venerdì 1 novembre 2013
Final assignment
Students must provide a one-page description of their ideas, projects and interests by November 11th, Monday, and generate a list of 3 bibliographic citations representing their area of interest.
There will be three possible ways of writing the final paper:
1. - Theoretical paper
2. - Research proposal paper
3. - Empirical research paper
1. Theoretical paper
Your paper must be based on sound exposition of the primary texts used in this course as well as your own reasoned arguments. You are required to base your answers on materials that include the primary sources covered in the course. One of the themes of the course could be the focus of your paper (frame, Self, group, meaning, interaction order, intentionality, ritual, speech acts, emotions, senses, talk-in-interaction, etc.). In the paper you should present theoretical issues on the studies of communication starting from your perspective, offering a conceptual and categorical analysis together with mentions of empirical studies, or links to classical or contemporary sociological theory, or references to particular substantive subjects of sociological studies (inequalities, gender, family, youth, consumption, fad & fashion, new media, etc.).
2. Research proposal paper
The student proposes a research topic and design addressing any of the substantive areas concerning communication that has been covered in this course. The paper should present the ways in which a particular topic can be studied from an empirical point of view. Your paper must have a 8-paragraph structure: 1. Research topic and main aims of the research; 2. Brief reconstruction and critique of previous studies on the topic; 3. Methodology to be used; 4. Context(s) of the research; 5. Phases and timing of the research; 6. Expected results; 7. Budget; 8. Bibliography.
3. Empirical research paper
The paper is based on a (detailed) analysis of some kind of empirical data or materials using the conceptual structure and analytical attitude that has been fostered in this course. Data and materials must be quick to gather and easy to handle (examples can be: movies, tv shows, recordings of actual conversations, literary fictions and novels, newspapers). You should (1) present clearly the focus of your research, mentioning one of the subjects or topics covered in the course and explaining its relevance and connection for your research; (2) describe the data and materials on which your research is based; (3) present your findings, analysis, intuitions, etc. in an articulated way; (4) provide a summary of the main points of your research; (5) provide a bibliography.
Your paper must have a title. The paper should be no longer than 5.000 words, 30.000 characters spaces included (about 10 pages). In the class we will talk about your ideas, projects, topics, and the ways in which your paper could be organized.
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Theoretical paper
RispondiElimina“Unit 5 - October 15th” Groups
Title: How far can groups influence its individuals
“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” Aristotle
Societies might seem from a far sight as a collection of groups of people under different labels and institutional structures; families, couples, friends, colleagues, students, workers, professors, politicians, etc. However, dating back to Aristotle in 300th BC, it was proven that society comprehension is deeper cosmos to study and understand. Using consistent observations, analysis’s and empirical studies we are now able to understand that societies and individuals relationships and interactions are more than a sum of actions that is widely influenced by external and internal factors.
In 5th Unit we were assigned to read about “Groups”, which included the following:
• Asch S. E. (1956). "Studies of independence and conformity: I. A minority of one against a unanimous majority",
• Milgram Stanley (1963), "Behavioral Study of Obedience". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
• A. King, The word of command,
• K. Goldsworthy The Othismos, Myths and Heresies
Asch and Stanley were leading sociologists who added authentic views on how an individual acts in group, while King and Goldsworthly tackled the frame of group in certain communities such as military from different perspectives with an emphasis of how individual behaviors were affected based on group relations and norms.
Therefore, I am interested in enhancing my understanding of group pressure and how individual act in relation to group through developing theoretical paper on “Groups”, in specific “Group pressure” with four aims in mind. My first aim is to initially define the meaning of group from sociological perspective including the gradual evolution of the term and the increasing complexity of its meaning including different effects and theories around this broad topic. This will be based upon classical and contemporary sociological theories on groups with a great focus on Asch’s and Stanley’s.
While my second aim is to, highlight some of the different functions of group that drive individuals’ actions especially in an informal context. Thirdly, I intend to dive deeper by describing and analyzing three theories on group conformity; Asch’s and Stanley’s empirical research on the power of peer pressure and authority as well as Irving Janis groupthink theory.
And finally, I aim to conclude by supporting my paper with some empirical analysis using the three mentioned above theories to analyze “American History X movie”.
Kindly find below my proposed structure on “theoretical paper”:
1. Introduction
2. Nature of groups
3. Evolution of “groups” theories ( classic and contemporary theories history )
4. Group theories
a. Primary and secondary groups
b. In groups and out groups
c. Reference groups
d. Social network
e. New groups ( social media )
5. Function of groups with emphasis on informal relations
6. Group conformity
a. The power of peer pressure
b. The power of authority
c. Groupthink
7. Group conformity and the movie “American history X”
8. Conclusion
9. Reference
The influence of the groups on the destruction/construction of peace
RispondiElimina-Possible Ways:
Theoretical – empirical paper
-Base:
Unit 5 – groups
Unit 10 – institutional order
In the final assignment, I want to try explaining the theory of the formation of groups and the influence on this members from this possible two points of view, that can be complementary: a. The idea of the obedience and dependence of social groups exposed by Milgram and b. The consequences of the acts of speech for develop democratic values examined for Sbisá about the Austin´s work.
For this, I want to deep in one of the experiments that born after the Milgram´s theory in the social psychology field: The experiment of Robber`s cave at 50s decade, that evaluate the level of social cohesion at first, then explore the hostility and solidarity behaviors of the group´s members. The process of experiment had three phases of analysis: a. Forming b. Frictions and c. Integration.
Like wise, I considered important explain this demeanor from the matter of the relationship between “emisor-receptor” individual parts of the communication, for create a conflict or peaceful forms for integrate the social group.
In this sense, I want to apply these explanations to the South African post-conflict studies, which try to found the causes of the conflict and explored new ways of building the reconciliation.
The construction of this document could be as follow:
1. Influence of the groups.
2. Theory of social control
3. Experiment of Robber`s cave
a. Forming groups
b. Frictions within and between groups
c. Process of integration
4. The contribution of the speech acts to form and defend democratic values.
5. Case study: The Truth and reconciliation commission - TRC of South Africa.
Cross the forbidden line: from communication to action
RispondiEliminaThe idea of my empirical research paper concerns the analysis of an event that took place on 9th August 2013 in Niscemi (Sicily). In particular, the analysis aims to reconstruct a specific moment of the event that, I think, is well linked to more than one of the issues, which were addressed during the Language and Society course. In this case, the event, which involved about 5,000 people, took place to oppose to the installation in Sicily of 47 antennas for military communication (Muos). The antennas are not only a tool of war but also a structure that is harmful to the health of the local population. The instant, which I believe is worthy of attention, is when the demonstration head-group unhinged and uprooted the military fence in order to make all the demonstrators enter the American base. The demonstrators remained compact till then: they marched for nearly 3km singing choirs and slogans, but, when the most active part took action breaking into the fenced area, most of the people hesitated for a good half-hour to go through the broken fence. They were more likely inhibited by the presence of the armed forces and by the clear illegal action they would have committed crossing the military boundary. After many exhortations by the head-group to the rest of the protesters, who were still reluctant to advance, the crowd decided to slowly flow into the base, going through the holes in the fence, which were opened by the members of the permanent NoMuos unit. On my own opinion, this particular step carries an important meaning and it can be reconnected firstly to the topic addressed in unit 5 (Group), as a matter of fact an analysis in this direction could be useful to reconstruct the dynamics of social cohesion, compliance (Solomon E. Asch) and influence (Stanley Milgram). However, at the same time it also highlights the aspect addressed in unit 7 (frame), in fact the type of cohesion that has been built at that time was the result of a frame, which was produced by the whole demonstration: it established the "push", which was required in order to pass from the act of communication (slogans, singing, cursing, choirs, etc.) to the concrete action. Then the analysis would trace and reconstruct the dynamics of this passage through the study of different types of materials and data (videos, photos and newspaper articles). The main theoretical and empirical reference to which I want to return regards the experiment carried out by Stanley Milgram "Here we refer not to the distinction between overt compliance and private acceptance, but of the relationship between a genuinely accepted belief and its transformation into behavior. The main point of the present experiment is to see if a person will perform acts under group pressure. That he would not have performed in the absence of social inducement." However, what varies in the context that I wish to analysis is that in this case it is not an individual, who is influenced by a social group, but a group that influence another group.
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8PL6_-WoNY
-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nozh05PotjA
RispondiEliminaInteraction order of people with non visible social stigma.
The main scope of this paper will be the examination of the different social behaviors (interaction order) of people with invisible social stigma in light of Goffman's "interaction order" theory.
Some of the questions this approach will try to respond are:
How does this specific category of people interact at the work place?
In which situations are they feeling being on the backstage ("interaction in bathroom" example) ?
Are they ever feeling like they are themselves in the end?
Do they keep their individualism during their daily routine?
Social interaction at their broad social context - during their daily life?
Social interaction with their intimates, at home or in any case at their very safeplace other than their home?
Through this paper some of the theories to be developed will be:
• social stigma theory
• stigma management theories
• Goffman's "interaction order" theory
Design: This paper will not examine the cases of people with visible social stigma (physical disabilities, mental illness, etc) - only the single case study of HIV-positive people will be developed.
Results: ?
Conclusions: ?
Theoretical paper
RispondiEliminaTitle: The importance of rituals in our society
Subtitle: Rites of passage in Hungary
Introduction
It seems that after scientific thinking became dominant, the approaches of mythological explanations regarding our daily lives lost its significance in the human societies. The narrow-minded extrovertism was the tipical characteristic of the scientific knowledge and existed as a long-time ruling party until the past decades of the past century when it started to disappear. One of the possible reasons behind the changing attitude could be the merely fact of recognition that instead of focusing on the external factors we should focus on one’s inner world.
Beforehand people have been born into the tradition, because the necessary experience in order to navigate in the world, were shared by word of mouth among the small communities. They fixed the unwritten rules of the traditional orders and reported the knowledge that accumulated in all areas of culture. The role of the earlier tradition was taking over gradually by other methods. With the apperance of the compulsory and universal primary education, schools became the main factors in the process of tradition transfer.
However the educational system almost from the beginning focused only on knowledge that can be acquired and utilized in the outside world while neglected the potential strength of human relationships and the ability of navigating in the inner world of consciousness. With the unfolding of the present day human-civilization the previously dominant tradition weakend. The disintegration of traditional communities and the rapid lifestyle change led to rootlessness in a world without traditions. The changes however led to the emergence of new movements.
The widespread new religious movements of the 21. century, the popular sectarian movements amoung the younger generation, the holistic approach, the rediscovery of ancient healing methods, all of these „newstream” approaches has the same root. The realization of the merely fact that myths and rituals are playing at least as important role in our daily lifes as science. A healthy society honors the accumulated and preserved experience of the ancestors and the old traditions, because people know that they can learn from it.
Questo commento è stato eliminato dall'autore.
RispondiElimina“Superman in Everyday Life”
RispondiEliminaEmpirical research paper:
Data collected from the movie “Superman”, directed by Richard Donner, 1978
Kal-El is the only survivor of the planet Krypton. His parents were able to send him to Earth in a spacecraft before the explosion of the planet. The Kent family finds him in a cornfield in Smallville, Kansas. They decided to adopt the baby and call him Clark. Reached adulthood, Clark discovers his true origins and understands that his job is to help the society without interfering in its history. So at the age of thirty, Clark starts working as an editor at the Daily Planet where he plays the part of the boy clumsy and shy ..
Why Superman?
The history of Superman is different from the one of the most others superheroes: usually we see that the actors are people who play an "ordinary" life and when they go into action they wear their masks and recite the role of superhero. Superman on the contrary, is daily called to wear the mask of Clark, the "good citizen", shy and awkward.
In “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life” Goffman shows that during a social interaction, the participants are engaged in some practices to avoid being embarrassing or embarrass others. In the case of Superman, we can see that it is forced to control his powers to not seem different from other social actors. Then in social interaction, according to the Goffman dramaturgic metaphor, individuals show the positive side of himself, in order to impress the others. The mask that Kal-El shows everyday to the others is the one of Clark Kent. But as for the other social actors, he has an hidden place where he can be himself: the fortress of solitude.
My idea is to analyze some of the social interactions that involve Superman during the movie. Following the symbolic interactionism theory, I want to try to look at the different representations of the Kal-El’ self in everyday life: the masks he wears, the stages on which he acts. How his social interactions work?
To answer to these points I will refer to the texts treated in unit 6 (self) and 7 (frame analysis).
Involuntary encounters and the consequences of force on 'getting together'.
RispondiEliminaA communicative approach of 'getting together' while one is not necessarily choosing to do so.
While Margaret Gilbert (1990) described the getting together of two people walking based on the outspoken and silent social conventions among people walking together this essay aims in describing the more complex situation of people who are forced to interact together while in a 'natural' environment they might not have chosen to do so. A few out of many examples are students living in student homes, in-law families, colleagues working together or children of divorced remarrying parents. All situations may pair with conflicts, culture shocks and misunderstandings to start with but in the end these situations resolve normally in a fairly well going situation of structure, consensus and even shared identity.
While it is not the goal of the article to filter out what misunderstandings these situations may lead to, the article will address certain areas in which cultures may clash when people are involuntarily being put together in terms of staging (Goffman, 1961), actions (Dreyfus, 1993), verbal (Searle, 1965) and physical communication (Gilbert, 1990; Dreyfus, 1993). The real aim of the article is to explain the abstract concepts pointed out by philosophers in a contemporary context in the light of involuntary communication. People that may not want to get to know each other may express different ways of staging, different ways of action and communication and this may lead to inconvenience or eventually acceptance as the examples will show.
Most examples used will be taken from a personal experience while the various concepts are being explained, applied and its consequences are being considered, remaining dilemmas stated.
The question is whether people are more aware of themselves when experiencing an involuntary encounter than when they meet with someone they choose intrinsically to be with. Although - or maybe just because - one experiences an involuntary encounter, like Goffman shows in his Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Goffman, 1961) participants still develop a certain mechanism of making the best of the situation together and they appear to develop rituals. This concept of a ritual - just like the concept of staging - is omnipresent in daily life and one may ask if staging and ritualization happens especially when encounters are experienced to be involuntary or just less likely to be noticed in voluntary encounters.
Comparisons could be made between voluntary and involuntary encounters, which may be desirable to do, yet the focus will be on involuntary encounters. At first, I will try to give a definition of what I consider to be understood as an involuntary encounter, then I will explain most of the theoretical concepts and link them to possible consequences if there is no intrinsic motivation to act together and finally, I will pick a common situation in daily life and compare the possibilities if people are willing to interact or being forced to interact in terms of action, physical, verbal and ways of staging. I will finish with some careful conclusions that could be drawn from these anecdotic examples that may not to be generalised, but at least may provide some insights into these matters.
References
EliminaDreyfus, H.L. (1993). Heidegger's Critique of Husserl's (and Searle's) Account of Intentionality. Social Research. 60(1).
Gilbert, M. (1990) 'Walking together: a paradigmatic social phenomenon' MidWest Studies in
Philosophy, vol.xv,The Philosophy of the Human Sciences, eds. P.A. French, T.E. Uehling, Jr., and H.K. Wettstein, University of Notre Dame Press; Notre Dame, pp. 1-14.
Goffman, E. (1961). "Characteristics of total institutions", in Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Doubleday, Garden City: pp. 3-124.
Searle, J.R. (1965). What is a Speech Act? Philosophy in America, Max Black (ed.), Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1965; London: Allen and Unwin.
Framing of Disaster Experience and Responses:
RispondiEliminathe case of Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda), Visayas, Philippines
How do we understand phenomenon and people’s actions?
How do we give meaning to our experiences?
Research Problem
How are the Philippine typhoon Haiyan disaster experience and the responses framed in the media and social networking (Facebook)?
Research Objectives:
identify and analyze:
What topics are talked about?
Who are the people involved? How are they described? What are their conditions? What are their roles? How are they positioned?
What should we be done?
Significance
Understanding how media and social network frames the disaster experience can be helpful in assessing how the phenomenon is described and constructed. It also gives insights on how solutions and agenda are identified. Such understanding can be helpful in advancing sustainable disaster risk reduction and management in the Philippines. The results from this study can provide inputs to disaster responders in their education and advocacy work.
Methodology
Content analysis
Thematic analysis
Expected Result
The typhoon disaster
- Mostly a natural event
Disaster Experience
- ‘Filipinos as Resilient’
Disaster Response
- Declaration of ‘Martial law’ in Leyte province- because of looting, lawlessness
- LGU not prepared
- donation drives in social network
Related studies:
“Metaphors Matter: Disaster Myths, Media Frames, and Their Consequences in Hurricane.” Katrin
Kathleen Tierney, Christine Bevc, Erica Kuligowski
“Framing effects on disaster preparation: Is negative framing more effective?”
John McClure, Chris G Sibley
Bibliography:
Erving Goffman. Frame Analysis: an Essay on the Organization of Experience. 1974
Annelies Heijmans - THE SOCIAL LIFE OF COMMUNITY-BASED DISASTER RISK REDUCTION: ORIGINS, POLITICS AND FRAMING. 2011
This is a modified version of flow of the paper, for feedback :
RispondiEliminaKindly find below my proposed structure on “theoretical paper”:
1. Introduction
2. Groups dynamic and its relation to change of behavior
a. Can groups influence behavior?
b. Evidence using “Asch theory and experiment”
c. Negative influence “Melgram theory and experiment”
d. Positive influence “Group therapy case studies”
3. How can we utilize such pressure for behavior change ( health care, attitudes )
4. Conclusion
5. Reference