mass media logic as a highly complex construct of interacting structures has changed society fundamentally, as actors in different social functional systems believe in first-order mass media effects and, therefore, adapt to the mass media logic. In the case of the mediatization of politics, this refers both to the adaptation of mass media logic by political actors and media-induced changes in the public representation of politics. Those adaptation processes have one pre-condition (the existence of a more or less autonomous mass media system) and are three-fold: political actors modify their individual strategies (micro-level), rearrange resources of political organizations such as parties, lobbying groups, or non-governemtal organizations (meso-level), and rewrite the programs of the political system (macro-le...

Mass Media Logic and the Mediatization of Politics: A theoretical framework

The rhetoric of consensus politics: a critical review of technology assessment

The use of both quantitative and qualitative strategies to examine a single research question has been a subject of considerable controversy and still remains a largely uncommon practice in the sociology of health and illness. Yet, when seeking to understand the meaning of a chronic disabling condition in later life from a social psychological perspective, a mixed-method approach is likely to provide the most comprehensive picture. This article provides an overview of the usefulness and appropriateness of a mixed-method approach to understanding the stroke experience. I comment on the current state of research on the experience of stroke, including epistemological and ontological orientations. Using real data examples, I address paradigmatic assumptions, methods of integration, as well as challenges and pitfalls in integrating methods. I conclude by considering future directions in this field of research.

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Understanding the Experience of Stroke: A Mixed-Method Research Agenda

This paper examines whether the theoretical analyses and ambitions of sociologists of the body are increasingly making obstructive and irrelevant the subject boundaries and methodological conventions associated with their parent discipline. Concerns about the utility of the discipline have been expressed by a number of body studies emanating from within and outside of sociology. These imply that it is necessary to reject the dominant problematic of sociology and utilise non disciplinary resources if we are to understand issues surrounding the 'lived experience' of embodiment. In opposing this rejection of sociology, if not the use of other intellectual resources, I argue that the discipline contains much valuable theorising about experience which has yet to be developed by body theorists. Many of sociology's central concepts, indeed, evoke dimensions of human experience that remain highly pertinent to an understanding of the individual and societal significance of the body in the contemporary era. In order to illustrate this argument, I focus on the writings of Durkheim and Simmel. Their work is rarely central to,writings on the body, but provides good examples of the diversity of theoretical approaches within sociology that remain relevant to body theorists. Specifically, I want to use it to develop the outlines of a theory of embodiment as a medium for the constitution of society which has at its centre a concern with human experience. I conclude by reassessing the strategic options sociologists of the body confront in developing their analyses.

The Two Sociologies

Citations

Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict

Mass Media Logic and the Mediatization of Politics: A theoretical framework

The rhetoric of consensus politics: a critical review of technology assessment

Understanding the Experience of Stroke: A Mixed-Method Research Agenda

Embodiment, experience and theory: in defence of the sociological tradition

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