CMNS1234 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Pierre Bourdieu, Social Capital, Cultural Capital
28 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
1
The Influence of French and British Sociology on Communication Studies
Karl Bruhn Jensen wrote there is an “interdependence between communication and
action”(2010, p. 11). He asserted that “in the end, communication has consequences for
human agency and social practice” (ibid).
Sociology
• “Sociology focuses on the organisation of social life”
• looks at the impact that people have on society through taking action and creating
change.
Central Problems in Social Theory
• Anthony Giddens wrote Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and
Contradiction in Social Analysis (1979).
• a social system is “simply a pattern of relations that exists over a period of time and
space”
• institutions can be seen as a set of patterns of social relationships and social
practices, or structures, “that display some continuity over time, but which may also
change as time passes”
• people have a basic need for ontological security, that is, in order to operate they
must trust that their world is to some degree predictable and reliable.
• the social and cultural contexts of communication can be changed
• Giddens contends that “the structural properties of social systems are both the
medium and the outcomes of the practices that constitute those systems” (Giddens
1979, p. 69). That is “it is you, I and every other individual that create structures”
(ibid).
• It is the rules and resources that is the specific structures, that allow us to identify
that institutional system.
• Rules can be reproduced or changed by new patterns of interaction
• They constitute structures of behaviour.
• Resources, according to Giddens, have two forms. These he termed allocative and
authoritative resources.
• Authoritative resources involve the ability to get others to carry out a person's wishes,
and in this way humans become a resource that other individuals may be able to
use”
• all individual actions are therefore not equivalent. Some individuals will “wield more
influence and decision-making power than others”
• “Allocative resources include raw materials, land, technology, instruments of
production and goods.
• they only become resources through human actions.
Agency and Structure
• Human agents, all 7 billion of them, are inescapably implicated in a set of structures
that both limit and enable their existence.
• Agency is the ability of a subject to make choice and act on that choice.
• Structures are those things or objects thought to determine behaviours and Actions.
• “Structure is not to be equated with constraint but is always both constraining and
enabling” (Giddens 1984, p 25).
Anthony Giddens and Agency and Structure
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The influence of french and british sociology on communication studies. Karl bruhn jensen wrote there is an interdependence between communication and action (2010, p. 11). He asserted that in the end, communication has consequences for human agency and social practice (ibid). Sociology focuses on the organisation of social life looks at the impact that people have on society through taking action and creating change. Central problems in social theory: anthony giddens wrote central problems in social theory: action, structure and. That is it is you, i and every other individual that create structures (ibid). Some individuals will wield more influence and decision-making power than others . Allocative resources include raw materials, land, technology, instruments of production and goods. they only become resources through human actions. Structure is not to be equated with constraint but is always both constraining and enabling (giddens 1984, p 25). 1: neither structure nor action can exist independently; both are intimately related.
