Download Social Change - Introduction to Sociology and World Economic

School of Business Administration
IU – VNU HCMC
Introduction to Sociology
Instructor:
Dr. Truong Thi Kim Chuyen
USSH – VNU HCMC
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Chapter 16
Social Movements, Social Change, And
Technology
Chapter Outline
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Social Movements
Theories of Social Change
Resistance to Social Change
Technology and the Future
Technology and Society
Social Policy and Technology: Privacy and
Censorship in a Global Village
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Learning Objectives
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Social movements are organized collective activities to
promote or resist to change. Social change is significant
alteration over time in behavior patterns and culture,
including norms and values.
Technology is information about how to use the
material resources of the environment to satisfy human
needs and desires.
This chapter examines social movements and their role
in social change, sociological theories of social change,
resistance to change, and the impact of technology on
society and on social change.
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Social Movements
 Social
Movements
refer to organized
collective activities to bring about or resist
fundamental change in an existing group or
society.
 Social Change is a significant alteration over
time in behavior patterns and culture.
Social Movements
Relative Deprivation
• Relative
Deprivation is defined as the
conscious feeling of negative discrepancy
between legitimate expectations and present
actualities.
Social Movements
Resource Mobilization
•Resource Mobilization refers to the ways in
which a social movement utilizes such
resources.
•False Consciousness are attitudes that do
not reflect workers’ objective position.
Social Movements
New Social Movements
•New Social Movements refers to organized
collective activities that promote autonomy and
self-determination as well as improvements in
the quality of life.
Theories of Social Change
Evolutionary Theory
• Evolutionary Theory: This theory views society as
moving in a definite direction, generally progressing
to a higher state.
• Unilinear Evolutionary Theory
This theory contends that all societies pass through
the same successive stages of evolution and reach
the same end.
• Multilinear Evolutionary Theory
This theory holds that change can occur in several
ways and does not inevitably lead in the same
direction.
Theories of Social Change
Functionalist Theory
• Functionalist Theory: This theory focuses on
what maintains a system, not what changes it.
Talcott Parsons was a leading proponent of
functionalist theory.
• Equilibrium Model: As changes occur in one
part of society, there must be adjustments in
other parts. If this does not happen, strains will
occur and the society’s equilibrium will be
threatened.
Theories of Social Change
Functionalist Theory
•Parsons maintained that four processes of social
change are inevitable:
differentiation
adaptive upgrading
inclusion
value generalization
Theories of Social Change
Conflict Theory
•Conflict theory holds that change has crucial
significance, since it is needed to correct social
injustices and inequalities.
•Marx argued that with societal evolution, each
successive stage is not an inevitable
improvement over the previous one.
Theories of Social Change
Global Social Change
•This is a truly dramatic time in history to consider
global social change.
•Socio-political changes can be predicted.
•Sociologists must also be able to recognize
upheavals and major chaotic shifts that set global
changes in motion.
Resistance to Social Change
Economic and Cultural Factors
•In a capitalist economic system, many firms are
not willing to pay the price of meeting strict safety
standards.
•They may resist social change by:
cutting corners
pressuring government to ease regulations
Resistance to Social Change
Economic and Cultural Factors
•Nonmaterial culture typically must respond to
changes in material culture.
•Culture Lag : Describes the period of
maladjustment during which the nonmaterial
culture is still adapting to new material conditions.
Resistance to Social Change
Resistance to Technology
•Neo-Luddites: Neo-Luddites are those who are
wary of technological innovations and who
question the expansion of industrialization, the
increasing destruction of the natural and agrarian
world, and the “throw it away” mentality of
contemporary capitalism.
Technology and the Future
Computer Technology
•Telecommuting: Telecommuters are employees
who work at home rather than in an outside office
and who are linked to their workplace through
computer terminals, phone lines, and fax
machines.
Technology and the Future
The Internet
•The Internet, the world’s largest computer
network, evolved from a computer system built in
1962 by the U.S. Defense Department.
•The expansion of the Internet has led to a
proliferation of chat rooms and webpages where
people exchange information.
Technology and the Future
Geographical Distribution of Internet Hosts, January 2000
Technology and the Future
Biotechnology
•Sex Selection
--Advances in technology allow us to
ascertain the presence of certain defects that
require medical procedures prior to birth, and
these advances have also brought us closer
to effective techniques for sex selection.
--In some societies, couples planning to have
only one child want to insure this child is a
boy.
Technology and the Future
Biotechnology
•Genetic Engineering
--Genetic engineering may make possible the
altering of human behavior.
--Genetic engineering’s recent development,
gene therapy, involves disabling genes
carrying unfavorable traits and replacing them
with genes carrying desirable traits.
Technology and the Future
Biotechnology
•Bioterrorism
--Scientists have long recognized that
chemical and biological agents can be used
intentionally as weapons of mass destruction.
--The 2001 Anthrax scare in the U.S. mails
underscored the relative ease with which
biotechnology can be used for hostile
purposes.
Technology and the Future
Technology Accidents
•Normal Accidents: Failures that are inevitable
given the manner in which human and
technological systems are organized.
•As technology continues to advance at a rapid
pace, there are always new possibilities for
accidents.
•Sociological imagination can assist us in
understanding the past and present and
anticipating and adjusting to the future.
Technology and Society
Culture and Social Interaction
•Because of the Internet, English has become the
international language of commerce and
communication.
Technology and Society
Figure 16.1: Projected Language Use on the Internet, 2003
Technology and Society
Figure 16.2: Internet Access in the United States, 2000
Technology and Society
Social Control
•With Big Brother watching in more places,
computer and video technologies have facilitated
supervision, control, and even domination by
employers or government.
•Technology has created new opportunity for
white collar crime, computer crime.
Technology and Society
Stratification and Inequality
•There is little evidence that technology will
reduce inequality; in fact, technology may
intensify inequality.
•Conflict theorists argue that the disenfranchised
poor may be isolated from mainstream society
into an information ghetto.
Technology and Society
Percent of Households
100
80
Automobiles
Televisions
60
Cellular telephones
Electric power
40
Home computers
20
0
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
2000
Household Adoption of Selected Technologies Since 1900
Source: Office of the President. 2000. Economic Report of the President: Transmitted to
the Congress, February 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, p. 100.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
The
Issue
--The buying and selling of personal information is
a big industry.
--Privacy laws have so many loopholes and are so
patchy that it is often difficult to distinguish
between data that are obtained legally and data
that are gathered illicitly.
--The issue of privacy and censorship in this
technological age is another case of culture lag in
which the material culture is changing faster than
cultural norms.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
The
Setting
--Personal information about a typical consumer
is included in dozens of marketing databases.
--The question of free expression on the Internet
raises questions of censorship.
--Efforts to censor pornography on the Internet
have been struck down.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
Sociological
Insights
 Functionalists can point to the manifest function of
the Internet in its ability to facilitate
communications. They also identify the latent
function of providing a forum for groups with few
resources to communicate with literally tens of
millions of people.
 Functionalists see many aspects of technology
fostering communication.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
Sociological
Insights (continued)
--Some observers insist that we benefit from such
innovations and can exist quite well with a bit less
privacy.
--Viewed from the conflict perspective, there is the
ever-present danger that a society’s most
powerful groups will use technological advances
to invade the privacy of the less powerful.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
•Sociological Insights (continued)
--Interactionists view the privacy and
censorship debate as one that parallels
concerns people have in any social interaction.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
Policy
Initiatives
--Civil liberties advocates insist that legislation
to ban the transmission of “indecent” material
infringes on private communications between
consenting adults and inevitably limits freedom
of speech.
--Censorship and privacy are also issues
globally where some governments regulate
technology use such as fax machines and the
Internet.
Social Policy and Technology
Privacy and Censorship in a
Global Village
Policy
Initiatives (continued)
--While some people chastise government
efforts to curb technology, others decry their
failure to limit certain aspects of technology.
--The U.S. is developing an international
reputation of being opposed to efforts to protect
people’s privacy.
--As technology continues to advance, there are
sure to be new battlegrounds over privacy and
censorship.
Key terms
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Culture lag: A period of maladjustment when the
nonmaterial culture is still struggling to adapt to new
material conditions
Equilibrium model: The functionalist view that society
tends toward a state of stability or balance.
Evolutionary theory: A theory of social change that
holds that society is moving in a definite direction.
False consciousness : to describe an attitudes that do
not reflect workers’ objective position.
Luddites: Rebellious craft workers in 19th century
England who destroyed new factory machinery as part
of their resistance to the industrial revolution.
Multilinear Evolutionary Theory: This theory holds that
change can occur in several ways and does not inevitably
lead in the same direction.
New social movements: An organized collective activity
that address values and socil identities, as well as
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improvements in the quality of life.
Key terms




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Relative Deprivation: The conscious feeling of negative discrepancy
between legitimate expectations and present actualities.
Resource mobilization: refers to the ways in which a social
movement utilizes such resources.
Social change: significant alteration over time in behavior patterns
and culture, including norms and values.
Social movement: An organized collective activities to bring about
or resist fundamental change in an existing group or society.
Technology: information about how to use the material resources
of the environment to satisfy human needs and desires.
Unilinear Evolutionary Theory: This theory contends that all
societies pass through the same successive stages of evolution and
reach the same end.
Vested interests: those people or groups who will suffer in the
event of social change, and who have a stake in maintaining the
status quo.
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SUMMARY
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A social movement is an organized collective activity to
promote or resist change.
Social change is significant alteration over time in behavior
patterns and culture, including norms and values.
Technology is information about how to use the material
resources of the environment to satisfy human needs and
desires. This chapter examines origins and types of social
movements, sociological theories of social change, resistance
to change, and the impact of technology on society's future
and on social change.
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SUMMARY
A group will not mobilize into a social movement unless
there is a shared perception that its relative
deprivation can be ended only through collective action.
 The success of a social movement will depend in good part
on how effectively it mobilizes its resources.
 New social movements tend to focus on more than just
economic issues and often cross national boundaries.
 Early advocates of the evolutionary theory of social
change believed that society was progressing inevitably
toward a higher state.
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SUMMARY
Talcott Parsons, a leading advocate of functionalist
theory, viewed society as being in a natural state of
equilibrium or balance.
 Conflict theorists see change as having crucial
significance, since it is needed to correct social injustices
and inequalities.
 In general, those with a disproportionate share of
society's wealth, status, and power have a vested
interest in preserving the status quo, and will resist
change.
 The period of maladjustment when a nonmaterial
culture is still adapting to new material conditions is
known as culture lag.
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SUMMARY
In the computer age, telecommuters are
linked to their supervisors and colleagues
through computer terminals, phone lines, and
fax machines.
 The Internet is the world's largest computer
network, used by hundreds of millions. Yet
access to it is not equal.
 Advances in biotechnology have raised difficult
ethical questions about the sex selection of
fetuses and genetic engineering.
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SUMMARY
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Social scientists focus on human error in the normal
accidents associated with increasing reliance on
technology.
English has become the dominant language of the
Internet and the international language of commerce
and communication.
Computer and video technology have facilitated
supervision, control, and even domination of workers
and citizens by employers and the government.
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SUMMARY
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Conflict theorists fear that the disenfranchised poor may be
isolated from mainstream society in an "information ghetto,"
just as racial and ethnic minorities have been subjected to
residential segregation.
Computer technology has made it increasingly easy for any
individual, business firm, or government agency to retrieve
more and more information about any of us, thereby infringing
on our privacy. How much government should restrict access
to electronic information and how much it should censor such
content are important policy issues.
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
http://highered.mcgrawhill.com/sites/0072824131/student_view0/
chapter16/multiple_choice.html
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