On Becker’s Studies of Marijuana Use as an Example of Analytic Induction

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-566
Author(s):  
Martyn Hammersley

Analytic induction (AI) is an interpretation of scientific method that emerged in early twentieth-century sociology and still has some influence today. Among the studies often cited as examples are Becker’s articles on marijuana use. While these have been given less attention than the work of Lindesmith on opiate addiction and Cressey on financial trust violation, Becker’s work has distinctive features. Furthermore, it raises some important and interesting issues that relate not only to AI but to social scientific explanation more generally. These concern, for example, the presence and nature of causal systems in the social world, the relationship between historical and generalizing approaches, the character and role of social scientific theories, and how they are generated. In this article Becker’s research is examined in detail, and these issues explored through comparisons with the work of Lindesmith and Cressey.

Author(s):  
Brian L. Keeley

Where does entertaining (or promoting) conspiracy theories stand with respect to rational inquiry? According to one view, conspiracy theorists are open-minded skeptics, being careful not to accept uncritically common wisdom, exploring alternative explanations of events no matter how unlikely they might seem at first glance. Seen this way, they are akin to scientists attempting to explain the social world. On the other hand, they are also sometimes seen as overly credulous, believing everything they read on the Internet, say. In addition to conspiracy theorists and scientists, another significant form of explanation of the events of the world can be found in religious contexts, such as when a disaster is explained as being an “act of God.” By comparing conspiratorial thinking with scientific and religious forms of explanation, features of all three are brought into clearer focus. For example, anomalies and a commitment to naturalist explanation are seen as important elements of scientific explanation, although the details are less clear. This paper uses conspiracy theories as a lens through which to investigate rational or scientific inquiry. In addition, a better understanding of the scientific method as it might be applied in the study of events of interest to conspiracy theorists can help understand their epistemic virtues and vices.


2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-135
Author(s):  
Rainer Hülsse

Metaphors construct social reality, including the actors which populate the social world. A considerable body of research has explored this reality-constituting role of metaphors, yet little attention has been paid to the attempts of social actors to influence the metaphorical structure by which they are constituted. The present article conceptualises the relationship between actor and metaphorical structure as one of mutual constitution. Empirically, it analyses how until the late 1990s Liechtenstein was constructed as an attractive financial centre by metaphors such as haven and paradise, how then a metaphorical shift constituted the country more negatively, before Liechtenstein finally fought back: with the help of the new brand-metaphor and also a professional image campaign the country tried to repair its international image.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-4 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Jansson ◽  
Johan Lindell

This editorial introduces a thematic issue on “Rethinking Media and Social Space”. By critically rethinking the relationship between media and social space this issue takes initial steps towards ensuring that media studies is appropriate for a mediatized world. Contemporary societies are permeated by media that play important roles in how people maneuver and position themselves in the social world. Yet, analyses of media-related social change too often fail to engage with the complex and situated nature of power relations. This editorial highlights three enduring problems: (1) the annihilation of the socially structured and structuring role of media technologies and practices; (2) the conflation of inherent social capacities of media technologies and discourses with existing mediations of power, and (3) the reduction of social space to one predominant dimension which overshadows all other forms of social power that media technologies, discourses, and practices are part of. As a response to these problems—and in bringing together the arguments of the five articles included in the thematic issue—this editorial calls for sociologized approaches to media technologies, discourses, and practices.


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Irvine

What is the role of imitation in ethnographic fieldwork, and what are its limits? This article explores what it means to participate in a particular fieldsite; a Catholic English Benedictine monastery. A discussion of the importance of hospitality in the life of the monastery shows how the guest becomes a point of contact between the community and the wider society within which that community exists. The peripheral participation of the ethnographer as monastic guest is not about becoming incorporated, but about creating a space within which knowledge can be communicated. By focusing on the process of re-learning in the monastery – in particular, relearning how to experience silence and work – I discuss some of the ways in which the fieldwork experience helped me to reassess the social world to which I would return.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Eny Sulistyowati ◽  
Totok Danangdjojo

<span><em>This study aims to explain the influence of the Social Security </em><span><em>program on performance and job satisfaction and job stress as a mediating </em><span><em>variable. In addition, this study also describes the effect of job satisfaction on </em><span><em>the performance and the effect of work stress on performance. The relationship of </em><span><em>each variable in this research is to be measured by conducting a survey on 145 </em><span><em>employees of private companies that included in Social Security program on </em><span><em>DIY and Solo. Then the path analisys used to test the effect of social security </em><span><em>program performance in mediation by job satisfaction, performance and job stress</em><span><em>, job satisfaction, and examines the effect on the performance and the effect of </em><span><em>work stress on performance. The results showed that the social security program </em><span><em>significant positively affects job satisfaction and performance. Job satisfaction was </em><span><em>also positively and significantly affect performance. Even though mediating role </em><span><em>of job satisfaction in the relationship between social security program performance </em><span><em>partial. Because merely direct relationship between social security program with </em><span><em>greater performance than the mediating role of job satisfaction. Social Security </em><span><em>program did not significantly affect the stress of work, as well as job stress did </em><span><em>not significantly affect performance. Therefore, the mediating role of work stress </em><span><em>on the relationship between social security program with the performance did not </em><span><em>occur. Individual differences and work experience may be a factor that causes no </em><span><em>significant relationship between the two variables.</em></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /></span>


Author(s):  
Michel Meyer

Chapter 10 is devoted to the role of emotions or pathos. Pathos was the term ordinarily used to denote the notion of audience. For the first time since Aristotle, emotions receive a full role in a treatise on rhetoric. The responses of the audience are modulated by its emotions. What is their nature and how precisely do they operate? The areas of political and legal rhetoric are examined here in the light of an original view of the theory of distance: values at greater distance become passions at short distance, and this is one of the features which demarcates politics from law. Law and politics are not merely argumentative, nor are they entirely emotional. The norms they codify are often implicit in their shaping of our mutual expectations and behavior in the social world.


Ecclesiology ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-43
Author(s):  
Graham Buxton

AbstractThe author critiques inductive approaches to pastoral theology that rely on the empirical methodology of the social and human sciences, and presents an alternative Christocentric praxis model of pastoral ministry. The result is an attempt to integrate pastoral theory and practice that shifts the perspective away from functionally-determined theologies of ministry to a relationally oriented and hermeneutically coherent model of orthopraxis in which theory and practice interact in a way that is intended to both deepen faith and transform lives. Some of the key themes that inform the discussion are the importance of theological method, the role of the community as the context for care, the relationship between practical ministry and systematic theology, and the notion of praxis in articulating the nature and scope of practical theology today.


2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lygia Sigaud

The article examines a 30-year experience of collective ethnography in the sugarcane plantations of Brazil's Northeast. Over this period, the research group has worked in different temporal and spatial contexts, continually exchanging its findings. The author draws on her experience as part of the research group in order to focus on the conditions of entering the field, the seasonal variations and geographic displacements, the research group's morphology and the overall implications for anthropological knowledge. Debates over ethnography have neglected the relationship between the social conditions in which anthropologists carry out their work and what they are able to write about the social world. This article sets out to fill this gap.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 32-51
Author(s):  
Simran Kaur Madan ◽  
Payal S. Kapoor

The research, based on uses and gratifications theory, identifies consumer motivation and factors that influence consumers' intention to follow brands on the social media platform of Instagram. Accordingly, this study empirically examines the role of need for self-enhancement, the need for entertainment, and deal-seeking behaviour on the intention to follow brands on Instagram. Further, the study investigates the mediation of social media usage behaviour for consumption decisions on eliciting brand following behaviour. Moderation of consumer skepticism on the relationship of deal-seeking behaviour, and intention to follow brands is also investigated. Findings reveal a significant direct effect of need for self-enhancement, need for entertainment, and deal-seeking behaviour on intention to follow brands. Indirect effect of social media usage behaviour for consumption decisions was also significant; however, moderation of consumer skepticism was not found to be significant. The study will help marketers create engaging content that enables consumer-brand interactions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehita Iqani

This article explores the role of social media promotions in the marketing of luxury, from the perspectives of both representatives of global brands and the local influencers contracted to promote them online. It provides insights into role of social media in marketing luxury in ‘new’ markets (African cities) and the complexities attendant to the relationship between brand representatives and influencers. It reports on in-depth interviews with brand representatives and social media influencers working in the luxury sector in large anglophone African cities. Empirical findings show the role of social media in how luxury is promoted by those working in the industry. Three key complexities to do with value, trust and authenticity were evident in how global brand representatives and local influencers discussed social media. In terms of value, influencers emphasize strategies for monetizing visibility, while brand managers emphasize the need to get their money’s worth. Regarding trust, influencers express caution about brands trying to exploit them, while brands express scepticism about the extent of influencer’s abilities. On the topic of authenticity, influencers emphasize how the integrity of their personal brands is paramount, while brand representatives are mostly concerned with how genuine the social media posts seem. The article provides original empirical details about the relationships between brand managers and social media influencers, as well as to the nuances of social media luxury marketing in African cities. It contributes to critical theories of branding practice in media economies of the global south.


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