Culture, Social
Structure, Technology, and Change: Some Basic Concepts and Approaches
CULTURE:
The totality of learned,
socially transmitted behavior. All the "products" of a SOCIETY:
A large number of people who live in the same territory, subject to a common
political structure and participate in a common culture. Society/SOCIAL STRUCTURE
is the interaction; Culture is the product of the interaction, both material
and non-material (meanings, beliefs, values, ideas, norms, etc).
CULTURE is:
- SHARED
- LEARNED
- INTERGENERATIONAL
- A Human Construction--thousands
of years in the making: Biology (brains, hands, vocal), and Universal: practices
at general level--language, food, housing, sport, families, etc. VS. variation
at the specific level.
Culture as a stable system:
- It is our world, taken
as natural (house smells)
- Resists
change
- Cultural lag: material
vs non-material culture
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
-
LANGUAGE
-
NORMS
-
VALUES
-
TECHNOLOGY
Cultural change:
Innovation:
Diffusion:
Social Structure:
The way in which society
is organized into predictable relationships, patterns of social interaction
(the way in which people respond to each other). These patterns etc, are to
some extent independent of the particular individual, they exert a force which
shapes behavior and identity.
- Blumer--People respond
to meaning: Symbolic Interaction.
"Symbolic Interactionism rests on three primary premises.
First, that human beings act towards things on the basis of the meanings those
things have for them, second that such meanings arise out of the interaction
of the individual with others, and third, that an interpretive process is
used by the person in each instance in which he must deal with things in his
environment." © The Society for More Creative Speech, 1996, http://www.cdharris.net/text/blumer.html
- REALITY is shaped by
perceptions, evaluations, interpretations
and definitions.
- THE
THOMAS THEOREM: "If people define a situation as real, then it is
real in its consequences for them."
Social Structure as a Negotiated
Order.
- Structure arises out
of the face-to-face interactions of people who are operating from both a shared
sense of reality (culture and socialization) as well as a individual and group
oriented biography which produces particular definitions and interpretations.
- We attempt to make sense
out of situations for "all practical purposes."
- We bargain, compromise,
redefine and produce an emerging sense of order as a stable reality.
- Some situations allow
for little negotiation, others more.
Technology, as a product of human interaction, is a negotiated and socially
constructed reality
Culture forms the foundation of Social Structure:
- Some sort of shared reality:
Language, Norms and Values.
- Out of this basis we
attribute meaning and significance to others in terms of where they are placed
in relation to ourselves and others.
- Technology comprises
one of the most significant elements of human culture.
Elements of Social Structure
- STATUS:
- ROLES
- GROUPS
- INSTITUTIONS
As Technology
changes, the relationships and interactions between the people who occupy positions
within the structure of society changes. As technology changes, the shape
of the social system changes (and vice versus!).
The Changing Structure
of Society
- Lenski's Technological
determinism.
Hunting and Gathering
Societies (1:3)
-----------------------------------------The Hoe
Horticultural Societies (1:15) Social Surplus
Pastoral Societies
-----------------------------------------The Plow Power==> Land
Agricultural Societies (1:50)
-----------------------------------------The Machine/Factory
Industrial Societies (1:5000) Power==> Money
-----------------------------------------The Computer
Post-Industrial/Post-Modern Societies (?) Power==> Information
- Division of Labor.
- Come to identify people
by what they do versus who they are, i.e. their social position vs distinctive
human qualities.
- Social Bond
Toennies:
| Gemeinschaft
|
Gesellschaft |
| Rural
|
Urban |
| Community
|
Differentness |
| Interaction
intimate |
Formal,
task specific |
| Cooperation
|
Self-interest |
| Openness
|
Privacy |
| Informal
control |
Formal
control |
| Less
tolerance of deviance |
Tolerance
of deviance |
| Ascribed
|
Achieved |
| Little
change |
Rapid
Change |
Today's Society: The Debate
- Daniel Bell: Post-Industrial
Society (Functionalism)
- Conflict: Harrington-The
Other America.
- Post-modernism: (Emergence
of the post modern world==> the death of modernist architecture at 3:32
p.m. July 15, 1972 <Lemmert 1990>). Actually,
it was probably March 16, 1972
- Hi-Tech
- Preoccupied with consumer
goods and media images
- The Mass
- International, "demise
of the nation-state"
- Philosophically integrative,
yet focus is upon control mechanisms
- Irrationality
of Rationality
- The impact of continual
change.
- McDonaldization
(Organizational
change)
Specific Theories of Technology
and Society
- "An actor network
is simultaneously an actor whose activity is networking heterogeneous elements
and a network that is able to redefine and transform what it is made of."
- An actor-network includes
both human and non-human elements
- An actor-network is not
fixed or stable- it is capable of redefining its identity and relationships
in new ways.
- (From: Michel Callon,
"Society in the Making: The Study of Technology as a tool for Sociological
Analysis" in The Social Construction of Technological Systems)
- Power and Control
- Technology as a tool
used to control and maintain differential social relationships
- Technological development
guided and controlled by particular group interests
- "Technological systems
contain messy, complex, problem-solving components."
- "They are both socially
constructed and society shaping."
- They contain: artifacts,
organizations, and institutions
- They are shaped by their
components.
- They are goal oriented
and evolve over time
- (from: Thomas P. Hughes,
"The Evolution of Technological Systems" in The Social Construction
of Technological Systems
URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/280/struchag.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel: rok@umsl.edu
Last Updated:
Friday, August 25, 2006 12:28