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An Invitation to Social Research
A succinct and engaging introduction to social research, this book outlines how to study social and cultural phenomena, explains the difference between qualitative and quantitative analysis, and examines the relationship between social research and society. By comparing the work of the academic researcher to that of the detective in terms of how they gather clues, weigh up the facts and present them as evidence, this book takes the mystery out of social science research. By contextualizing the historical and intellectual development of the `sociological imagination', the book enables students to integrate their knowledge of social theory, social history and social structure into a coherent conception of contemporary social
Researching Culture
Introducing a range of approaches and methodological tools for undertaking research, this textbook argues that cultural studies transcend the traditional divisions between qualitative and quantitative method, and between the social sciences and the humanities.
The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods
The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods is a must for every social-science researcher. It charts the new and evolving terrain of social research methodology, covering qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods in one volume. The Handbook includes chapters on each phase of the research process: research design, methods of data collection, and the processes of analyzing and interpreting data. The volume maintains that there is much more to research than learning skills and techniques; methodology involves the fit between theory, research questions research design and analysis. The book also includes several chapters that describe historical and current directions in social research, debating crucial subjects such as qualitative versus quantitative paradigms, how to judge the credibility of types of research, and the increasingly topical issue of research ethics. The Handbook serves as an invaluable resource for approaching research with an open mind. This volume maps the field of social research methods using an approach that will prove valuable for both students and researchers.
National Policy-Making
Notions of social change are often divided into local versus international. But what actually happens at the national level—where policies are ultimately made and implemented—when policy-making is interdependent worldwide? How do policy-makers take into account the prior choices of other countries? Far more research is needed on the process of interdependent decision-making in the world polity. National Policy-Making: domestication of global trends offers a unique set of hybrid cases that straddle these disciplinary and conceptual divides. The volume brings together well-researched case studies of policy-making from across the world that speak to practical issues but also challenge curre...
Rethinking the Media Audience
Pertti Alasuutari provides a state-of-the-art summary of the field of audience research. With contributions from Ann Gray, Joke Hermes, John Tulloch and David Morley, a case is presented for a new agenda to account for the role of the media in everyday life.
Social Theory and Human Reality
′This is a smart and compelling book. Difficult ideas are presented in an accessible manner, with plenty of supporting illustrations...Students will enjoy the research material and other supporting material. A definite winner!′- Professor Jay Gubrium, University of Missouri This book gets to the heart of what the social sciences really know about the elusive and contradictory object of research: human reality. Drawing on a wide range of international examples and scenarios, Social Theory and Human Reality examines key sociological concepts that we use to understand human behaviour such as: norms, rules and meanings; language and discourse; ritual; and personality and identity constructio...
Epistemic Governance
This book argues that modern governance is performed by actors who seek social change epistemically, by drawing on widespread, public views of reality. Agents of change such as parliamentarians or social movement activists will assess and affect what they believe to be people’s conceptions of what is possible, rational, and desirable. This often means that these key authority figures will invest in credible knowledge production, as well as appeal to individual and group identifications, emotions, and values. Alasuutari and Qadir show how this epistemic governance works in three important arenas of social change: parliaments, which debate laws that constitute the bulk of reforms; international organizations that circulate global norms; and social movements and NGOs. Through their analysis, the authors’ detailed, innovative methodology for discourse analysis indicates the utility of epistemic governance as a new paradigm for research into global social change. This book will be of use to students in upper level degree programs who want to design empirical research into social change as well as researchers in sociology, political science and public policy.
Desire and Craving
This book is an ethnographic analysis of alcoholism, focusing on the importance of cultural explanations of heavy drinking in modern society. As a starting point, Alasuutari uses a cognitive concept of frames in order to study the social and cultural boundedness of alcohol related problems. The ethnographic narratives concentrate on specific cases, but stress the theoretical level of analysis, and reveal the ways in which the alcoholism frame is linked with Western culture and society. Alasuutari also provides an analysis of the role of the temperance movement and ideology in Finland, and the rise of the distinction between normal and pathological drinking.
Cultural Studies and Cultural Industries in Northeast Asia
These timely essays highlight regional cross-fertilization in music, film, new media, and popular culture in Northeast Asia, including analysis of gender and labor issues amid differing regulatory frameworks and public policy concerning cultural production and piracy.
Conversation Analysis and Sociological Theory
The relations between Conversation Analysis (CA), sociology, and social theory are complex, often ambiguous, and have sometimes been rather fraught. While there might be some relatively high level of agreement amongst their practitioners on what CA is, what it does, and what it is meant to achieve, that is not so much the case for the more open and broad terrains of sociology and social theory. Moreover, each of the domains in question has changed in orientation, composition, and academic location since CA first came into existence in the late 1960s. While initially a child of sociology, as CA has matured and extended its substantive and methodological reach, it has become a large intellectual domain in its own right, with inputs from, and relevance for, a host of other disciplines, notably linguistics, anthropology, and psychology. It is now no longer at all clear how CA relates to sociology and social theory, what each side currently does, or what it could bring to the other in the future.
