Monthly Archives: November 2010

Direct Social Observation

Schutz, Alfred. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. An aspect of Schutz’ discussion of face-to-face (FtF) communication and the structure of the social world that is highly relevant to the online video conversation (OVC) is that of the direct social observation….

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Immediacy and the We-Relationship

Schutz, Alfred. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. Continuing the discussion of We-relationships from the last post, Schutz states that We-relationships can have many differences based on the way in which a participant is experienced by the other participant(s), such as…

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The We-Relationship

Schutz, Alfred. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. The We-relationship occurs when two participants are aware of each other and interact for whatever brief a period of time. If I am standing next to you at a concert, for example, I…

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The Face-to-Face Situation and the Thou-Orientation

Schutz, Alfred. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Northwestern University Studies in Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy. Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press. The Face-to-Face Situation and the Thou-Orientation In this section, Schutz breaks down what really defines and constitutes the Face-to-Face (FtF) interaction as well as the thou-orientation and the we-relationship. This 1967 text could…

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The Social Phenomenology of Alfred Schutz

Turner, Bryan S., ed. The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Second ed. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. Vaitkus, S. (2000). Phenomenology and Sociology. In Bryan S. Turner (Ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Second ed. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. In Chapter 3 of this text, Ira Cohen discusses theories of action and praxis and…

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Phenomenology and Sociology

Vaitkus, S. (2000). Phenomenology and Sociology. In Bryan S. Turner (Ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. Second ed. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers. In this chapter from the larger text on social theory, Vaitkus discusses phenomenology in general and specifically, the sociological approach. He details phenomenology as originating with Edmund Husserl and explains the difficulty…

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Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design

Creswell, John W. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design : Choosing among Five Traditions. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1998. For my dissertation study, I chose to use a qualitative method (or series of methods), due to its multi-method focus, interpretive approach, and purpose. Qualitative studies analyze and interpret observations to discover meanings and patterns of…

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