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Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces "concept‐driven sociology," a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can "distill" generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a "generic sociology" that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, transsituational, and translevel) in its scope. In order to uncover generic, transcontextual social patterns, we need to collect our data in a wide range of social contexts. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi‐culturally, multihistorically, multisituationally, as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation. True to its message, the book illustrates generic social patterns by drawing on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts and historical periods and a wide range of diverse social domains, as well as by disregarding scale. Emphasizing cross‐contextual commonality, concept‐driven sociology tries to reveal formal "parallels" across seemingly disparate contexts. The paper features the four main types of cross‐contextual analogies concept‐driven sociologists tend to use—cross‐cultural, cross‐historical, cross‐domain, as well as cross‐level—disregarding conventionally noted substantive differences in order to note conventionally disregarded formal equivalences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I critically discuss Helmes‐Hayes and Milne's institutional perspective, as well as Neil McLaughlin's emphasis on scientific intellectual movements and Coserian intellectual sects, in explaining the emergence and potential future of symbolic interactionist theory in Canada. I contest claims that the interactionism is on the verge of disappearing and instead offer an explanation grounded in insights about shared meaning. I conclude that it is ironic that debates over the presumed demise of symbolic interaction may well contribute to its continued existence within the canon of Canadian sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that unique locations of digital interactions constitute distinct information‐technological media. I first apply a close reading of Couch's () work to digital sociology, and then analyze three popular social media networks: www.Imgur.com, www.Reddit.com, and www.Twitter.com. I close with a theoretical application of Couch's paradigm for analyzing the qualities of information technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of the journal "Symbolic Interaction" focuses on theory and method in symbolic interactionism. Quality papers were received from several countries and they have provided theoretical commentary and technical information with which to solve methodological problems. In some cases, the authors of the papers were asked to reduce the length of their articles significantly so that eleven articles were included. These articles have been organized under various issues that are common to all social research but are of special interest to interactionists.

Empathy is an increasingly popular term in the public sphere and in academia. Although the common belief is that empathy is a 'psychological' topic, sociologists have made important contributions to this conversation. The goal of this article is to provide a theoretical effort in advancing the sociology of empathy. In the first part of the paper, I review classical and contemporary statements on empathy. I identify Charles H. Cooley as an important precursor of the sociology of empathy, and discuss how contemporary interactionists have further developed this notion. Based on these previous insights, I next propose a preliminary framework for the study of the social construction of empathy. This framework is presented in two steps. First, I introduce a vocabulary based on interpretivist concepts: empathy frames, empathy rules, and empathy performances. Next, I coin the idea of empathy paths. I theorize three ideal-typical empathy paths: self-transcendent, therapeutic, and instrumental. Throughout this presentation, I use empirical cases to illustrate the applicability of this framework. In the conclusion, I show how sociologists can inform public understandings of the meaning of empathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the interpretive dynamics of official inquiries. Beginning with an ideal-typical sketch of congressional investigations, the discussion traces a portrayal of public problems by a committee of the House of Representatives. This leads to the analysis of a hearing in which committee factions struggled to define an Air Force administrator as a "whistleblower" or a "renegade." The hearing is understood as a "certification ceremony" that rhetorically transformed staff, discoveries into allegedly definitive evidence, it is concluded that the paper's conceptual approach can be applied to diverse inquiries that combine documentary research with interrogation of witnesses to generate authoritative findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revolves around the informational aspect of social relationships, attempting to identify the fundamental social patterning of personal information and to establish the basic conceptual framework necessary for analyzing this topic from a sociological perspective. The paper explores the major parameters of personal reformation (amount, scope, and depth), relating them to sociological variables such as social distance, social power, privacy, and intimacy. It then examines the "information preserve," a quasi-spatial territory of the self, discussing various forms of defending It (such as discretion, concealment, and fabrication), as well as ways in which it is protected by others (with a particular emphasis on confidentiality and tact). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many thinkers have discussed the possibility of intelligent social reconstruction; but few have examined the nature of such reconstruction as closely as did George Herbert Mead. This paper explores Mead's analysis through his understanding of human nature and intelligence, his discussion of value conflicts cod the possibility of their resolution by means of the community, and his recognition of the need for popular commitment as a necessary condition for any wide-spread success. While pointing to certain problems with his position, this paper concludes that there is a basic soundness to Mead's approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since this society is oriented toward a specific theory, I thought I ought to say something about theories in general and our little theory in particular. Let me get that off of my chest. I am not overly fond of terms like "theory" and "theorist," both of which seem to suggest the importance of the person who claims the identity more than anything else. They are pompous terms. To the extent that we are thoughtful about what we are doing and how we are going about it, all sociologists are theorists and methodologists. But if that is all we are, then we are literally people of no substance. We have no substantial knowledge of or concern for the empirical world. The little theory we share is extraordinarily empirical. It is, as one of its most prominent practitioners called it, a "grounded theory" (Glaser and Strauss 1967). I confess that several years after receiving my degree I had no real sense of what symbolic interaction was and how it might differ from other theoretical orientations. Arnold Rose enlightened me on this when he asked me to submit a paper for a new collection he was editing (Rose 1962). I was pleased and flattered. Rose was a mentor of mine, and I had never before been asked to contribute to an edited volume. But I was unsure of what would be appropriate for a book about symbolic interaction. I screwed up my courage and asked Arnold: "Exactly what is symbolic interaction?" He shrugged off my ignorance, turned on his heels, and muttered over his shoulder, "It is what they do at Chicago." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the concerns in recent work on the sociology of emotions is the link between emotions and social bonding. A version of this issue has also been discussed in research on disasters, with the focus being on how the crisis leads to the cohesion essential to recovery and rebuilding. This paper provides an analysis of a Ike and its aftermath and shows how central emotions are to understanding the social psychology of the event. Most important here is the fact that, when identifying themselves as fire victims, those affected by the disaster assumed that they experienced the same profound emotions at the same time. This emotional simultaneity led Ike victims to emphasize their bonds to one another and heighten their boundaries with non victims. In turn, this led to their providing social support, comparative experiences, and practical assistance to each other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactionist analyses of social organization stimulate examination of how social situations and collective activity are shaped. Meta-power, the creation and control of distal situations, and organization as a structuration of meta-power are used as tools for exploring the shaping of situations Five meta-power processes are presented: strategic agency, rules and conventions, structuring situations. Culture construction, and empowering delegates. These processes illustrate how situations are created or altered. This paper offers a view of social organization that emphasizes relations among situations, linkages between consequences and conditions, and networks of collective activity across space and time. The conclusion calls for additional research to make more explicit the nature of social organization and its social conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I reflect on the life and work of Everett Hughes. I discuss the similarities and differences between his writings and those of Robert Park; I describe his biographical influences and the use he made of marginality; I consider the relevance of his professional commitments for contemporary sociology and his unique vision of sociology's mission. I conclude by calling for renewed interest in his concepts and principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until quite recently, questionnaire surveys, semi-structured interviews and the gathering and interpreting of various documents have been the main kinds of empirical research to be found in French sociology. Observation plays a leading role in none of them, even in the latter. The researchers who use it do not seem convinced of its legitimacy, because what can be expected from systematic observation does not fit the prevailing purpose of developing abstract, general theories. After having sketched out the institutional and intellectual background, this paper examines a few examples of French studies using observation. Most of them fail to clearly distinguish between indirect evidence and direct observation, between meaning as construed by the observer and that experienced by the people observed; they rarely report dated and situated facts (even more seldom behaviors than settings), and they replace the expected analyses of these messing facts with the interpretation of would-be typical or usual facts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The totality of Cooley's contribution to self-theory, as reported in most sociology texts and much of the contemporary self literature, is erroneously equated with his concept of the "looking-glass self," in its passive, dependent; and chameleon form. In this paper, we highlight Cooley's own qualifications to the looking-glass self, which properly place this popular concept in the context of Cooley's broader and more assertive view of self-concept formation. These qualifications include Cooley's emphasis on selectivity and Interpretation in the process of reflected appraisals, his writings on core values and the continuity of character, and his discussion of efficacious action and appropriative activity in the early formation of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Everett Hughes (1964). in his essay "'Good People and Dirty Work", implies that those who engage in dirty work may be defective in some way, a view that reflects society's perception of dirty workers. However. many of them perceive themselves to be good people doing dirty work. In this paper we examine the consequences of this disjunction between the audience's and the self's perception. We examine members of a dirty work occupation: bailbondsmen. Many of these individuals are found to be socially isolated. This isolation is the result of their belief that they have been unjustly accused of corrupt and corrupting behavior and their desire to be seen and accepted as respectable. Rejected by members of respectable society and rejecting association with like others who may tarot their attempts for respectability, they become socially isolated. Ironically, by proclaiming their innocence they, unlike their truly accused counterparts, find little social support or possibility of becoming integrated into respectable society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mead's life-long interest in Romanticism is the least studied aspect of his work. As summarized in Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, Meadian explorations in romantic philosophy and sociology provide a valuable insight into his substantive contributions. The present paper seeks to amplify this insight and explores its relevance to the interactionist tradition in sociology. Special attention is given to the Meadian claim that the modem notion of self first appears in the romantic literature. Mead's emphasis on the interplay between the social structure and the structure of the self is linked to the romantic vision of the self as the microcosm of the social macrocosm. The current controversy over Mead and Chicago sociology is given a new interpretation in light of the dialectical premises inherent in the Meadian and romantic theories of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a system of work and patterns of productivity in the Hollywood film industry. Describing the social organization of the film industry entails two primary tasks. One is to describe the administration of work activities among technical specialists. The second is to investigate empirically the organization of those work activities. We argue that because of the particular needs of filmmaking, efficiency is achieved utilizing craft methods of work administration. An analysis of longitudinal data on film specialist's productivity provides some preliminary answers to Becker's theoretical idea of the recurrent nature of work activities in the production of art works. Finally, accounting for the disproportionate work contributions among specialists, some explanations are offered based upon an analysis of the process by which coalitions of specialists are joined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes J Habermas's theory of "universal pragmatics" and examines the extent to which Habermas's ideal speech community is predicted upon a specific type of relationship between the individual and society. The ability of the theory of universal pragmatics to overcome the form of domination institutionalized by modern societies is questioned, and the argument is made that Habermas's radical program of emancipation is vitiated (1) by Habermas's conflation of "transcendental" and "situationally engaged" enlightenment and (2) by Habermas's inability to reintegrate practical-emancipatory and technical forms of reason Habermas's idea of "communicative competence" replicates, rather than displaces, the "modern" solution to the problem of the relationship between the individual and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I present Kenneth Burke's sociology of law as a critical interactionist alternative to the now dominant functionalist sociology of law. Burke's perspective conceives of the law as a form of symbolic action that contributes much to social order. Further it ties the structure and operation of the law to the ontological symbolicity of human being. Finally I suggest that the use of this theoretical framework in research on the place of law in society will produce results that are both critical and hermeneutic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]