Definition of Terms:
Construction of Reality - in media studies, this idea emphasizes that there is no single 'reality', rather a range of definitions of 'reality'. Reality as presented by the mass media is therefore not a picture or reflection of 'reality', but, rather, a constructed interpretation of reality. In the view of 'radical' critics of the media in particular, the mass media play a crucial rôle in 'constructing reality' for the rest of us. In the view of many representatives of post-structuralism and post-modernism, just about every aspect of reality seems to be considered a social construction.
Desensitization: some theorists argue that the constant media diet of violence desensitizes audiences (makes them less sensitive) to real human suffering. It is hard to find proof for the theory, though the practice of systematic desensitization in behaviour modification may lend incidental support to the theory. Belson's 1978 study of over 1500 teenage boys did not find any support at all for the desesitization hypothesis. The effect of the 'distant violence' presented in the news was virtually nill and the effect of directly experienced violence was even slightly negative, which, if anything, suggests increased sensitization to real-world violence.
Deconstruction: A postmodern method of analysis; its goal is to undo all permanent, objective, determinative 'constructions' of scientists. Deconstruction tears a text apart, shows its unexamined assumptions, reveals its contradictions and its refusal to deal with contradictory materials. Typically a deconstructive critique endeavors to point out the classist, racist, sexist, agist, and other oppressive dimensions of speech. Deconstructionists "unpack" the layered dimensions of speech in order to appreciate the politics and special interests behind words, particularly when that intent invalidates, de-legitimizes, or otherwise, de-values specific individuals or a class of citizens. In affirmative postmodern work, deconstruction is prelude to the construction of new, more participatory social forms. In so doing, one accepts personal responsibility for the constructs rather than attributing such text or theory to God (gods) or nature. (After and beyond Derrida).
Objective Reality: Premodern views often deny the permanence or even existence of 'reality.' Modern science assumes reality but doubts it can be fully known. Postmodern philosophy of science holds that reality is both constructed by the conceptual language used; by the methods of research; by the interests and purposes of the researcher and by ignoring the incredible variety and complexity of really existing natural and social dynamical systems. Chaos theory notes that all dynamical systems have open boundaries at some level of observation which calls into doubt the assumption of a single bounded entity which answers to the concepts used to refer to them; thus the objective reality of a thing called a tree, a group, a nation, a religious organization or an atom is, in part, a matter of arbitrary conceptualization.
Objectification: The process of turning a subject into an object. Any process which tends to reduce intentionality and self-determination. People are objectified when they are treated as a means to an end. Power objectifies by forcing people to do things they judge to be inappropriate. People are also objectified when they are turned into commodities (football players, prostitutes, slaves, and so on) in a market.
Ontology: Greek: ontos: being. The study of that which exists in the natural world and which has facticity apart from human thought and study. Pre-modernists believe that external reality is a poor imitation of abstract forms [Plato] and/or of God's Plan. Modernists think reality exist as objects apart from human desire and can be known through good research design. Postmodernists hold that there is a complex interaction between reality and human action [including thought] which cannot be sorted out by good research. In brief, objectivity is impossible since humans use imagination and action to call forth both social facts and natural facts.
Epistemology: The study of how reliable knowledge is possible. Some say that the world is fully knowable; some say that only an intellect such as that of God can know everything; some say that while much can be known, still there are uncertainties and surprises which are beyond the reach of the most powerful theory or research technology. Chaos theory provides a grounding for the later view. See also Modern, Pre-modern and Postmodern views of the knowledge process.
The marxist position is that human knowledge is actively created by human beings engaged in producing culture. In such a process, humans reify epistemological categories (categories of thought) into ontological categories (categories of really existing things.) Self, social relations, social institutions, and other cultural facts are known (reliably), according to Marx, in the act of creating them as such by intending trusting, insightful humans. This view differs from the position that knowledge about nature and society is completely independent of human consciousness and interaction. This is one of the most interesting and challenging parts of the politics of science.
Feminism: A movement and an awareness of the cultural sources of gender inequality. The movement have three major components: separatist feminism; bourgeois feminism; and socialism feminism. These contrast to traditional femininity/gendering patterns in which men use four kinds of power to dominate women: social power, moral power, economic power and, often, physical force. Feminism is opposed to biological interpretations of gender inequality; to most theological justifications as well as structural-functional views which hold that gender division of labor is essential to the functioning of all societies. See each form separately for a more detailed explanation. See also Feminist theory/socialist feminism.
Feminism, Bourgeois: Bourgeois feminists advocate equal opportunity and equal rights for all women. They demand the right to compete fairly for all jobs and professions including the top positions in public and private life. This stands in contrast with traditional gendering patterns in which women are taught to defer to men in all public and most private spheres. It stands in contrast to socialist feminism which argues for the elimination of class and bureaucracy rather than for equal opportunity to compete in what socialist call 'structures of domination.' It also contrasts to separatist feminist who don't want to compete with men but to exclude them from their social life.
Feminism, Separatist: Separatist women want to build separate family systems, separate business, separate sports and recreational as well as separate religious organizations from men. Separatist feminists argue from the data that men are irreconcilably violent, brutal, demanding and dominating. Some separatist feminist reproduce role inequality in personal and public relationships; others advocate a much more democratic set of relationships. Separatist feminists constitute about 2-3 percent of the population [1995].
Feminism, Socialist: Socialist feminist urge the elimination of all forms of inequality; class, race and gender. Embodied best, perhaps by the Angela Davis, a professor of philosophy and an Afro-America, socialist feminists argue that Bourgeois feminists and their call for equal opportunity to compete only changes the gender of the oppressor, not the oppression. They point out that the gender division of labor converts women into unpaid workers who chief role is to reproduce each new generation of workers and to repair the physical and psychological damage done by capitalist relations to men by conditions at work and while dis-employed.
Feminist Methodology: Feminist methodology has several major differences from modern science methodology. Feminist theory emphasizes Standpoint epistemology; a view that each major group in society has its own standpoint from which to understand and act upon social life. This contrasts to the presumption of Objectivity in which modernists assume that the researcher can stand apart from society and history; can make judgments and form theory without any cultural or political bias. Feminist methodology also values story-telling and poetry as sources of insight and understanding while modern science tends to use standardized questions and statistical analysis. Finally, feminist methodology is openly partisan on behalf of egalitarian gender relationships and a much wider status-role for women...and for men too.
Feminist Theory: Feminist social theory argues that traditional gender roles are culturally determined and unnecessarily limiting to women. Instead of seeing the sources of gender inequality in biology or physiology, feminists hold that power inequalities reproduce gender inequalities. Feminists hold that patriarchy is a special, historical family form; that there have been dozens of other family forms in human history and that new family forms are emerging all the time as social, technical and economic conditions change. Most feminists accept gender divisions but do not want these extended to public office, high status jobs, middle class professions or sports. See Bourgeois and socialist feminism.
Femininity, Traditional: Traditional women view their role in life to center around the family; mother, home-maker, supportive wife and care-giver to the handicapped and elderly in the extended family. About 85% of the USA population, these women accept both biblical and 'scientific' statements that these are the natural and indispensable roles special to women. See other feminist thought: bourgeois, separatist and socialist-feminist.
Functionalism [structural f.]: A social philosophy cum sociology which holds that each social unit found in a society performs a function necessary to the whole. This includes organized crime, prostitution, police, church and all other units which are a permanent part of a society. It originates with the anthropologists, B. Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown; T. Parsons picked upon on it. It is promoted as a way to legitimize the fact that people accept class stratification, patriarchy, poverty, racism and other such social structures. See Conflict Theory, Feminist Theory and Marxist theory for a different reading of social organization.
Gender: Gender refers to the psycho-social division of labor in a society; not to the biological and physiological differences between men and women. Gendering varies dramatically across cultures; biology and physiology vary but little. One uses the words, male/female to refer to biology; one use the words, men/women to refer to the product of social gendering work. Most societies socialize to two and only two genders but some societies provide for three or more. Physiology differences permits the specification of a great many genders. Gendering patterns begin early to develop some skills, beliefs and attitudes in young males and females. By age three, most young people begin to embody a gender division of labor in household, play, school and friendships. In such societies, boys and girls form separate groups before puberty and begin to embody traditional patriarchal role relationships soon after puberty. In more egalitarian societies, childhood is much less differentiated by gender while adult relationships are much less stratified.
Ideology: A generalized blueprint by which a given social life world is created. That which given meaning and purpose to life. Art, music, poetry, prose, science, myths, jokes, and song. Religion is an especially important part of an ideology. Sometimes ideology becomes reified into dogma and comes to be more than a general guide to the construction of social reality but rather a superorganic thing beyond the control of humans.
As a term, it is used to put down any social philosophy with which one disagrees. The term began as 'the study of ideas' by Destutt de Tracy (1775-1836) in opposition to the ideological hegemony of Napoleon. All social life requires a set of fairly comprehensive [but not necessarily compatible] ideas as the beginning point for the 'self-fulfilling prophecy' in the construction of a social life world. The only interesting questions are: which set of ideas, how are they to be transmitted to young people and how much criticism is to be allowed? Marx held 1) ideology varies with the kind of political economy at hand, 2) it varies with position with class, race, gender and ethnicity, 3) it is necessary for solidarity purposes, and 4) it can be progressive or oppressive depending on which ideas are valued most highly.
Ideological Hegemony: The attempt on the part of all ruling classes to universalize their own beliefs, values, morality, and opinions as part of the "natural order of things." Control of schools, law, churches, the media, as well as the political process aids in consolidating hegemony. (Gramsci)
Internalization: The incorporation of social norms into the self or the personality, so that violations of norms will produce a sense of guilt. To the extent this happens, the notion that self and society are twinborn makes sense.
Postmodern: A loose body of thought/criticism which holds that all knowledge processes are richly informed by personal aims and cultural world-views. All knowledge processes, including modern scientific theories, are constructed in and for a given socio-cultural life world; thus social theory may best be seen as a subjective narrative or text which legitimates existing or desired social relationships. Modern science talk privileges objectivity, rationality, power, control, inequality and hierarchy. Postmodern sociologists deconstruct each theory and each social practice by locating it in its larger socio-historical context in order to reveal the human hand and the group interests which shape the course of self-understanding of women, minorities and others. The political point of postmodernism is to enable women and others now excluded from such truth-claims to make and assert truth-claims which empower and honor different, more uncertain social-life worlds.
Postmodern, Affirmative: Many see postmodern sensibility as liberating. Old standards of truth and certainty are called into question. Traditional models of masculinity, femininity and gender relations are re-examined for their alienating effects. Old claims of social development [and underdevelopment] deconstructed to show their biases. Old models of governance and economics are given new life and more democracy by challenging the modernist tendency to control and to manage everything in a factory, school, office or church. See Pauline Vaillancourt-Rosenau's fine book on Postmodernism for the Social Sciences for both affirmative and nihilistic forms. Thus postmodern sensibility offers human beings considerably more scope for understanding and human agency than found in either pre-modern or modern world views. Pre-modern views tend to locate agency and full capacities to know in Gods or abstract realms of nature. Modern science retains the view that valid knowledge is buried in the dynamics of nature and that human beings must bend to natural laws if they are to be rational.
Praxis/Practice: A complex activity by which individuals, in collectivities, create culture, society, and create themselves as "species beings", i.e., as human beings. The moments of praxis include self-determination (in contrast to coercion), intentionality (in contrast to reaction), sociality (in contrast to privatism), creativity (in contrast to sameness) and rationality (in contrast to blind chance) (after M. Markovic).
Systematically Distorted Communication: In Habermas, the barriers to a communication which produces normative behavior are usually subjected to scrutiny and reduction through "discourse", as special kind of conversation about things we ordinarily assume. But some social world-view prevent discourse and thus distort communication. When communication is distorted, human behavior ceases to be free and uncoerced. Elitism and mass media as they are organized do not permit discourse. Rules about secrecy, about authority, about expertise all protect the implicit validity claims of one party to be called into question.
Source: Mass Media Glossary
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