Notes for Tuesday January 26, 2010

Today we discussed the idea of the state. There are three characteristics that are necessary in the formation of the state.
1. Organization of political processes within a society.
2. Provide direction and regulation of social life.
3. Monopoly over the use of coercion and force.
This monopoly on force is the most important aspect of the state.

Notes for January 25, 2009

Today in class we discussed conflict theory. At the core of this is the idea of the 3 basic assumptions presented in class.

1. Society consists of groups
2. The groups have competing interests.
3. These groups have different types and amounts of resources

When groups both desire some resource, the group can use the resources they currently possess to aid in acquiring more resources. Subsequently, the more resources available to the group when pursuing some interest increases the likelihood of acquiring more resources.

Clip of the Day Suggestions!

You know the drill at this point.

Please provide links to possibilities for the Clips of the Day for this week. As soon as we have enough suggestions, I will create another post with 5 possibilities, and a new poll.

If you have suggested a video before (either after the 5 video choices were selected or the video simply wasn't selected that time), feel free to post it again.

TouchGraph Questions

Use the comments of this thread to suggest questions for writing assignment related to touchgraph.

Friendship networks on Facebook can reveal how our social relationships have been structured. There are many potentially interesting things that we can observe about those networks. Lets consider the number of clusters that we find. Clusters identified by the application are the sets of colored nodes that tend to have more connections to each other than to other nodes in the graph. Where do these clusters come from? Often they appear because we have been involved in organizations that build overlapping ties within the group but fewer ties outside of it.

Given all the ideas raised in class and in the books, what sorts of questions should we ask about what is happening in these networks? Differences between different peoples graphs or even in your own graph at different times might raise interesting issues.

Shirky, Chapter 3

Today, the class discussed their individual networks by looking at Facebook representations of networks with one another. The creation of their network came from Touchgraph Photos, an application for Facebook discussed in a previous post.

The Shirky chapter for this week covers the effect of social events on society. For example: Shirky notes that the creation of the printing press created a social event that affected the lives of all people. The Printing Press removed the importance of the scribe and created a society of amateur readers and writers. The profession of the scribe and reading and writing became unnecessary. The same is true of this current era. Online media and tools have created an event that had an effect on all of society. Journalists are becoming obsolete as blogging becomes more and more prevalent. News is no longer defined and owned by corporations and their representative journalists.

Of course, there are many more examples of the spread of "amateur" use of things that once were professionalized. Used car salesman and pawnshops are becoming less important as well with the increased use of online selling sites like eBay and Craig's List. What are some other ways that Shirky's social events can be seen taking place online? Or, how online society is affecting offline society?

Notes for Thursday, January 21, 2010

Today in class we talked about groups and why we join them, why we leave them, and why we choose to stay. However, an individual's joining behavior is also shaped by their pre-existing relationships with group members. Individual's are more likely to join group and remain active in the group if they already have relationships with other members in the group.

We also discussed the commitment on has to a group depends on their commitment to identity. Strong ties make identity important. An example would be the members associated with Freedom Summer.


Assignment



If you won't be here tomorrow, e-mail it to me, Eric - elockmer@gmail.com

Notes for Tuesday January 19, 2010

A population is a set of units defined by time, space, and membership. We measure populations for three reasons: to generate new questions, to answer existing questions, and to address social policy.

Sociologists conduct research by studying samples of a population. A sample is a selection of a subset of units from a population.

A sample is selected via a sampling frame. There are many different strategies for collecting samples including: arbitrary, convenience, self selected, random sample, and stratified random sample.