In this work, the author explains how modern psychology found its language by examining the historically changing structure of psychological discourse; offering an analysis of the recent evolution of the concepts and categories on which the quality of psychological discourse depends; exp loring the process by which basic terms and concepts such as intelligence, motivation, learning, stimulation, behaviour and attitude have taken on their current meaning; and providing an history of the discipline of psychology.
In Ordinary Television, Frances Bonner provides a distinctive angle on a key area of research and teaching across media and cultural studies - the content of television and the relations between television genres and audiences. Hitherto most books on television have focused on drama, or news and current affairs. In other words, they tend to ignore 'ordinary' television - lifestyle programmes and 'reality TV', just the sort of programmes which increasing dominate the schedules. In Ordinary Television, Frances Bonner makes a distinctive argument for regarding these disparate shows as a whole. By examining a substantial range of these programmes, Frances Bonner uncovers their shared characteristics, especially through a consideration of the dominant and disguised discources which pervade them. In addition, the comparative nature of her study enables the author to launch a powerful critique of conventional theories in relation to the globalization of television.
The second edition of this major book on the social analysis of religion incorporates a substantial new introduction by Bryan S Turner. Religion and Social Theory assesses the different theoretical approaches to the social function of religion. Turner discusses at length the ideas of key contributors to these approaches (including Engels, Durkheim, Weber, Nietzsche, Freud, Parsons, Marcuse, Habermas and Foucault). In so doing, he develops a distinctive perspective on the role of religion as an institutional link between economic and human reproduction. Social theories of religion are explored through a resolutely comparative and historical analysis of the Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Relating comparative religion to the social context of individualism, civil religions and political legitimacy, the book makes a major contribution to the analysis of conflict and consensus in social systems.
This refreshing and accessible text demonstrates how social theory can be made into an intelligible discourse that touches upon key aspects of everyday life. The abstraction and formalism of much contemporary social theory is criticized as unnecessarily 'scholastic' for the beginner. David Harris maintains that the main problems in studying the subject are not intrinsic to social theory, but derive from how the subject is taught as a university discipline. Teach Yourself Social Theory uses non-specialist terms to introduce more complex themes, and incorporates a web site with questions and reading guides to some of the classic works.
Most counsellors use the telephone to interact with clients to some degree. The potential client base which can be reached in telephone counselling is significant, and the rapid development in telecommunication technology is having a dramatic impact on the development of counselling provision. This volume explores the skills needed to carry out effective telephone counselling - such as welcoming and establishing a relationship with the client, listening and responding, understanding silences, working with transference and fantasy, and recognizing and reacting to feelings - which are necessarily very often distinct from those involved in face-to-face counselling. The book challenges the view that telephone counselling is a poor relation to face-to-face counselling, arguing that for certain clients it may in fact be the therapeutic medium of choice.
This textbook provides an overview of the main strands, perspectives and debates in current thinking and practice in the area of employee involvement and participation. It adopts a comparative international approach, addressing developments in the UK and mainland Europe, the USA and elsewhere. The authors identify two main strands of evolution: one driven by managerial interests in enhancing and controlling employee commitment and performance; the other deriving from employees' attempts to influence high-level organizational decision-making. In particular, this study examines and analyzes: the background of key concepts, issues and philosophies underpinning these different strands; the range of current employee involvement methods, from the individualistic and management-led to more regulated collective approaches; and the rationales and responses of employees, unions and employers to the various initiatives.
This is the first book to provide a comprehensive account of co-operative inquiry: a way of doing research with people where the roles of researcher and subject are integrated. Co-operative inquiry is a distinctive and wide-ranging form of participative research in which people use the full range of their sensibilities to inquire together into any aspect of the human condition. This book offers both an extensive exploration of its theoretical background and a detailed practical guide to the methods involved. Topics covered include: a critique of established research techniques; the underlying participative paradigm of co-operative inquiry; the epistemological and political aspects of participation; different types of co-operative inquiry and the range of inquiry topics; ways of setting up inquiry groups and enabling their development; four kinds of inquiry outcome and the primacy of the practical; the main stages of the inquiry cycle, highlighting key issues for practice at each stage; and special skills and procedures used for enhancing validity.
What influence does the cinema have on visual culture and social understanding? In what ways are we products of the cinematic gaze? This timely book, written by one of the leading commentators in the sociology of culture, highlights the extent to which the cinema has contributed to the rise of voyeurism throughout society. The cinema not only turns its audience into voyeurs, eagerly following the lives of its screen characters, but repeatedly casts its key players as onlookers, spying on other people's lives. The nature of the cinematic voyeur - the obsessive outsider, the ethnic or sexual Other - is examined in depth, as are its implications for contemporary society. Denzin analyses Hollywood's manipulations of gender, race and class, and, drawing on the work of Foucault argues that the cinematic gaze must be understood as part of the machinery of surveillance and power which regulates social behaviour in the late twentieth century. The effect of the cinema in the social construction of everyday life has rarely been explored with such penetration and clarity. Ranging over a rich and varied array of material from film and film literature, and encompassing a critical interrogation of traditional realist ethnographic and cinematic texts, The Cinematic Society will be essential reading for students of social theory, sociology of culture and film studies. 'Adopting as a central premise the notion that the constitution of subjectivity occurs through the gaze of the Other, and locating the voyeur as the anti-hero of cinematic society, Denzin enters into a brilliant analysis of multiple forms of the voyeur's gaze' Peter McLaren, University of California, Los Angeles
In a reappraisal of public health and health promotion in contemporary societies, Deborah Lupton puts forward that health cannot be understood simply as the presence or absence of disease - rather, it represents a moral imperative that is embedded in social and cultural norms and expressed in public policies. Using sociocultural and political theory, the author analyzes the implications of the new social theories for the study of health promotion and communication. Combining sociological, anthropological, historical and cultural studies approaches, she analyzes the symbolic nature of public health practices and explores their underlying meanings and assumptions. Key topics include: the history and emergence of the public health movement; contemporary health promotion and public health strategies; risk discourse and diagnostic testing; the use of the mass media and advertising in health promotion; bodies, pleasures and the practices of self in response to health promotion. This work seeks to explore the ways in which some of the knowledge and practices of public health and health promotion have been developed and articulated, how they are justified, what ends they seek and their alliances and dependencies. This book should be useful reading for students and academics in the sociology of health and illness, health communication, cultural studies, mass communications, medical anthropology and sociology, nursing and public health.
