Social Change

capitalism

Owners of production rule society.

reformative

Reform some aspect of society.

Explanation for Social Change

Sociologists focus on different forces to explain how the changes of modernization and the Industrial Revolution drove global social changes and how they altered daily community life. Two historic theorists to address these issues are Karl Marx and Max Weber.

How Technology Changes Society

Technology refers to both the tools needed to accomplish specific tasks and the skills or procedures needed to make those tools. Technology is an artificial way of extending human abilities. It is the chief characteristic of postindustrial societies. The technologies of information, communication, and travel create new possibilities. For example, computer technology: Shrinks the world by decreasing time and distance between sources of information, evidenced by Web searches and text messaging Improves medical care by allowing distant providers to quickly share diagnostic and treatment information through video conferencing Causes changes to education by allowing distance education and Internet research Causes changes to the workplace by allowing improved data storage and retrieval and supporting work-at-home options Some of the negative effects of technology include increased surveillance of citizens, nonsecure electronic information, reduced privacy, and depersonalization.

Propoganda

The tactics of social movements focus on the effects in the mass media. Propaganda is key to understanding social movements because propaganda influences people. And the mass media is the gatekeeper of propaganda.

cyclical

Theory that explains that civilizations are like organisms.

3 Processes of Social Change

Three Processes of Social Change William F. Ogburn proposed a view of social change that is based on technology. According to this theory, technology is the driving source of change in society. He acknowledged that cultural change would vary according to the standards already in place at the time new inventions or discoveries arrived. Each society may have a different response and adaptation to technology. Inventions: By combining existing elements and materials to form new ones, inventions are made. These include social and material things, so new ideas and understandings fit in this category along with technological inventions. Gender equality, capitalism, and democracy are examples of idea inventions. Discovery: By seeing reality in a new way, discoveries are made. Discoveries have far-reaching effects only if they occur at the right time, when a society is ready to acknowledge and put the new information to use. For example, the Vikings were on the North American continent hundreds of years before Columbus ever sailed. But the culture at the time had no use for another landmass, and the discovery was not significant. Diffusion: Diffusion is the spread of an invention, discovery, or idea from one area to another. Diffusion requires cultural contact and intercommunication and can have enormous effects on people and their communities.

transformative

Transform the social order itself.

Transformative social movements

Transformative social movements attempt to change the whole social order, such as recent political revolutions in Cuba, Russia, and China.

Globalization

Transportation and communication advances have increased the speed and efficiency with which ideas, discoveries, and inventions are dispersed across cultures throughout the world. This is the crux of what is called globalization. Increasing the speed of intercultural idea sharing results in the impetus for social change and a mix of positive and negative outcomes. We tend to think of globalization as a recent concept, but, in fact, what we might call a world system of cultural interchange began to emerge in the sixteenth century when transportation technologies were strong enough to allow worldwide exploration. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, capitalism and industrialization bonded nations through financial and manufacturing interdependencies. :::::The dependency theory posits that nations not industrialized become dependent on industrialized nations and become unable to develop their own resources. Industrial giants decide how they will share among the world's markets. These same industrial leaders regulate the global economic and industrial policies. Technology is the driving force behind increasing industrialization.

Conflicting Social movements

Two conflicting social movements are the National Organization of Women (NOW) and Stop-ERA. NOW promoted social change, attempting to pass a constitutional amendment guaranteeing women equal rights. The Stop-ERA group resisted that change, eventually preventing the passage of that amendment, leaving women's rights unprotected at the federal level. . A modern example is the Tea Party, whose participants were upset about taxes and a leftward shift in U.S. politics. Another large-scale modern movement is the "We're the 99%" campers who took over parks and public areas in major American cities to protest, among other things, the coporatization of the United States.

Gesellschaft

people have fleeting impersonal relationships

unilinear

All societies follow the same path

Partial Change

Alterative Reformative Transnational

Alterative social movements

Alterative social movements attempt to alter certain aspects of indivuals, such as the Woman's Christian Temperence Union, which attempted to stop people from drinking alcohol.

Stages of Social Movements

Although there are notable exceptions, social movements seldom actually solve problems because the problems they tackle are just too broad. Social movements go through five stages:

Summary

Any social movement —from alterative to transformative —is today somehow affected by technology advancements in global communication. A young man's small, tragic protest in Tunisia in December 2010 spurred a regional firestorm so quickly because powerful images were instantly spread around the world. Social revolution could definitely have sprung up eventually through slower means of communication, but sociologists are interested in what our faster tools will mean to the pace of overall social unrest and change.

Karl Marx

Capitalism is the reason for the breakup of agricultural societies. The creation of surplus wealth allowed the evolution of social classes, divided into owners (bourgeoisie) and workers (proletariats). Those who own the means of production dictate the conditions under which workers work and live.

modernization

Changes due to the Industrial Revolution.

Cultural Lag

Cultural lag occurs when elements of a culture lag behind discoveries and progress made in technology. Segments of society are often behind others in understanding and integrating new inventions and discoveries.

gemeinschaft

Daily life centers on intimate and personal relationships

Environmental Degradation

Environmental degradation is a problem among the least industrialized nations of the world who rush into global competition without resources for pollution control. Sometimes the temptation of improvement in status and financial standing is impossible to resist.

Environmental Sociology

Environmental sociology is a specialty area that examines the relationship between human societies and their environment. Environmental sociology proposes the following: The physical environment is important in sociological investigation. Humans are only one of many species that depend on the environment. Human actions have many unintended consequences, many of which alter nature in some way. There are physical limits to economic growth; our world is finite. Economic expansion always requires more resources from the environment. Extracting resources inevitably creates ecological problems. Ecological problems restrict economic expansion. The state creates environmental problems by encouraging profit. The critical issue is how to achieve harmony between increasing needs for resources and technology and the natural environment. The goal of environmental sociology is not to stop pollution or other environmental damage, but to study how humans affect the physical environment and how the physical environment affects human activities.

Evolutionary Theories of Social Change

Evolutionary theories focus on cultural evolution. This cluster of theories propose that societies change in two ways: Unilinear: These theories state that all societies follow the same general path when changing, evolving from simple to complex through uniform sequences. Multilinear: These theories state that different routes lead to a similar stage of development. For example, eventually all societies achieve an industrial society, but each may reach it from a different developmental pathway. Both evolutionary theory groups assume that societies progress from a primitive, tribal culture toward a higher state (presumably quite like Western culture) through cultural progress. Cultural studies have not supported this idea of progressive evolution, so these theories have been essentially rejected.

Growth Machine Vs Earth

Growth Machine versus Earth It is often argued that globalization of capitalism has contributed to today's environmental destruction and decay. Industrialization has contributed to major and ongoing assaults on the environment. These attacks will eventually impact the social and economic foundations of cultures the world over. Nearly all industrial activity involves polluting or damaging Earth. Even when less polluting options are available, industrialists frequently opt for the immediate, cheapest approach to obtaining and processing raw materials over more sustainable methods. Many environmental problems are related to our dependence on fossil fuels. Better technology is needed to harness abundant sources of natural energy that would provide low-cost, low-impact power. Better social and financial incentives to improve and use available technology would also reduce the environmental impact of capitalism. You might ask, "What has this all to do with sociology?" The answer: "It affects segments of the population more than others, often based on social means."

Information Superhighway

Homes and businesses are connected by the rapid flow of information on the information superhighway. Community-wide wifi, library and coffee-house access to computers and the Internet, and the provision of laptops to students by some grade schools in the nation have led to the idea that information and technology are endemic and equally available to all. But that isn't true. As with all resources, information technology is stratified by social class. This stratification has severe implications for national and global development. Information have-nots, such as inner-city residents and rural residents, continue to fall behind in learning options, employment opportunities, and even in social interactions. Industrialized nations control the information superhighway and may choose to limit or expand access to less-developed nations, according to the industrialized nations' preferences.

Karl Marx's conflict theory

Karl Marx's conflict theory states that social change is a dialectical process that results in an arrangement of power. The history of a society is a series of confrontations in which every ruling group creates the seeds of its own destruction. Those seeds ultimately take hold and bring about a new arrangement of power.

End

Living in an era of seeming constant flux, when many sociological theories are being challenged, is exciting. In fact, we live at what is most likely still just the dawn of an era. The primary changes of human history are the four social revolutions (domestication, agriculture, industrialization, and information), and we are smack in the middle of the last one. The Information Age, as ours might be called, is transforming the way people communicate and receive information. Barriers to accessing information are being broken down daily, while, paradoxically, there are also new challenges to be faced and conquered. How social stratification and culture evolve in response remains to be seen. Several theories attempt to explain the process of social change, including the unilinear, multilinear, cyclical, and conflict theories. Karl Marx proposed that social change is a dialectical process. Technology is another organizing force of social life. Social movements, whether alterative, redemptive, reformative, transformative, translational, or metaformative, either promote or resist social change. As we leave this course on a note of change, we should ask ourselves one last question: "When everything is subject to change, what is the norm?"

Total Change

Metaformative Transformative Redemptive

Proactive

Proactive social movements promote social change in an effort to alter a social condition that has become intolerable or counter to the more global social norms.

Reactive

Reactive social movements resist change that is happening in a society in an effort to maintain the traditional way of doing things.

Redemptive social movements

Redemptive social movements attempt to completely change people, such as some fundamentalist Christian denominations that stress religious conversion.

Reformative social movements

Reformative social movements attempt to reform only some part of society, such as the animal rights movement, which seeks to change the way society treats animals.

Max Weber

Religion, specifically the Protestant Reformation, is the core reason for the development of capitalism. After the Reformation, Protestants were encouraged to work hard and be thrifty, creating economic surplus and escalating industrialization.

Social Movements Promote Social Change

Social movements are brought about by people who organize to promote or resist social change. At the heart of social movements lie grievances and dissatisfactions. People have a strong sense of right and wrong, and when their society does not live up to those standards, activism sometimes takes hold.

Types and Tactics of Social Movements

Social movements can be considered based on the Amount of Change they attempt to create and whether they focus on individuals or on society as a whole. There are four categories of social movements:

multilinear

Societies follow different paths leading to the same goal.

alterative

Seek to alter some specific behavior.

Technology

Simply utter the term Arab Spring (referring to the multiple, overlapping revolutionary movements in the Middle East beginning in Tunisia in late 2010), and the tremendous power of social media networking and instant communication tools come to mind. There is a lot of debate about whether such a powerful movement, dispersed across many countries, could have occurred at such a pace without protestors' easy access to the social media. Some say, historically, social movements—such as a similar one in the Middle East in 1919—gained similar momentum without instant communication. There is no doubt, however, technology plays its part in modern social movements. Just how technology changes society and how it impacts these movements are concepts still to be unraveled.

What Is Social Change?

Social change is a shift in the characteristics of culture and societies. But how and why does change happen? Perhaps it is because humans are never fully satisfied with the status quo, or the current state of affairs. They go on adventures and learn about people in societies that are different than theirs. They invent things. They think; therefore, they change.

Social Change, as a result of

Social change is also the result of forces set in motion many thousands of years ago. Four significant revolutions in the past continue to drive change in the present: The domestication of plants and animals initiated pastoral and horticultural societies. The invention of the plow initiated agricultural societies. The Industrial Revolution, with the invention of the steam engine, initiated industrial societies. The Information Revolution, with the invention of the microchip, initiated postindustrial societies.

I

Stage 1: Initial Unrest and Agitation Charismatic leaders emerge who begin to verbalize the people's frustrations about a specific social issue or condition. There is high excitement about the changes to come.

II

Stage 2: Resource Mobilization The currency of social change (time, money, people skills, and the ability to access the mass media) is mobilized.

III

Stage 3: Organization A division of labor is set up to effectively do the daily tasks that drive the action of the movement.

IV

Stage 4: Institutionalization The movement becomes a bureaucracy, with a hierarchy of career officers who set policy and workers who carry the policy out. The original excitement may have significantly faded.

V

Stage 5: Organizational Decline Energy is focused on daily activities of the movement and not on the initial cause of the movement. At this stage, some movements cease to exist and others become reinvigorated (as have some social movements relating to abortion or to women's rights).

Environmental Poverty Law

The environmental poverty law project in North Carolina provides state-funded legal assistance to minorities and indigent people who are disproportionately exposed to the following: Air pollution Hazardous waste Pesticides Poor water conditions Few states provide such a service. Considering every state in the United States has hazardous waste concerns, it would seem society has put the health and welfare of its lower-class citizens on hold. Even so, concern about the world's severe environmental problems has produced the beginnings of a worldwide social movement that seeks solutions in these areas: Education Legislation Political activism

globalization

The exchange of goods, ideas, information, and trade throughout the globe connects people together.

redemptive

The goal is a total change.

dialectical

The process in which each group sows the seeds of its own destruction.

Drives social change

What is understood to drive social change is contact with other cultures. The more contact and interaction a cultural group has with others, the more opportunities it has to change. Intergroup communication is the source of diffusion, or the spread of an invention, ideal, or discovery, from one area to another.

Social Movements

When a large number of people come together and organize to protest against a particular social condition or norm, a social movement has begun. Social movements mark the cutting edge of change in society and reflect a sense of injustice experienced by the protesting group. When needs go unmet, laws fail to keep up with social change, or attitudes prevent growth, protesting groups get out the signs and hit the streets. People organize movements for the following reasons: Make demands for social change; for example, the civil rights movement Show resistance against the status quo; for example, protests against the death penalty Effect change in social institutions; for example, to institute equal rights for same-sex couples Social movements Use attention-grabbing devices to recruit members and publicize grievances Are born out of a cultural crisis Occur when people's needs go unfulfilled Are followed by massive unrest Social movements involve large numbers of people who, upset about some condition in society, organize to do something about it

William F. Ogburn proposed a theory of social evolutio

William F. Ogburn proposed a theory of social evolution based on technological changes. The inventions, discoveries, and their geographic and cultural diffusion can lead to dramatic social change. Think, for example, of the changes wrought by metal axes and microchips.

Gemeinschaft

daily life centers on intimate and personal relationships

Natural Cycle Theory of Social Change

thesis: some current arrangement of power --> antithesis: contradiction --> synthesis: a new arrangement of power --> process continues throughout history --> classless state The natural cycle theory examines the rise of great ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Greece. Examining their rises and ultimate falls, this theory presumes that societies are like organisms: they live in stages of birth, adolescence, age, and death. Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) suggested this growth and decline were due to a civilization's growing inability to deal with its internal and external stresses.