The Political Is Personal: Public Sociology and Social Change Through Community Engagement

2016 ◽  
pp. 53-69
Author(s):  
Alison Better
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Community Engagement ◽  
Public Sociology ◽  
The Political

Realignment and Beyond

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Russell J. Dalton
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Electoral Systems ◽  
The Political ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Societal Changes

Affluent democracies have experienced tremendous socio-economic changes since the mid- twentieth century, which has reshaped public opinion, party programs, and electoral choices. This chapter first summarizes the societal changes that have been a driving force behind the political changes described in this study. One pattern involves the longstanding economic issues of contemporary democracies, and shifting social positions on these issues. In addition, an evolving cultural cleavage and its ties to broader attitudes toward social change have altered citizen policy preferences. In most affluent democracies, the parties’ responses to these changing citizen demands have produced a realignment to represent both economic and cultural positions. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the findings for the working of electoral systems and the democratic process more broadly.

Traditionalism and politics: A case study of Northern Nigeria

1967 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 509-524 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. J. O. Dudley
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Local Government ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
High Time ◽  
The Political ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
The North ◽  
The Right

In the debate on the Native Authority (Amendment) Law of 1955, the late Premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto, replying to the demand that ‘it is high time in the development of local government systems in this Region that obsolete and undemocratic ways of appointing Emirs’ Councils should close’, commented that ‘the right traditions that we have gone away from are the cutting off of the hands of thieves, and that has caused a lot of thieving in this country. Why should we not be cutting (off) the hands of thieves in order to reduce thieving? That is logical and it is lawful in our tradition and custom here.’ This could be read as a defence against social change, a recrudescence of ‘barbarism’ after the inroads of pax Britannica, and a plea for the retention of the status quo and the entrenched privilege of the political elite.

Doubling the fantasy, adapting the reel: Entertaining transmediation as a collaborative narrative strategy

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Campanioni
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Culture Industry ◽  
Potential Functions ◽  
Border Studies ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Advocacy ◽  
Narrative Strategy ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Traditional Storytelling

Can we move fan participation and the co-creation of storylines outside the sphere of the culture industry to better understand their potential functions for constructing individual subjectivity and empowering social change? With an attention to experiences of migration, exile and detainment, and through close readings of documentary The Wolfpack (2015), HBO’s bilingual horror comedy series Los Espookys (2019) and Manuel Puig’s novel, El beso de la mujer araña (1976), I argue that it is necessary to move beyond a speaker–audience dialectic, as in traditional storytelling, and towards transmediated activity, where static or linear temporal and spatial orders are both reproduced and subverted. By converging performance studies with border studies and phenomenology, this contribution counters assumptions about submissive viewership while unpacking the political utility of entertainment. Ultimately, ‘Doubling the fantasy, adapting the reel’ challenges what it means to be a ‘storyteller’ and what constitutes a useful ‘story’ in the context of political advocacy and activism.

Documentary Goes Popular

2019 ◽  
pp. 61-102
Author(s):  
Angela J. Aguayo
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Structure ◽  
Documentary History ◽  
Creative Force ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into

While the documentary genre has frequently been conceptualized as a democratic tool with civic potential, the ways popular advocacy documentary functions in the process of social change is unclear. We need more information about the relationship between documentary agitation and collective organizing for social change, as well as about how this function shifts with the visibility of popular attention. Mainstream commercial culture is more than at odds with a commons of democratic exchange. The advocacy film is a time-honored tradition in documentary history, made specifically for the aims of democratic exchange. This type of film is produced for political causes by activists or advocates who are not closely connected with the government or decision makers. Often the director is constructed as a central creative force. Central figures usually function as surrogates for the film in public interviews and engagements; the speakers are often connected to sponsoring organizations. In this chapter, I first address the historical linage of popular documentary and its movement from the vernacular to the popular. Then, I examine the ways popular advocacy documentary in popular form has morphed in recent years, providing insight into the potential of the genre to make contact with the political structure.

Quebec Catholicism and Social Change

1961 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
North America ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
The Political ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
French Canadian ◽  
Cultural Survival ◽  
The Church

Since the English conquest, the Quebec Roman Catholic Church has been the most important single agency for the defense and perpetuation of the French-Canadian heritage in North America. Although its commanding position is unchallenged, the Church has long shared its authority with elites in the political and economical spheres. These other elites, however, have by no means competed with the Church. Indeed, interchange and cooperation among elites have been characteristic of French-Canadian society. Viewed as essential to cultural survival, this close unity among elites has encouraged the retention of an ordered, hierarchical social structure with many pre-industrial features.

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