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Chapter 1: Overview

• Sociology studies social life, social change, and the causes and consequences of human behavior.
• Sociology applies to group dynamics, social institutions, structures, and society.
• Norms are societal expectations for how people should act, think, and look.
• Normative behavior includes behaviors and appearances that align with societal norms.
• There are differences in behavior regarding respect and seniority between Canada and Japan.
• Micro level involves individual choices and experiences.
• Macro level involves broader societal choices that individuals may adhere to, even if they disagree.
• Agency is people's capacity to make choices that impact others.
• Empirical methods collect data using systematic procedures.

The 3 Approaches to Theory

• Positivist approach focuses on objective explanation and prediction.
  • It explains factors that contribute to hate crime and develop effective preventions.
• Interpretive approach focuses on how people understand themselves, others, and the world.
• Critical approach explores the role of power in social processes and how knowledge ties to emancipation.

5 Main Theories Tied with the Approaches

• Functionalist Perspective is a positivist approach at the macro level.
  • It focuses on societal structures/institutions like education, government, economy, and family.
  • Manifest functions are the intended purposes of an institution.
  • Latent functions are the unintended purposes of an institution.
  • Dysfunction occurs when a structure fails to serve its function.
  • Anomie is a feeling of normlessness.
• Conflict Perspective is a critical approach at the macro level.
  • It emphasizes power and emancipation through 'groups' and 'classes' and scarce resource competition.
  • The perspective originates from Karl Marx.
  • The bourgeoisie owns the means of production.
  • The proletariat works for the owners of production.
  • Praxis is the responsibility of scholars to provide subordinated groups with the knowledge to end their powerlessness.
• Interactionist Perspective operates at the micro level and uses an interpretive approach.
  • Communication between people, how they interact, and how they interact with society are the focus.
  • It emphasizes how people interpret 'communication' personally.
  • Symbols include words, facial expressions, and gestures.
  • Social interaction shapes society.
• Feminism operates at the macro and micro levels.
  • It focuses on the idea that women are equal to men.
  • The first wave of feminism started in 1792, publishing a book about the rights of women.
  • This wave focused on women getting the right to vote in the early 1900s but was exclusionary by race and regarded women as property.
  • The second wave occurred around the mid-1900s, questioning how women are perceived and the roots of inequality, including boyhood autonomy.
  • The third wave occurred in the 90s, gaining more rights and power for 'minority' groups and further autonomy.
  • The fourth-wave focuses on technology's impact on feminism, the 'pick me' movement, criticism of white feminism, and trans rights.
  • Androcentric refers to being male-centered and failing to account for women's experiences.
  • Patriarchy is legal and/or social power vested in males.
• Postmodern Perspective operates at the macro level.
  • Focuses on how lives changed post-World War 2.
  • Discourses are ways of understanding a particular subject or social phenomenon.

Shortened Version of the 5 Main Perspectives

• Functionalist views society as structures and institutions that keep it running smoothly (Structures, macro level).

• Conflict Perspective describes society as conflict over scarce resources and inequality among 'people' (Conflict, macro level).

• Interactionist Perspective depicts individuals engaged in meaningful communication (Communication, micro level).

• Feminist Framework assumes society is structured on gender (Gender, micro/macro level).

• Postmodern Framework applies when none other fits and centers the the nature of social change after WW2.

• Lower order thinking involves memory, recall, and paraphrasing.

• Critical or higher-order thinking extrapolates information from elsewhere and then applies it.

• "Strange in the familiar" examines how society shapes choices, rather than assuming actions stem solely from personal decisions.

• "General in the particular" refers to broader social patterns reflected in a person's actions.

• Life chances are opportunities based on race, gender, ethnicity, and inequality.

• Sociological imagination connects individual experiences with larger social forces.

• Data collection, verifiable findings, and systematic procedures are empirical methods

• The significant other is an individual who influences socialization through the knowledge and skills acquired for everyday life.

• Generalized other is an overall sense of people's expectations.

Chapter 2: Sociological Research Method

• Deductive reasoning starts with theories and solidifies the theories with research findings (Top Down).
• Inductive reasoning starts with research findings and forms the theories (Bottom Up).
• Participatory Action Research is a field method that involves stakeholders as co-researchers.
• Operationalization defines variables in a measurable manner.
• Reliability refers to the consistency of a measure.
• Validity measures accuracy in representing the objective.
• Debriefing discloses information participants in research are not allowed to know.

The 5 Research Methods

• Experiments use Quantitative research method.
• Surveys use Quantitative and Qualitative research method.
• Interviews use Qualitative research method.
• Ethnography Qualitative involves a person immersing themselves in a 'different' culture undercover to get better understanding.
• Systemic and Participant Observation involves immersion in a 'different' culture as a known bystander.
• Exploratory research explores a new area of interest with little existing knowledge.
• Descriptive research describes features of a group, event, activity, or situation.
• Explanatory research clarifies aspects of a particular phenomenon.
• Evaluation research assesses a social program's need or effectiveness.
• Empowerment research identifies key issues and involves stakeholders to improve social settings.
• Reliability ensures consistency in the measure for a variable of interest.
• Validity ensures a measure that is a good indicator of the intended concepr.
• Hypothesis is a testable research statement.
• Research Design is a detailed outline of all proposed components in the study
• Grounded theory uses a systematic approach to specific observations to form conclusions about discourses, practices, actions, and interactions.
• Rigour trustworthiness a qualitative research process and the data collected.
• Triangulation uses multiple data-gathering techniques within the same study.
• Secondary Analysis examines existing data collected or created by someone else.
• Content Analysis systematically examines messages in text or images.
• Ethnology describes everyday behavior in natural settings through fieldwork.
• Discourse Analysis critically examines language use to convey social constructions and relations.
• Historical Analysis involves the examination and interpretation of historical data.
• Convergent Design employs qualitative and quantitative methods simultaneously to compare perspectives.

Chapter 3: Canadian Culture

• Material culture includes tangible items with cultural meaning.
• Non-material culture includes intangible things with cultural meanings and artifacts' use.
• Culture shock is confusion from unfamiliar material and non-material cultures.
• Cultural diffusion is the mixing of cultures together, like a melting pot.
• Mother tongue is the first language learned.
• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis says that language shapes reality.s
• Prescriptive norms are things you should do.
• Proscriptive norms are things you should not do.
• Folkways are informal, minorly insignificant norms, like jaywalking in Japan.
• Mores are usually expressed in laws, majorly insignificant, like theft of a bank or drunk driving.
• Taboo is wrong in itself, like eating people or incest.
• Emblems are gestures with direct verbal equivalents.
• High culture includes shared activities among the social elite.
• Popular culture includes shared activities among the 'common folk'.
• Ideal culture includes values shared in a given area.
• Real culture includes actual practices engaged in by people in a given area.
• Cultural relativism appreciates another culture.
• Durkheim: Norms and values are internalized by people in society and create a collective conscience.
• Parsons: Norms and values work together to keep society running smoothly.
• Cultural universals are practices shared among all cultures.
• Social facts are observable social phenomena external to individuals.

Chapter 4: Socialization, The Self and Social Identity

• Auxiliary traits are assumed characteristics
  • Patience is a characteristic with parenthood.
• Self-concept is an individual's sense of self.
• Socialization forms people's understanding of themselves and roles in society.
• Social identity stems from social group memberships and how people perceive you.
• Personal identity stems from self-perception.
• Biological determinism theorizes that genetics control human behavior.
• Sociobiology theorizes that social behavior comes from a need to reproduce and survive.
• Behaviorism claims all behavior is learned from the environment.
• Looking Glass Self develops our sense of self from others' perceptions.
• Recidivism is committing more crimes after being convicted of one.
• Agents of socialization are groups, institutions, or social settings that greatly influence one's development.
• Interpersonal trust refers to the perception that another person can be relied on and has your best interests at heart.
• Social comparison refers to how individuals evaluate themselves in relation to other people's appearances and behvaiours.
• Social structure is a framework of cultural elements and social patterns.
• Status exists independently of any individual that occupies it.
• Role is the behavior component of a given status.
• Anticipatory socialization prepares individuals to act according to the status before taking it on.
• Status Set is the sum of all statuses.
• Ascribed status is conferred a birth.
• Achieved status is gained through personal actions.
• Master status is most influential
• Social facilitation causes people to improve in simple tasks, and worsen in complex tasks.
• Groupthink is favouring the consensus over decision making, which leads to negative outcomes.

Chapter 6: Mass Media

• The common thread in media is few new ideas, just redesigned one.
• The seven traditional forms of mass media
  • Movies, books, newspapers and magazines, cinema, recordings, radio, and television.
• New media forms include
  • YouTube, cell phones, and apps.
• Newer forms of mass media improve access to traditional media, and they introduce social media.
• Canadian media scholar Marshall McLuhan, in the 70's, has the theory, “The medium is the message"
• The medium means the form and the means of consumption
• A music video without music will cause the ‘message' to be distorted
• Portraying a certain group a certain way represents them as that.
• Representations may not based on race be may be represented as a weight class

Functionalist, Political & Economic Purposes

• Explain how media contributes to society.
• Making money, cognitive functions, learning social integrative functions, and tension reducing functions.
• Concentration and conglomeration in media ownership.
• Media supports consumerism.
• Looks at how media controls consumers.
• Media owners have the power to manipulate the consumer.
• Consumers and producers make the Interctionist Perspective.

Relates to Perspective;

• Agency: Who is at fault shifting the blame with specifically looks at on or two words.
• Who the media portrays is at fault to a situation.
• Identification: How the central people are in a news story humanizing or dehumanizing them.
• Either you identify or not.
• Categorization: The framework for the event labelled, sadness box, and the anger box.
• Varies each personal perspective.
• Generalization: The extent to which the media story is generalized to a larger system.

Feminist & Postmodern Perspective

• Gender between feminist and conflict perspective.
• How media stereotype genders.
• Stterotypes of women aare:
  • Victims, consumers, and sexual objects.
• Stereotypes of men are:
  • Jocks, jokers, action heroes, and buffoons.
• How our lives change with each new media form.
• New perspectives of media change.
• Biases that exists within media.

Media Literacy

• Critical thinking when it comes to media.
• Media are constructions conscious and unconscious decisions are people who made the video.
• Negotiate audience meaning vary.
• Although creator meant one way, audience may interpret it differently.
• Social, political and commercial implications are in the media,
• Can convey a political bias depending on its focus and intended messaging.

Guests & Other Notes

• Each medium has a unique aesthetic form with the medium as the message and content depending on medium.
• Semiotics studies images and signs that convey meaning.
  • A stop sign conveys meaning without the words, just the colour and shape
• Intertextuality is one text mentioning another.
• Fandoms support a certain form of media.
• Cultural currency understands cultural references.