Culture,
Social Structure, Technology, and Change: Some Basic Concepts and Approaches
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:
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
-
LANGUAGE
-
NORMS
-
VALUES
-
TECHNOLOGY
Cultural change:
Evolution
Culturomics
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, (see also)
- 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
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
Durkheim's Mechanical/Organic
Solidarity:
- 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)
- Generations
Online
Specific Theories
of Technology and Society
Technological
Determinism
Social
Constructionism
Actor-Network
- "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)
Critical
Theory
- 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
URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/280/struchag.html
Owner: Robert O. Keel: rok@umsl.edu
Last Updated:
Wednesday, February 19, 2014 11:36