1. Chapter 1: An Introduction to Sociology in the Global Age

2. © 2017, SAGE Publications, Inc.
Sociology
The systematic study of the ways in which people are affected by, and affect, the social structures and social processes that are associated with the groups, organizations, cultures, societies, and world in which they exist.
Sociology is the scientific study of social behavior and human groups.
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3. Two Lessons from Sociology
What you think and do as an individual is affected by what is happening in groups, organizations, cultures, societies, and the world.
Not only are you affected by larger events, you are also capable to some degree of having an impact on large-scale structures and processes.
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4. The Changing Nature of the World – and Sociology
18th and 19th centuries: Industrial Revolution
Sociologists focused on factories, production, and blue-collar workers.
Mid-20th century: Post-Industrial Age
Sociologists focused on offices, bureaucracies, and white-collar workers.
Present day: The Information Age
Sociologists focus on knowledge, information, and technologies.
Checkpoint 1.1
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5. Central Concerns for a 21st-Century Sociologist: Globalization
No social change today is as important as globalization. Globalization is arguably the most important instigator of social change and affects all aspects of the social world.
Globalization is a central issue in sociology as well as the social world.
Globalization is defined by increasingly fluid global flows and the structures that expedite and impede these flows.
Figure 1.1 and Figure 1.2
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6. Central Concerns for a 21st-Century Sociologist: Globalization
Positives
Greater access to goods, services, and information throughout the world
Negatives
Undesirable things (diseases, illegal drugs, and social movements) flow more easily around the world.
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7. Central Concerns for a 21st-Century Sociologist: Globalization
Society, a complex pattern of social relationships that is bounded in space and persists over time, has traditionally been the largest unit of analysis in sociology.
Transnational structures are becoming more important than individual societies.
Social processes, like social structures, exist not only at the societal level but also at the global level.
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8. Central Concerns for a 21st-Century Sociologist: Consumption
The process by which people obtain and utilize goods and services.
As consumption increased so did the proliferation of credit cards and, predictably, credit card debt.
Consumption and globalization are deeply intertwined.
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9. The McDonaldization of Society
The process by which the rational principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society and more societies throughout the world.
McDonaldization leads to the creation of rational systems that have four defining characteristics
Efficiency
Calculability
Predictability
Control
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10. Critiquing Consumption
Consumption sites.
How consumers use shopping malls and e-tailers in ways that were not anticipated by their designers.
The Great Recession and its ongoing aftermath.
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11. Central Concerns for a 21st-Century Sociologist: The Digital World
Sociologists have always been interested in the social aspects of technology.
Technology: the interplay of machines, tools, skills, and procedures for the accomplishment of tasks.
Figure 1.4
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12. Central Concerns for a 21st-Century Sociologist: The Digital World
Sociologists have tracked the evolution of technology, from assembly lines to automated factories to the digital world (computers, cell phones, and the Internet).
Mediated interaction.
Social networking and multitasking.
Internet and consumption.
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13. Globalization, Consumption, the Digital World, and You
College students have fellow students and professors from other parts of the world.
You shop on the Internet.
An increasing portion of your education is obtained through the Internet.
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14. Sociology: Continuity and Change
The sociological imagination says that sociologists have a distinctive way of looking at the world.
C. Wright Mills (1959) argued that sociologists have a unique perspective.
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15. The Sociological Imagination
C. Wright Mills (1916–1962) described this type of creative thinking as the ability to view one’s own society as an outsider.
It demonstrates the connection between history and biography, connects personal experiences – “troubles” – to larger social patterns – “social issues.”
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16. The Sociological Imagination
The sociological imagination allows us to look beyond a limited understanding of things and people in the world and allows for a broader vision of society.
Private troubles and public issues
Increasing levels of consumption and debt (private trouble) morphed into a near collapse of the global economy (public issue).
Will fleeting electronic social relationships (via Facebook and Twitter) lead all types of social relationships in the future?
Figure 1.4
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17. The Sociological Imagination: The Micro/Macro Relationship
Micro – small scale
Individual thoughts and actions and small group interactions.
Macro – large scale
Groups, organizations, cultures, society, and the world, as well as the interactions between these large structures.
The micro-macro continuum
Runs from the most microscopic to the most macroscopic of social realities.
phenomena are roughly at the midpoint of this continuum best thought of as meso realities.
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18. The Sociological Imagination: The Micro/Macro Relationship
Karl Marx (1818–1883) was interested in what workers thought and did (micro-scale phenomena) and the capitalist economic system (macro-scale phenomena).
Randall Collins (2009) has sought to develop a theory of violence that deals with individuals skilled in violent interactions (micro-scale phenomena) and material resources used by violent organizations (macro-scale phenomena).
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19. The Sociological Imagination: The Agency–Structure Relationship
Agency is the micro level; structure is the macro level. The agency–structure relationship has its roots in the European sociological perspective.
Agency gives priority to the agent having power and a capacity for creativity.
Agents both create and are constrained by social and cultural structures.
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20. The Agency–Structure Relationship
Structures are autonomous and able to sustain themselves over a long period of time without disruptions from individuals.
They are long-term often society-wide patterns of relationships, norms, values, and other social phenomena that include the family, education, media, the state, and the economy.
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21. The Social Construction of Reality
This approach argues that agents (people at the micro level) create social reality which takes on a life of its own and becomes a structure (macro level) within which those who create the structure exist.
It is a process of human creation that becomes invisible and relatively unquestioned the deeper it is embedded in peoples’ social practices.
For example, designers (agents) create the world of fashion.
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22. © 2017, SAGE Publications, Inc.
Structure and Process
Social structures are enduring and regular social arrangements such as the family or the state, or even shopping malls.
These change very slowly.
Social processes are aspects of the social world such as shopping and childrearing practices.
These change rapidly.
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23. Sociology’s Purpose: Science or Social Reform?
The scientific view states that examining the relationship between structure and process should be a purely scientific endeavor.
The social reform view states that as these relationships are discovered, this knowledge should be used to solve social problems.
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24. Sociology and Other Social Sciences and Common Sense
Sociology, with its emphasis on studying various aspects of the social world, is one of the social sciences.
Sociology, generally speaking, is the broadest of these fields.
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25. The Other Sciences and Globalization
Anthropology: studies cultural aspects of societies around the world.
Communications: studies mediated and nonmediated communication across the globe.
Economics: examines production, distribution, and consumption of resources through markets across the globe.
Figure 1.6
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26. The Other Sciences and Globalization
Geography: mapping of spatial relationships on a global scale.
Political science: nation-states.
Psychology: ways in which individual identities are shaped by awareness of the rest of the world.
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27. Sociology and Common Sense
Common sense includes perceptions that are widely held.
Sociology is the systematic study of the social world in both its minutest detail and its broadest manifestations.
Example:
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