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This conceptual paper is aimed at describing the very nature of meaning, advancing its sociological understanding as both process and artifact, both interaction and norm. Such a theoretical perspective mainly owes its theoretical assumptions to thinkers such as John Locke, Ferdinand De Saussure and Roland Barthes, coming up with an original conception and definition of meaning as a "flexible social artifact". It draws on the analysis and critique of a variety of social theories (from deconstructionism to hermeneutics) but inscribes within the tradition of symbolic interactionism, therefore it describes meaning as intrinsically subjective but constantly objectified and provided with the coercive power that characterizes social institutions, while introducing the ideas of social reliability and responsibility. The study, in fact, is eventually meant to underscore the ethical limits of an absolute subjective interpretation of meaning, hence to advance the hypothesis that emphasis should be posed on the social agreement that subjectivity itself implies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays consumption dynamics analysis is carving out a growing important role within the reflection on youth condition. Consumption choices play a basic role within the identity building process, as well within the mechanisms of social interaction, and gain credit as a further medium for relationships and sharing. The paper aims to analyze the meaning of a specific consumption experience, that one of tattoos, more and more widespread among the new generations. In the article, we’ll analyze, in particular, the results of a qualitative research project carried out on a Millennials sample, young people born between 1981 and 1996, in order to pick out the reasons which in most cases drive them to tattooing. The elements we collected by means of some focus groups and semi-structured interviews have stressed a double reading: for one part of the sample, the meaning of tattoo has to be spotted just in the right drawing chosen by the individual, while for another it’s tattooing itself, the experience lived in real terms, to take the prevailing meaning, sometimes even regardless of the figure inked onto the skin. When tattoo reflects the will to expressly convey something, its meaning seems to be traced back to three different purposes: the one bound to one’ identity, the one peculiar to a rite of initiation and the one that points out an emotional bond. In conclusion, for the Millennials choosing tattooing seems to be a way of claiming their own individuality tangibly, changing their body into one of the means thanks to which they can tell the others their own story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of emotion and affect in the context of social media. Drawing on the works by Brian Massumi, Nigel Thrift, Zizi Papacharissi, Richard Grusin, Margaret Wetherell, the paper reflects on the need to engage more deeply with feelings and emotions as driving forces of digital affect culture and on how this digital affect culture can manifest itself within different kind of affectively charged collectivities, created via spontaneous interaction on various social media platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we revisit the case for methodological individualism for the positive analysis of political economy. We argue that the basis of methodological individualism implies neither a necessary commitment to atomistic reductionism in explaining social phenomena nor philosophical individualism resulting in a laissez-faire policy. The point of engaging in spontaneous order analysis on methodologically individualist grounds is not to make precise predictions per se, but instead to render the purposive actions of individuals and the meaning of such actions intelligible. Once individuals can be understood as purposive actors whose social interactions generate patterns of institutions, such as language, money and law, which coordinate their self-interest, then the mystery of how self-interest coincides with social cooperation under the division of labor, i.e. Paris getting fed, can be understood through the consistent and persistent application of the economic way of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]