Gabe Ignatow

What has globalization done to developing countries’ public libraries?

The goal of this article is to highlight the major trends in the establishment of public libraries in developing countries under conditions of globalization. Based on a review of research from library history and the sociology of culture, the author develops hypotheses about the conditions under which public libraries are likely to be established in relatively large numbers in developing countries. Analysis of historical trends in library establishments and crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis of UNESCO data on public libraries in six developing nations reveal that globalization is associated with decreasing or flat numbers of public libraries on a per capita basis. The only observed exceptions are Malaysia and Chile, where public libraries have been established in large numbers partly for purposes of national integration as a counter to sectarian and ethnic heterogeneity. Implications of these findings for research in the information society paradigm, and for development theory, are discussed.

Pierre Bourdieu: theorizing the digital

ABSTRACT Pierre Bourdieu is known for his research in the areas of education and cultural stratification that led to a number of theoretical contributions informing the social sciences. Bourdieu’s interrelated concepts of field, capital, and habitus have become central in many approaches to inequality and stratification across the social sciences. In addition, we argue that Bourdieu’s ideas also feature in what is increasingly known as ‘digital sociology.’ To underscore this claim, we explore the ways in which Bourdieu’s ideas continue to have a major impact on social science research both on and with digital and Internet-based technologies. To do so, we offer a review of both Bourdieusian theorizing of the digital vis-à-vis both research on the social impacts of digital communication technologies and the application of digital technologies to social science research methods. We contend that three interconnected features of Bourdieu’s sociology have allowed his approach to flourish in the digital age: (1) his theories’ inseparability from the practice of empirical research; (2) his ontological stance combining realism and social constructionism; and (3) his familiarity with concepts developed in other disciplines and participation in interdisciplinary collaborative projects. We not only reason that these three factors go some way in accounting for Bourdieu’s influence in many sociological subfields, but we also suggest that they have been especially successful in positioning Bourdieusian sociology to take advantage of opportunities associated with digital communication technologies.

Social isolation, drunkenness, and cigarette use among adolescents

INTRODUCTION This study compares isolated to sociable youth to investigate the relations between different network types of social isolation and alcohol and cigarette use. METHODS Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health we developed a network measure that includes various types of social isolation. Types of social isolation were operationalized as socially avoidant, actively isolated, and socially disinterested, with sociable youth as the reference category. Random effects ordinal logit models were fit to estimate the association between different types of social isolation and drunkenness and cigarette use. RESULTS Different types of social isolation had varying effects on drunkenness and cigarette use. On the one hand, socially disinterested youth were at an increased risk for drunkenness and cigarette use. On the other hand, socially avoidant youth had lower odds of drunkenness and no significant differences in cigarette use when compared to sociable youth. Actively isolated youth showed no differences in drunkenness and cigarette use. CONCLUSIONS The role played by marginalized social positions in youth substance use is an important yet overlooked problem. This study can contribute to better targeted and more effective health behavior prevention efforts for vulnerable adolescents.

Agenda setting and active audiences in online coverage of human trafficking

ABSTRACT Online news platforms and social media increasingly influence the public agenda on social issues such as human trafficking. Yet despite the popularity of online news and the availability of sophisticated tools for analyzing digital texts, little is known about the relations between news coverage of human trafficking and audiences’ reactions to and interpretations of such coverage. In this paper, we examine journalists’ and commenters’ topic choices in coverage and discussion of human trafficking in the British newspaper The Guardian from 2009 to 2014. We use latent semantic analysis to identify 11 topics discussed by both journalists and readers, and analyze each topic in terms of the degree to which journalists and readers agree or disagree in their topic preferences. We find that four topics were preferred equally by journalists and commenters, four were preferred by journalists, and three were preferred by commenters. Our findings suggest that theories of ‘agenda setting’ and of the ‘active audience’ are not mutually exclusive, and the scope of explanation of each depends partly on the specific topic or subtopic that is analyzed.

Sentiment Analysis of Polarizing Topics in Social Media: News Site Readers’ Comments on the Trayvon Martin Controversy

Abstract Purpose The authors apply topic sentiment analysis (several relatively new text analysis methods) to the study of public opinion as expressed in social media by comparing reactions to the Trayvon Martin controversy in spring 2012 by commenters on the partisan news websites the Huffington Post and Daily Caller. Methodology/approach Topic sentiment analysis is a text analysis method that estimates the polarity of sentiments across units of text within large text corpora (Lin & He, 2009; Mei, Ling, Wondra, Su, & Zhai, 2007). Findings We apply topic sentiment analysis to public opinion as expressed in social media by comparing reactions to the Trayvon Martin controversy in spring 2012 by commenters on the partisan news websites the Huffington Post and Daily Caller. Based on studies that depict contemporary news media as an “outrage industry” that incentivizes media personalities to be controversial and polarizing (Berry & Sobieraj, 2014), we predict that high-profile commentators will be more polarizing than other news personalities and topics. Originality/value Results of the topic sentiment analysis support this prediction and in so doing provide partial validation of the application of topic sentiment analysis to online opinion.

Social Isolation, Strain, and Youth Violence:

This article examines the relationship between types of social isolation and violent delinquency. Deriving hypotheses from elements of general strain theory, we test whether the isolation–violence relationship varies across different types of isolated youth when compared to sociable youth. We also test whether other negative experiences and circumstances (types of social strain) associated with adolescence moderate the relationship between isolation types and violent delinquency. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find that different types of social isolation had varying effects on violent delinquency. Socially disinterested youth show a greater capacity for violent behavior, but other types of marginalized youth showed no difference in violence when compared to sociable youth. Results also demonstrate that some types of strain moderate the isolation–violence relationship. The implications of these findings for research on peer relations, adolescent strain, and violence are discussed.

Generational Peers and Alcohol Misuse

This study investigates the influence of generational peers on alcohol misuse among immigrant youth. We derive hypotheses from sociological theories of generations regarding race/ethnicity, gender, and immigrant generation and test these hypotheses using a measure that accounts for the proportion of peers within a given peer network that are of the same immigrant generation. Results show that generational ties decreased the odds of alcohol misuse for immigrants and that these effects depend partly on race/ethnicity and gender. We conclude that generational ties play a meaningful role in the health and well-being of immigrant youth, and discuss possible future avenues for research on immigrant generational peers.

National Identity and the Informational Welfare State: Turkey and Malaysia Compared

Researchers have found a number of economic, technological, and political factors to be associated with the diffusion of information technology in developing countries. But cultural factors generally, and national identity in particular, have almost never been viewed as consequential. Castells and Himanens 2002 study of the information society in Finland, in which the authors identify Finnish national culture as an impetus to the development of the countrys informational welfare state, is the most prominent exception to this pattern. This article provides a critical overview of Castells and Himanens research and revises their conceptual framework to focus on the specific choices states make in constructing their national identities and the effects of these choices on information policy and information technology diffusion. It demonstrates the value of this revised framework through a comparison of the historical trajectories of Turkey and Malaysias nation-building projects, the incentives these projects have created for the two countries’ social and political elites, and the public information policies and programs that have resulted.

Embodiment and Culture

Influenced by developments in cognitive neuroscience and by internal disciplinary debates, social scientists are rethinking what culture is, how it is learned, and how it ought to be studied. Rather than imagining culture as systems of abstract symbols contained within the minds of individuals, scholars are increasingly analyzing culture in terms of embodied practices (including linguistic and cognitive practices) learned as techniques and ingrained as habits. Some of the major theoretical and methodological developments that have attended this conceptual shift are reviewed here.

Advertising and Cultural Politics in Global Times

Perhaps it is the C. Wright Mills legacy, run through forty-some years of my teaching Introduction to Sociology, contrasting ‘‘troubles’’ with ‘‘issues,’’ biography with history, but I find myself particularly intrigued when a sociologist turns to (auto)biography. And not just any sociologist. This is Peter Berger who, along with Thomas Luckmann, changed my life and made me who I am— or at least let me understand who I am. I took my undergraduate theory class in the summer of my freshman year. And after reading Berger’s biography, I was shocked to learn that was just three years after Berger and Luckmann published The Social Construction of Reality. I still own that book; it is one of the few ‘‘theory’’ books that made the cut when I downsized my library to an apartment from a big house. That copy of The Social Construction of Reality, with its highlighting, underlining, exclamation points and scribbles all over the margins, is the document of my birth as a sociologist. So this is the most intimidating book review I have ever faced. I know just about nothing about the sociology of religion, nothing about many of the areas in which Berger has worked and published. I am, as almost anyone would be, impressed with his long list of books, the many areas in which he has worked and contributed, all around the world. A review of his work requires a group effort, just the kind of research group he himself has been so successful at convening. Berger’s tone, the engaging humor, reminds me of one of my elderly uncles. He describes his arrival at the New School to learn sociology as a kind of accident, not realizing how totally marginal it was to mainstream American sociology, offering us the old Jewish joke about the Chinese waiter speaking Yiddish. When a customer is surprised, the owner hushes him: ‘‘He thinks he’s learning English!’’ And we’re off—I am listening to one of my beloved uncles. As he recounts his extraordinarily productive life, I am sometimes in awe, but much as with my uncles, sometimes wincing with embarrassment. This is, as titled, a book of Berger’s adventures as a sociologist, not an autobiography of his life in full. A first marriage comes and goes in a sentence—his children do the same. Brigitte Berger, his wife, does show up now and again throughout the book, but his family life is dismissed with this reference to his early years at the Hartford Seminary Foundation: ‘‘The Hartford years were biographically important both personally and intellectually. I started life with Brigitte, and our two sons were born there.’’ He continues with a sentence or two on her writing, and his own leaving behind of neoorthodox theology and coming to ‘‘liberal Lutheranism’’ (p. 77). Berger spends some time explaining that his religious life is a very important part of who he is, but separate from his life as a sociologist, using as one of many Jewish references (those of us who did not follow his work in the sociology of religion can be forgiven for having thought he was Jewish): a Weberian notion of kosher cooking, keeping fleshy science separate from milky religion. I can respect and appreciate that, both the separation and the places where the separation utterly falls apart. What is most interesting is that it really does not even occur to him that other parts of his life/identity may be worth attending to in his intellectual development. He is, after all, a white man—and I gather that that identity and its privilege do not strike him as noteworthy. Berger was one of the gods of my life, but like many others, he crashes when feminism comes in. His tales of ‘‘militant feminists’’ in a chapter (wince) called ‘‘Politically Incorrect Excursions’’ all but breaks my heart. Militant? As one of my friends asked when