Populist Politics, Communications Media and Large Scale Societal Integration

Pg 222 – “Rather, our experience in modern society leads to divergent ways of trying to understand the social world, and to an experiential and intellectual split between lifeworld and system world (or such common sense analogs as ‘the people’ and ‘the system,’ ‘everyday life’ and ‘the big picture,’ etc.).”

~ This is kind of like the way/makes me think of the we split the idea of the overall person, and the identities that comprise them.

Pg 222 – “This view is easier to maintain if we introduce a distinction between directly interpersonal social relation- ships (whether primary or secondary in Cooley’s terms) and the indirect relationships which are formed when social action affects others only through the mediation of complex organizations, impersonal markets or communications technology.”

~ So this is saying we should split the ideas of culture being formed and dissolved through interpersonal relationships and culture being formed/dissolved through outside forces, such as media.

Pg 225 – “Community life can be understood as the life people live in dense, multiplex, relatively autonomous networks of social relationships (Calhoun, 1980, 1986).”

~ So community life is basically a culture.

Pg 225 – Community, thus, is not a place, or simply a small scale population aggregate, but a mode of relating, variable in extent.”

~ In this sense, community is definitely a culture, or a culture is a community.

Pg 225 – “Most understandings of strangers will be based not on ideas of the nature of their relationship to one, but on categorical identifies: they are blacks, whites, rich, poor, Baptists, Jews, etc. These categories may imply certain modes of relating to people, but the abstract category takes precedence. Where no direct relationship is established, the abstract category dominates completely, often as a stereotype. In modem societies, most of the information we have about members of other communities, and in general about people different from ourselves, comes not through any direct relationships, even the casual ones formed constantly in urban streets and shops. Rather, it comes through print and electronic media.” ****

~ I totally agree with the first part. When we start talking of identity we break it down so much that we completely ignore the complex interplay that various identities can have. I think that’s basically what I’m trying to create a theory for…how one identity change can affect others, whether it be an additional identity or a dissolving of identity, or both simultaneously, like on the sliding scale.

Pg 232 – “Here we see one of the features of broadcast media which is more mixed in its implications for democratic politics. While TV (and to a lesser extent radio) knit very large populations into a common informational environment, they do not facilitate the formation of spatially concentrated publics. Spatial concentration is generally a prerequisite for dense, multiplex networks of social relationships-the sorts which most readily form the bases for participatory democratic political movements. TV addresses an audience remarkably removed from any spatial identity:”

~ So, while television can affect identity, it does so through information, not through space. I think that special closeness of humans creates a much more effective way of influencing identity than media, but I’m not sure if research would agree.

Pg 233 – “Television greatly increases our sense of belonging to a particular population-say citizens of the United States-but it does not give us direct or individually recognizable relationships with the members of that population (except for the partly spurious sense of familiarity we may have with politicians, newscasters and soap opera stars). Rather, it relates us diffusely and indirectly to everyone else, and especially to the centralized institutions which determine and produce what goes on the air. Television also gives us a pervasive sense of belonging to a category – Americans – and to a variety of constituent categories-whites, Christians, Republicans, the middle class, etc. But these categories are not constructed out of relation- ships among their members-as are ethnic neighborhoods, churches and political parties.”

~ So, basically, television is another way of breaking us down into categories and separating our identities from each other.

Pg 239 – “Broadcast media have become an essential information environment providing a widespread knowledge of other members of society, but as members of categories rather than through recognizable relationships.”

~ Again, the media breaks us down in groups instead of seeing identity as a whole.

Pg 239 – “Broadcast media define the public arena in contemporary industrial societies, but they do so in a way which minimizes public discourse and renders most citizens relatively passive.”

~ By limiting conversation, does it limit the effectiveness of trying to change identity? Or does it make it more effective because there are no other opinions of identity being offered?

Calhoun, C. (1988). Populist politics, communications media and large scale societal integration. Sociological theory, 6(2). Retrieved November 9, 2008, from JSTOR database.