Search

With the appearance, in recent decades, of so-called knowledge-based economies, there have been various explanatory proposals or theoretical frameworks for understanding them. In this paper we aim to ponder, within a humanistic outlook, various concepts introduced by thinkers like Dominique Foray, from economic theory, Javier Echeverría, from philosophy of science, Manuel Castells, from sociology, and Edgar Morin, from the perspective of complex thinking. Situating human at the center of the equation, we want to approach the problem of knowledge and their meanings. To that end, this essay begins with a consideration on different conceptions of knowledge and the role that it has taken in the new society, continues with an analysis of the relations between the new economy and the idea of integral human development, and ends by outlining the application of the principles of Morin's complex thought as a proposal to articulate different perspectives on knowledge and the global society to which we belong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we present theoretical and methodological reflections from two research projects. The main objective of both is to analyze the individuation processes in young people whose sociability spaces are in marginalized neighborhoods of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. The empirical data was constructed using the life story as methodological tool. The life stories were constructed from five or six individual semi structured interviews of about an hour and a half to 10 young people, 18 to 26 years old. The articulation between the analytical proposals of the sociology of individuation of Danilo Martuccelli and the methodological strategy of the life stories proves to be productive to capture simultaneously the heterogeneities and regularities found in the trials, supports and reflexivities that take part in the construction processes of young subjectivities in the current context of our society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the notion of sacred in Durkheim's developments within the French sociological school and of those from Georges Bataille in the College of Sociology. Considering the peculiarity of these developments, which had influence in the early twentieth century, we show the broadening of the interpretation of the sacred to other phenomena different from religious issues, pointing the potential of this concept in the formulation of a critique of secular modernity. So, the sacred is the nodal point from which both Durkheim and Bataille, each one from his own perspective, problematizes the social effervescence, where, also, community becomes a central problem, raising questions and issues in the realm of contemporary political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses primarily on the theoretical and methodological intersection between Cybercultur@ and Participatory Action Research (PAR), recognizing their potential contributions to research with Emerging Local Communities of Knowledge (ELCK). This paper seeks to go beyond the conceptual discussion offering insights of an empirical research project titled “Emerging Local Knowledge Communities in Mexico", developed by the Laboratory of Complex Communication (Laboratorio de Comunicación Compleja of CEIICH / UNAM). The project was implemented in the context of the drylands of San Luis Potosí, Mexico between 2009 to 2012. One outcome of that research is a methodological proposal which is put forward here with the aim of contributing to the methodological development of applied social research in new directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Behavioral expectations established in a society based on specific coexistence conditions represent a definition schema on behaviors identified or not as deviant or antisocial actions according both informal rules and Constitution legal standards. This paper is focused to address antisocial activities by such recognition of potential threats they pose to a coexistence scenario, where tools of knowledge are provided by different areas, such as sociology, psychology and criminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the notion of sacred in Durkheim's developments within the French sociological school and of those from Georges Bataille in the College of Sociology. Considering the peculiarity of these developments, which had influence in the early twentieth century, we show the broadening of the interpretation of the sacred to other phenomena different from religious issues, pointing the potential of this concept in the formulation of a critique of secular modernity. So, the sacred is the nodal point from which both Durkheim and Bataille, each one from his own perspective, problematizes the social effervescence, where, also, community becomes a central problem, raising questions and issues in the realm of contemporary political thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the two perspectives on the 'idea of the nation' in the work of Max Weber. While his contributions to Sociology favor an 'inventionist' strategy, in its political interventions the strategy is mainly that of an 'essentialist' type. Following the main components of the 'idea of the nation', the paper presents two cases of American nations which are examples of both of the author's analytical perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to employ the sociological notions of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu to transcribe the production and reproduction of Modern Capitalist Laxv in terms of exercise of power and domination. The path to do this is to show how domination and symbolic violence are exercised through moral, scientific knowledge and construction of identity, displaying the arbitrariness and exclusion of alternative practices and subjects which underlies its pretended universality and impartiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching learning process has gone a long way through the history of education in which the curriculum has been transformed within the traditional education models. This paper aims at proposing an alternative about the way of teaching, taking into account the integration of two subjects: Sociology of Culture and Social Psychology, which are taught in the Socio-cultural Studies career. By means of the syllabuses of both subjects t it is expressed the importance of teaching them through the extension, the participation and developmental elements considering the main objective of this career: to investigate the community and the bettering of their settlers. It is not possible to continue teaching these subjects separately, because they both have the same system of content. Some workshops are proposed under the principle of interdisciplinary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show the possibility of the agen-cy from an ethics course as part of executive training the force. Be part of the progress made in discussions on the concept of agency, particularly in American sociology. Next, we proceed to present the practices developed with students, in order to suggest possi-bilities for the agency from themselves. Finally, we discuss about the possibilitiesthat this proposal may be useful in the institutional development of the Na-tional Police of Colombia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to isolate a literary image, a transsexual alien living among the squatter community in London as it appears in the novel Breve historia de la inmortalidad by Antonio Alamo, in order to trace the fluctuations that it can suffer once it is included in the global processes of identity construction and the dynamics of information that rule postmodernism from the mass media, inevitably mutating once it serves the hegemonic imaginary of consumption and the cultural mainstream which may shape it to illustrate different contents as a metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifestyles have been studied by different disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and epidemiology. Both the term and the greatest developments in this regard stem from the social and cultural sciences, which consider lifestyles as group behavior patterns upon which social structure has remarkable influence. Epidemiology has used the concepts of lifestyle and health extensively, but with a more restricted meaning, associating it with behaviors that people assume in a rational way and that can be hazardous for their health. In this paper we analyze some common traits of recently published studies on lifestyle in regards to the suffering of some diseases. We conclude that a shift toward contextual considerations can be observed. Such considerations overcome the strictly individual perspective regarding lifestyles and health. Nevertheless, additional insight from other disciplines, especially from the social sciences, is required. Likewise, theoretical frameworks linking individual decisions to contextual constraints or possibilities are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This term paper outlines some particular problems in the experience in preparation of reports about Latin American situations. This emphasizes the complexity of the link between the event that characterizes a situation, the structures that have been shaped in society and the political historical movement in which the forces are located and their relationships. It includes the problem of hegemony as focal point of the entire central and reference movement in the social and political junctures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alongside the tradition of social theory, the concept of territory has been widely used but poorly systematized. It is generally employed in an objective sense, namely as a territory which contains social relations and exerts causal efficacy upon the production of the social. On the contrary, from a system-theoretical point of view, this paper holds the hypothesis that the territory is a conceptual construction produced in the social and temporal dimensions of meaning, which in turn reflects the operation of the factual dimension in terms of positions, distances, and limits. In order to substantiate this hypothesis, anthropological, sociological, and political theories drawing upon the concept of territory are revised, their limitations exposed, and some theoretical elements are extracted from aiming to identify the meaning and function of the territory in modern society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conceive in this paper hunger as a social and geopolitical problem. In this regard, it is theoretically possible to connect the (lack of) nutrients, with social conflict, through a complexification of the concept of hunger. Thus, we rebuild the notion of hunger in three different and interconnected levels: individual hunger, subjective hunger and social hunger. From this transaction, it is possible to understand the passage from individual hunger to the social conflict created by it and which is linked to social and subjective hunger, since it makes visible the plot that structures nutrient deficiency as further evidence of the various mechanisms of body energy appropriation and their paths in the current phase of neocolonial capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I try to outline the existence of certain problems I have found during my research work, within sociology discipline, when it comes to follow some of the main threads of the complex fabric that constitutes the Actor-Network Theory (ANT). In the same way, I suggest some possible subterfuges to go around those problems. Two are the problems and two are the subterfuges as well destined to tackle them. On the one hand, I face the problem of the magnitude and fidelity that ANT's descriptions demand, thoroughly detailed and local, which clashes with the requirements of sociological theory that seeks abstractions and regularities. The subterfuge I propose is the one called "impressionist cartography". On the other hand, I bump into the difficulty of the irreversibility of mediations and the sanitized representations carried out, sometimes, by ANT. In order to fight this, I use the subterfuge oriented to adopt the premise of the "inevitable dirtiness of mediations". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global theory of law is an attempt to overcome the crisis of present legal thought, increasingly incapable to understand the law, to structure jurisprudence and to guide legal practice. Such crisis is first analyzed as the result of the wider cultural crisis, which has ended in the insufficiency of Modern and Contemporary Weltanschauung. Thereafter, this paper provides a series of philosophical basis--context, perspective and method--which lead to different approaches to the law--human, sociological, finalistic, symbolic and historic--, which allow their federation on a wider, global, comprehension of the law. Global theory of law is an effort to re-construct the law, from the re-composition of culture, through the integration of different --legal and cultural--theories, avoiding--from an analogic perspective--the epistemological mistakes of syncretism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coming of New Technologies (ICTs) is leading us to a discussion about their consequences in children's life in the context of the information society. The aim of this paper is to analyze from a critical approach the main diagnosis about this topic. The starting idea is that they are characterized by an image of non-capable or immature children as technology users. It is argued in this article that some empirical evidences exist pointing out the fact that e-generations can play a more active and central role in the new technologies use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is in response to George I. Garcia's paper titled "Una réplica a 'La sociología crítica de Henri Lefebvre, de Roy Alfaro Vargas". It is my expectation to draw attention to Las Sombras de la Modernidad by García himself and analyze different problems (blunders) related to Garcia's interpretation of Henri Lefebvre's critical sociology. I show the link between both the Garcia's thought and the postmodern ideology. I also attempt to point out some new fields of research stemmed from the Lefebvrian paradigm that will allow growing the dialectical approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of social citizenship, as formulated by Marshall in the middle of the 20th century, is in crisis. Its most evident sign is the impact of the privatization policies iniciated by neoliberal governments in 1980. This paper attempts to open a debate about its future, which is linked to the examination of what we understand as welfare. In Amartya Sen's work, it is possible to find patterns that allow us to go in this direction and ask if it is time to move from welfare focused on covering needs to another whose aim would be the creation of capacities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to reconsider the Alfred Schutz and Talcott Parsons debate, taking the problem of subjectivity in sociological explanation as the axis of analysis. Schutz argues that Parsons correctly identifies the subjective point of view as the fundamental element of the theory of action, but he does not reach the root of the problem because he confuses subjective and objective categories. For Schutz, a theory of social action must maintain a subjective point of view in order to uphold its basics principals, which refer to the social world of experience and everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the emergence of the category "youth" in the 1960s that derived from World War II and "counterculture" groups, academic fields like psychology, sociology, and anthropology have offered different interpretations of why individuals gather in groups and the reasons behind their practices. This paper focuses on the sociological perspectives on the topic, their theories and history, as well as their main contributions and scope, in an attempt to understand the usefulness of classifying "counterculture" groups from an academic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we discuss the relations between reification and modernity en the sociological theories of Georg Simmel and Alfred Schütz. German history and Lukács' work, History and class conscience, are important references in this discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how specific forms of social capital are arising as a result of particular practices of consumption. Social capital is defined as a relational reality that emerges from consumer groups, associations, and networks, formed around specific meanings and values. Among other examples of this tendency we point at communities of users (also called 'brand communities'), We explore different kind of consequences -instrumental and expressive-derived from those social bonds among conscious consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following paper will try to explain the difficulty based on the polisemic nature of the notion of complex systems and its broadly used in diverse disciplines such as: Physics, Biology, Sociology, Economics, and Social Psychology, and Clinic Psychology, due to the indetermination and the difficulty for its terminological use for the evaluation of social organizations, and other type of systems or webs, like natural systems, or animal, because this objects, are of different nature because of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the figure of the new information professional in the framework of the Information Society. In so doing, it bears on four salient aspects: the terminology and conceptual problems regarding Information Science; human behaviour as regards document evolution; the new professional\rquote s training and development and a final reflection on the figure of the new university librarian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalization has evidenced the necessity to question the «methodological nationalism» as fundamental assumption of the first modernity. This question breaks the assumption that the contours of the society coincide with those of the nation-state, and it supposes an epistemological challenge for the Sociology that adopted an outline of classification of the social space that could be denominated, from its birth, state-society isomorphism. In this paper we carry out some considerations on the epistemological and methodological challenges that the international migrations suppose for the Sociology and the main practices of social empirical research that generally drag inertias and epistemological assumptions anchored in the features of the societies of the first modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cardoso is among the most famous thinkers on development and dependency theory. He successfully combines sociology, economics and political science to build an interdisciplinary view of Latin America's transformations. This paper analyses Cardoso's "radical" theoretical evolution between two major books, Dependency and Development in Latin America (1970) and Charting a New Course: The Politics of Globalization and Social Transformation (2001). The positions he occupied when he wrote these two books, academician-political opponent and then politician, could explain his evolution. Cardoso claims that new political and economic conditions have taken place and a new theory is thus required in order to "chart a new course". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the configuration of the sociological realm around the dispute on the pertinence of classical disciplinary canon. The debate is followed through the theses of four relevant sociologists: Jeffrey Alexander, Immanuel Wallerstein, Niklas Luhmann, and R. W. Connell. Based on these authors we present some aspects of this subject, and finish by outlining links between the classical canonization process and the construction of a disciplinary field of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary interest of the present paper is to reflect about the transformations in modem society and their effect on the daily dynamics of the city and in the practices of the people who inhabit it. Our reflections are centered particularly on Mexico City and in the youths who live there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper tries to make an approach to the sociological interpretation of public management. The analysis is made from a stance of social commitment that demands, first, a critical reflection on elitism as an expression of instrumental rationality in organizations high-level management and, second, a re-assessment of the role played by epistemology in building new knowledge in this field. The fulfillment of these two demands has allowed the identification of main guidelines, goals and principles, as well as some epistemological sources and backgrounds, which, with a greater effort, could build new knowledge with the characteristics of management sociology. The result paves the way to an innovative scientific sub-discipline, by means of some models and perspectives that will allow, inside sociology, the study of trends, contradictions and changes in a managerial action, linking scientific with ethic-political. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to organize my thoughts on the question of the production of knowledge in a society In the intermediate stage of social and economic development. These thoughts are based on the academic experience of the author on both the national and international level over almost fifty years. Some remarks are made as to the problems of those who write about sociology in Spanish. and not in the contemporary lingua franca, English. A theoretical approach is proposed to explain the relationship between knowledge and power, and is referred to as the mirror theory. Finally, some reflections are made as to the role of Ideology in sociological thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposes of this paper are: elaborate theoretical basis of the archive science cultural history; establish, as an analytical method in order to carry on historical research about archive science, social or representative image; and, explain proposed method on the basis of one of the most important indirect sources, memories and traveler tales. For all these reasons, the investigations should be routed to the so called social history of the cultural issue, linking archival science to its historical and institutional context. As a conclusion are demonstrated two elements is needed, obligatorily, to use different sources — direct and indirec- to analyze in a multidimensional way the history of the archive science; and, the extraordinary importance of the indirect sources for the representation of the historical-archive structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will try to establish an accurate criterion of equality for a deliberative democracy. In order to achieve this, I will begin by analyzing Rawls' proposal and Sen's criticisms to it. I will then present Guariglia's Principle of Autonomy and I will expound its problems. Finally, using Bohman's idea of "deliberative capability", I will present my own criterion of equality. According to this principle, the state has to guarantee every citizen the minimum threshold of material and intellectual abilities that will allow him or her to take part in public deliberation. However, once this threshold is achieved, citizens themselves are the ones to decide which conception of economic and social justice is the most appropriate for their political community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the social sciences has provided a network of technologies, knowledges, practices and discourses to regulate and govern society. The social sciences may play a central role in developing forms of social control. Modern 'knowledge societies' manage the production of scientific knowledge in a way that privileges the kind of thinking that is consistent with current hegemonic thought, and reduces the possibility of critical perspectives (Slaughter y Leslie, 1997, 2001). The social sciences are in the paradox of questioning the fundamentals of what they, in some sense, actively constitute. The development of post-fordist societies and our academic location in the belly of the beast (Haraway, 1991) prompts a reflection on the context, possibilities and forms of critical work in our present institutional circumstances. This paper considers the methodological principles and political implications of academic critical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I wish to argue that in 13th century epistemology, the perception of the physical world did include the apprehension of complex states of affairs which could also be grasped by some animals. By discussing Avicenna's and Aquinas' points of view regarding the concept of sensibile per accidens and the mental faculties of perception (vis aestimativa and vis cogitativa), I conclude that the perceptual act of discerning complex states of affairs is based upon a background knowledge in which language is a non-essential feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper claims that John Locke does not support an individualistic conception of society; that if he did (which is false), this would not bring him into conflict with a modern organic conception; that based on this, Bobbio's position lacks epistemic or heuristic value; and that, politically, individualism is not a progressive category of modern social formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion on the congress of American Sociological Association in San Francisco, California, in August 2004. To reflect on congresses and exhibitions is a sociological work since, in addition to the information that they provide on the development of the profession of sociologist, they have a symbolic considerable impact. Already before the globalization, several professional North American affiliations turn into the international affiliations of the discipline. What is discussed in the San Francisco congress has so many relevancy for Spain as the Eighth Spanish Congress of Sociology, in September, 2004 in Alicante, Spain. The majority of the specialties coincide. Some papers and debates are similar. The methodological problems are also common in both the congresses. The ideas that they discuss in the world, fortunately, already do not diminish to a geographical national ambience. Almost two hundred specific sessions with written communications have been distributed.

The central element that characterizes the new network society is precisely the increasing relevance of the network (relational systems) as a new organizational form structuring and articulating collective action. The terrorist attacks of September 11th and March 11th are clearly examples of this. One of the fundamental difficulties for understanding and dealing with these new phenomena is precisely their form and dynamics as networks, for which the dominant theoretical and methodological approaches found in Sociology (based on individual actors and categorical grouping) are not well suited. In this paper we will analyze the March 1 Ph terrorist network using the theoretical and methodological approach best suited to the phenomenon: network analysis. This approach allows us to analyze and visualize its composition and dynamics, the centrality of actors, and its internal cohesion. For this purpose we use relational matrixes, which contain the relationships (published by the mass media) among the accused, and specific statistical and visualization network programs (Ucinet6, Netdraw, Key Player). With this, we aim to demonstrate the importance and contribution of this new way of analysing social information in order to gain a better understanding of our social dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysed in this paper are the dynamics of the generation and transformation of social institutions. Two basic paradigms are studied and compared. The utilitarian framework or rational choice theories, according to which institutions are an attempt to overcome market failures through institutional mechanisms that lead to socially optimum situations, in the sense that they are preferable for the individual protagonists involved. Theories of a more sociological or culturalist nature, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of the cultural component of institutions, as well as their socio-historical determinants that evolve through complex social processes. While the former provide theoretically contrastable solutions for a range of limited problems, the latter analyse deeper problems, although at the risk of producing less conclusive results. In particular, the difference between both conceptions of social institutions become clear when the factors that give rise to the development of institutions, as well as the processes through which institutional frameworks change and evolve in response to different factors, are analysed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the 20th Century strong transformations were produced in the field of science. The biological sciences opened up epistemologically in order to offer new explanatory models which superceded the physical, anti-historical and formalistic models. The innovations involved in the evolutionary theory of Darwinism established a new scientific practice, the potentiality of which goes far beyond traditional disciplinary limits. The thesis of Darwin included explanatory models to explain contingent phenomenon, and were applicable to other problems and questionings, widening in this manner the field of possibilitites in scientific explanation. This paper proposes an extension of this analysis to the field of sociology, which, since its birth, has been studied as part of the organicist metaphor, as is testified to in the works of many authors considered as classic theorists (Comte, Spencer, Durkheim). The attention herein centers on the influence of the biologist conception as found in Emile Durkheim, considering as well the ontological and methodological suppositions underlying the normative framework of his work, and taking into account the criteria offered by P. Kitcher in his conceptualization of "scientific practice" as a unit of analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THIS PAPER TRIES TO REVISE SOME ASPECTS OF THE THEMES RELATIVELY COMMON TO THE SOCIOLOGY, SOCIAL PSICOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY REFERENT TO THE MORAL AND VALUES, IN THE FRAME OF ETHICS AND LAW. THE ANALYSIS IS MADE TRYING TO ELABORATE A FRAME ESPECIALLY PHILOSOPHICAL AND HAVING AS A BEGINNING THE DEBATE BETWEEN UNIVERSALISM VERSUS RELATIVISM, INCLUDING ASPECTS OF THE WORK OF ORELLANA, M.E. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to analyze some implications of popular social movements as an ‘expression’ of governance and the formation of social capital to enhance Institutionalization of gobernability. At the same time that some conclusions are obtained possible new developments are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze Latin American magazines as documents of culture, in terms of Benjamin, because they allow us to dissect a particular state of the intellectual field. Also collective texts help us to understand cultural and political projects developed in a period of time. Since they are discursive forms related to journalism, the reviews are seen here as a symptom of dependence between the press and literature, one of the prominent features of our process of cultural autonomy. Likewise, we offer methodological proposals to approach these texts based on the confluence between the History of Ideas and the Sociology of Culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper tries to measure the journalist's initiative, where it's considered to express himself more freely, in order to accomplish two goals: on one hand, update data about his consideration, status and professional self esteem; on the other hand, discover new challenges he presently confronts, consequence of recent organization schemes inside newsrooms. With this in mind, it's suggested that initiative of that particular professional profile should express more spontaneously within newsrooms, side by side with other professional profiles, where it should acquire more entity and character. Research observation has centred in newsrooms, focusing in daily communication processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper criticizes multicausal and penal impunity explanations of violence and crime. It shows the analytical limits of identifying state and social institutional failure with objective causes of violence. But also highlights that impunity indicators cannot be confused with impunity itself. After showing those limits, it proposes an alternative approach based on two central facts that have been ignored: organized crime nature and the breakdown of colombian justice and security systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mass media and the cultural industry as a whole have always been regarded as debilitating or even destructive of local and regional cultures, also putting at risk their cultural identities. The aim of this paper is to reflect upon alternative ways of thinking about the roles of the mass media and the possibility of creating new identities in a society which is becoming more complex and global. The analysis starts from empirical data on the cultural identity of the people of the southernmost Brazilian state, who, despite the mass media, and many times with its support, strengthen and renew themselves. The analysis is supported in theories that take into account the communicative aspect of culture and the cultural aspect of communication, that is, that give cultural status to mass media, allowing us to think of them an outlining element of new cultural identities. These identities can no longer be considered in traditional ways, but as a part of communication processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is based on an Anglo-French comparative study whose objective has been to link the normally separated fields of study, social mobility and the family. After presenting some crucial findings, the author rises the question that why family approach to the study of social mobility has been so slow taken by sociologists. A political reason linked to some stereotypes and a predominant “male” vision of society underlies this. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This collective paper takes a theoretical and empirical look at an unequal flows of television programs between cultures. This unequal change has been termed “media imperialism. ” The authors propose to look at the issues in terms of a more complex and dynamic set of relationships which they call “asymmetrical interdependence,” in which various nations and cultures have varying range of production and importation of TV programs, in context of a series of independent but asymmetrical relationships, economic, technological and cultural. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the skeleton of a first-stage sample survey of six Mexican cities (Colima, Guadalajara, Leon, Mexico, Puebla and Veracruz) focusing on the different ways in which a probabalistic and quoted sample, representing approximately 85% of the Mexican urban population, perceives soap operas. An open and closed questionnaire, utilizing Likert's classic scales, provides much classified quantitative and qualitative information about who watches soap operas in Mexico (sex, social class, age), and the different ways in which viewers are related and have made a social appropriation of soap operas. This is one of the few current academic studies on the problematic relationship between social structures and television drama in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]