Tag: power

  • The pluralist view of the media

    media owners are driven by profit, journalists are free from direct control and audiences control content through consumer demand.

  • Is religion ideological?

    If sociologists refer to religion as being ‘ideological’, they typically mean the beliefs and practices of that religion support powerful groups in society, effectively keeping the existing ruling class, or elites, in power. The idea that religion is ideological is usually associated with Marxist and Radical Feminist Perspectives. This sub-topic overlaps with ‘religion as a…

  • Nudge Politics: a sociological analysis

    Nudge Politics: a sociological analysis

    ‘nudge politics’ involves governments implementing small social policy measures to help people make the ‘right decisions’. This post considers some of the pros and cons of this type of social policy agenda.

  • Knowing Capitalism and Lively Data

    Knowing Capitalism and Lively Data Nigel Thrift (2005) developed the concept of ‘knowing capitalism’ to denote a new form of global economy which depends not only on technologies which generate large amounts of digital data, but also on the commodification of that data: a big data economy in which power operates through modes of communication,…

  • The Scale of the World’s Largest Corporations

    I thought it’d be useful to do a little post on the sheer scale of global corporations, so below I simply list the top 10 by revenue and then in italics next to them I’ve put the countries who rank immediately below them by nominal GDP* at 2016 figures. The Fortune 500 magazine publishes the…

  • Top Ten ‘Big Questions’ for A-Level Sociology Students

    Does society shape the individual? Do class, gender, ethnicity influence our life chances? How and why do societies change?

  • What is Racism?

    Racism is discrimination based on the idea that some groups are biologically superior to others.

  • Sociological Perspectives on Identity

    A summary of Michel Foucault’s work on identity, deviance and normality, governmentality, subjectification and technologies of the self, taken from Steph Lawler’s ‘Identity’ (2014) – also includes Nikolas Rose’s development of Foucault’s work. If there’s one central idea in this chapter (IMO) it’s this – ‘In today’s society, we have little choice but to be tied…

  • The radical feminist perspective on power and control in relationships

    The Radical Feminist viewpoint is that relationships are the primary means through which men control women and maintain their power over them in society. Probably the most shocking evidence which supports this view is the continued prevalence of domestic violence. According to the BCS (2007) this accounts for a sixth of all violent crime and…