School of Business Administration IU VNU HCMC Introduction

School of Business Administration IU – VNU HCMC Introduction to Sociology Instructor: Dr. Truong Thi Kim Chuyen USSH – VNU HCMC 1

Chapter 16 Social Movements, Social Change, And Technology Chapter Outline • • • 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 2

Learning Objectives 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. 3

Social Movements ü Social Movements refer to organized collective activities to bring about or resist fundamental change in an existing group or society. ü Social Change is a significant alteration over time in behavior patterns and culture.

Social Movements v. Relative Deprivation • Relative Deprivation is defined as the conscious feeling of negative discrepancy between legitimate expectations and present actualities.

Social Movements v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. Functionalist Theory • Parsons maintained that four processes of social change are inevitable: differentiation adaptive upgrading inclusion value generalization

Theories of Social Change v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 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 v. 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 v. 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 v. 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 60 Automobiles Televisions 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 v. Privacy and Censorship in a Global Village l. 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 v. Privacy and Censorship in a Global Village l. 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 v. Privacy and Censorship in a Global Village l. Sociological Insights ü 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. ü Functionalists see many aspects of technology fostering communication.

Social Policy and Technology v. Privacy and Censorship in a Global Village l. 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 v. 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 v. Privacy and Censorship in a Global Village l. 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 v. Privacy and Censorship in a Global Village l. 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 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 19 th 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 36 well as improvements in the quality of life.

Key terms 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 37 maintaining the status quo.

SUMMARY 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. • 38

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. 39

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. 40

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. 41

SUMMARY 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. 42

SUMMARY 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. 43

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