Category Archives: social theory
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….
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Media Naturalness Theory 2
Kock, Ned. “The Ape That Used Email: Understanding E-Communication Behavior through Evolution Theory.” Communications of AIS 5 3 (2001): 29. In September 2009, I published posts on media richness theory and media synchronicity theory. (Be sure to check out this week’s posts continuing the discussion on each of those, as well.) Additionally, I discussed media…
Social Information Processing Theory
SIPT explicitly assumes that individuals are motivated to form impressions and develop relationships of some kind, no matter what medium they are using (394). Walther, Joseph B., Leslie A. Baxter, and Dawn O. Braithewaite. “Social Information Processing Theory.” Engaging Theories in Interpersonal Communication: Multiple Perspectives. Eds. Baxter, Leslie A. and Dawn O. Braithewaite. Thousand Oaks,…
Effects of Medium of Communication on Experimental Negotiation
Short, J. A. Effects of Medium of Communication on Experimental Negotiation. Human Relations. 27 3 (1974): 225-34 This 1974 article details a study that John Short conducted to determine the effects of communication medium on experimental negotiation. While it was written over 35 years ago, it is foundational to social presence theory that Short later…
Presence of the Word – Word as Sound
[C]ultures which do not reduce words to space but know them only as oral-aural phenomena, in actuality or in the imagination, naturally regard words as more powerful than do literate cultures” (112). Ong, Walter J. The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History. The Terry Lectures. New Haven: Yale University Press,…