Introduction

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela T. Ragusa
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Ways Of Knowing ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Sandra Harding ◽  
The Social ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Over Time

Epistemology is the concept used to describe ways of knowing. In other words, how you know what you know. Sociologists have been interested in how knowledge is produced since the discipline was founded in the 19th Century. How we come to know our world and make sense of it are influenced by social institutions, individual attitudes and behaviors, and our demographic position within the social order. The social order is an historical product which continues to change over time. To facilitate our learning from our socio-historical experiences, sociologists frequently turn to ideas expressed by social theorists. Social theory, whether classical or contemporary, may thus be employed to help us make sense of changes in our social and material world. Although technology is arguably as ancient as our first ancestors, as the chapters in this book reveal, the characteristics of and communications within our postindustrial society vary greatly from those which occurred in the age of modernity. This introductory chapter identifies a few well-known social theorists who have historically attempted to explain how and why social systems, at macro and micro levels, change over time. Next, it contextualizes communication as a cultural product, arguing the best way to examine the topic is from multiple, local perspectives. In the feminist tradition of postmodernist Sandra Harding, it implores us to consider the premise and source of the knowledge sources we use and espouse while communicating and interacting in specific ways and environments. Finally, grounded in the systemic backdrop of social inequality, this chapter encourages readers to begin the task of critical thinking and reflecting about how each of us, as individuals and members of local communities, nations and the world, assuage or reproduces the structurally-derived inequalities which the globalization of communication and technical systems and interacting in a global environment manifests.

scholarly journals The non-linear dynamics of meaning processing in social systems

2009 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loet Leydesdorff
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Linear Dynamics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Non Linear ◽  
Specific Meaning ◽  
Anticipatory Systems

Social order cannot be considered as a stable phenomenon because it contains an order of reproduced expectations. When the expectations operate upon one another, they generate a non-linear dynamics that processes meaning. Specific meaning can be stabilized, for example, in social institutions, but all meaning arises from a horizon of possible meanings. Using Luhmann's social systems theory and Rosen's theory of anticipatory systems, I submit equations for modeling the processing of meaning in inter-human communication. First, a self-referential system can use a model of itself for the anticipation. Under the condition of functional differentiation, the social system can be expected to entertain a set of models; each model can also contain a model of the other models. Two anticipatory mechanisms are then possible: one transversal between the models and a longitudinal one providing the modeled systems with meaning from the perspective of hindsight. A system containing two anticipatory mechanisms can become hyper-incursive. Without decision-making, however, a hyper-incursive system would be overloaded with uncertainty. Under this pressure, informed decisions tend to replace the `natural preferences' of agents, and an order of cultural expectations can increasingly be shaped.

Contexts and structures

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lake
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Economic Exchange ◽  
The Social ◽  
Gender Hierarchy ◽  
Political Narratives ◽  
Institutional Structures

This introductory chapter provides an outline of some of the ideological, political, and institutional structures and contexts within which the plays under discussion in this study were produced and consumed. Shakespeare's stagings of history were peculiarly intense in their concentration on the doings of kings and princes. In an emergently absolutist personal monarchy and during a period in which issues of succession and legitimacy were much on people's minds, plays that were so insistently about kings and queens were also quintessentially political plays. As a great deal of recent work has shown, such political concerns could well structure and, in their turn, be structured by, parallel sets of concerns and beliefs about the workings of the social order and the gender hierarchy. Political narratives then became useful ways to figure and interrogate the dynamics of economic exchange and value determined by the market or the workings of the gender hierarchy.

scholarly journals Self-organizing dominance hierarchies in a wild primate population

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1814) ◽  
pp. 20151512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mathias Franz ◽  
Emily McLean ◽  
Jenny Tung ◽  
Jeanne Altmann ◽  
Susan C. Alberts
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Self Organization ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Dominance Hierarchies ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Winner And Loser Effects ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

Linear dominance hierarchies, which are common in social animals, can profoundly influence access to limited resources, reproductive opportunities and health. In spite of their importance, the mechanisms that govern the dynamics of such hierarchies remain unclear. Two hypotheses explain how linear hierarchies might emerge and change over time. The ‘prior attributes hypothesis’ posits that individual differences in fighting ability directly determine dominance ranks. By contrast, the ‘social dynamics hypothesis’ posits that dominance ranks emerge from social self-organization dynamics such as winner and loser effects. While the prior attributes hypothesis is well supported in the literature, current support for the social dynamics hypothesis is limited to experimental studies that artificially eliminate or minimize individual differences in fighting abilities. Here, we present the first evidence supporting the social dynamics hypothesis in a wild population. Specifically, we test for winner and loser effects on male hierarchy dynamics in wild baboons, using a novel statistical approach based on the Elo rating method for cardinal rank assignment, which enables the detection of winner and loser effects in uncontrolled group settings. Our results demonstrate (i) the presence of winner and loser effects, and (ii) that individual susceptibility to such effects may have a genetic basis. Taken together, our results show that both social self-organization dynamics and prior attributes can combine to influence hierarchy dynamics even when agonistic interactions are strongly influenced by differences in individual attributes. We hypothesize that, despite variation in individual attributes, winner and loser effects exist (i) because these effects could be particularly beneficial when fighting abilities in other group members change over time, and (ii) because the coevolution of prior attributes and winner and loser effects maintains a balance of both effects.

scholarly journals FAMILIES, GENERATIONS AND INTERGERACIONALITY IN NET MODERNITY

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 321-330
Author(s):  
Camila Kuhn Vieira ◽  
Carine Nascimento da Silva ◽  
Ana Luisa Moser Keitel ◽  
Adriana da Silva Silveira ◽  
Solange Beatriz Billig Garces ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Traditional Family ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
The 19Th Century

We are experiencing a period of accelerated socio-cultural, political and economic changes that are reflected in practically all social institutions, including the family. This is a secular social institution, which reflects the evolution of society. There is still resistance to “idealizing” the family as the “sphere of care and love”. However, it is known that the traditional family of the 19th century gave way to the nuclear family and that, at the same time, it gives way to families with different backgrounds. Also noteworthy are the transformations that occur in complex and liquid society, as highlighted by authors such as Morin and Bauman. In this sense, these transformations also occur in the social institutions that compose it, among them the family nuclei and other social spaces where different generations are inserted, especially with the increasing presence of elderly people. Therefore, with so many important social issues involved in these relationships (society-family-aging and intergenerationality), these reflections are considered to be extremely relevant.

Drawing Down the Moon: Defining Magic in the Ancient Greco­Roman World

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Perceived Efficacy ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
The Social ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Over Time

This introductory chapter provides a definition of magic. One of the most useful adjustments in the recent scholarship on magic has been the turn to considering magic as a dynamic social construct, instead of some particular reality. Magic is not a thing, but a way of talking. Thus, magic is a discourse pertaining to non-normative ritualized activity, in which the deviation from the norm is most often marked in terms of the perceived efficacy of the act, the familiarity of the performance within the cultural tradition, the ends for which the act is performed, or the social location of the performer. Such a discourse always has a history, since such a way of talking about things shifts over time as different people do the talking. When one speaks of “magic,” therefore, one should always explain: “magic for whom?” Any specific piece of evidence from the ancient Greco-Roman world provides an example of magic for that particular person, from one particular perspective. To speak of “magic in the ancient Greco-Roman world” is thus to refer to the whole range of things that various people in those cultures during those times could label as “magic.” The chapter then considers the act of drawing down the moon.

A Distant Rainbow

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-38
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Western World ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Social Foundations ◽  
The Social ◽  
Caste Status ◽  
Governing Institutions

This introductory chapter traces the origins and resilience of the idea of India as the world’s largest democracy. Democracy was neither a gift of the Western world nor uniquely suited to Indian conditions. India was in fact a laboratory featuring a first-ever experiment in creating national unity, economic growth, religious toleration, and social equality out of a vast and polychromatic reality, a social order whose inherited power relations, rooted in the hereditary Hindu caste status, language hierarchies, and accumulated wealth, were to be transformed by the constitutionally guaranteed counter-power of public debate, multiparty competition, and periodic elections. Efforts to build an Indian democracy are said to have done more than transform the lives of its people. India fundamentally altered the nature of representative democracy itself. India’s democratic credentials, however, face new scrutiny as a result of the executive excesses of a populist demagogue as governing institutions crumble. The chapter argues that India’s democratic decline actually goes back further. It looks at the destructive effects of the long-standing neglect of the social foundations of India’s democracy and considers the possible mutation of democracy into a strange new kind of government called despotism.

scholarly journals Dynamics of Trust in Institutions, the Legitimacy of the Social Order, and Social Open Innovation

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolay I. Didenko ◽  
Gulnara F. Romashkina ◽  
Djamilia F. Skripnuk ◽  
Sergei V. Kulik
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Private Property ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Arctic Region ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Model Calculations ◽  
Trust In Institutions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Arctic Region

This article analyses the dynamics of trust in institutions, which underpin the legitimacy of social order, on the basis of a study of the developed Arctic region during the period 2006–2018. The authors considered the principal theoretical concepts on which the study of trust, the well-being of citizens, the assessment of security and compliance with the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens is to be based. It is assumed that the legitimacy of the social order consists in a state where people not only trust specific institutions, but also enjoy a sense of security from threats and the ability to exercise basic rights and freedoms in the presence of a competent authority to protect them in case of violations. The dynamics of the security of the inhabitants of the region, associated with an increase in the level of their well-being, are considered. The structure for retaining the legitimacy of the social order is demonstrated on the basis of a number of indices and model calculations. Configuration analysis was carried out to support the construction of multidimensional models. It was concluded that there has been a dramatic collapse in the social activity of the inhabitants of the Arctic region bordering on social apathy. It is shown that, during the period under study, trust in local authorities significantly declined, while the importance attributed to respecting private property rights increased. Trust in social institutions is shown to be significantly lower than trust in government institutions, contradicting the situation in developed countries. It is recommended that more attention be paid to the functioning of local and municipal authorities governing the Arctic region, who are much more aware of the needs of the inhabitants since they are connected by much denser social ties. The authors substantiate the need to introduce social innovation that allows to diversify communication channels between the government and the public, meet unsatisfied social needs that are not solved by existing institutions and contribute to building trust between different participants.

Rational-Choice Models of Political Behavior vs. Functionalist and Conformist Theories

1969 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-538 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Harsanyi
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Functional Approach ◽  
Individual Behavior ◽  
The Other ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
Socialization Process ◽  
The Social

After a virtual neglect for several decades, in the last twenty years renewed interest has been shown in a general theory of social behavior. Most of this theoretical work has depended on two main postulates. One is the functionalist (sometimes called structural-functional) approach to the explanation of social institutions, based on the assumption that the social institutions of a given society can best be understood in terms of their social functions, that is, in terms of the contributions they make to the maintenance of social systems as a whole. For lack of an established technical term, we shall call the other postulate the conformist approach to the explanation of individual behavior: it is based on the assumption that uniformities of individual behavior in a given society can best be understood in terms of certain commonly accepted social values, which most members of the society tend to internalize during their socialization process.

scholarly journals Telegraphic Realism: Henry James's In the Cage

PMLA ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 115 (5) ◽  
pp. 975-990 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Menke
Keyword(s):  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Henry James ◽  
Elizabeth Gaskell ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
The Social ◽  
Over Time

In setting his 1898 tale In the Cage in a telegraph office, Henry James was adapting and investigating a metaphor that earlier novelists had used for the workings of fiction. As invoked by writers such as Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens, the idealized image of the electric telegraph hints at some of the formal and ideological properties of Victorian realism. With In the Cage James proves to be more alert than such predecessors not only to the social and technological mechanics of telegraphy but also to the significance of mediation—in telegraphy as well as in realist fiction. Analyzing the conjunction this essay calls “telegraphic realism” indicates the ways in which a medium's imaginative possibilities may change over time and suggests the connections between the histories of media and of literature.

scholarly journals Social complexity as a proximate and ultimate factor in communicative complexity

2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1597) ◽  
pp. 1785-1801 ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd M. Freeberg ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar ◽  
Terry J. Ord
Keyword(s):  
Social Complexity ◽  
Social Systems ◽  
Causal Factor ◽  
Human Language ◽  
The Social ◽  
Alternative Hypotheses ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Complexity Hypothesis ◽  
Complex Social Systems ◽  
Over Time

The ‘social complexity hypothesis’ for communication posits that groups with complex social systems require more complex communicative systems to regulate interactions and relations among group members. Complex social systems, compared with simple social systems, are those in which individuals frequently interact in many different contexts with many different individuals, and often repeatedly interact with many of the same individuals in networks over time. Complex communicative systems, compared with simple communicative systems, are those that contain a large number of structurally and functionally distinct elements or possess a high amount of bits of information. Here, we describe some of the historical arguments that led to the social complexity hypothesis, and review evidence in support of the hypothesis. We discuss social complexity as a driver of communication and possible causal factor in human language origins. Finally, we discuss some of the key current limitations to the social complexity hypothesis—the lack of tests against alternative hypotheses for communicative complexity and evidence corroborating the hypothesis from modalities other than the vocal signalling channel.

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