Introduction to the special issue Weber, the press and sociology, then and now

Abstract

[MWS 13.2 (2013) 137-150] ISSN 1470-8078 Introduction to the special issue Weber, the press and sociology, then and now Isabelle Darmon and Carlos Frade Keywords: Weber, cultural domains, press, media, sociology, rationalization, big data, temporality, corporate field. Courses on the 'classics' of the social sciences at the University reg ularly seek to allure students by pledging to explore these authors from the angle of their 'contemporary relevance'. Apart from having become somewhat trite and thus probably already failing to spur any intellectual curiosity, such expression seems to endorse an atti tude to intellectual inquiry along the lines of the rather widespread 'what's in it for us?'—which seems to suffocate any germ of open mindedness—or scholasticism and the confinement of interest in the classics to historical research. However, if the notion of classics has any meaning beyond that of a reference to a petrified and petrifying canon, does not such meaning lie precisely in their ongoing ques tioning of our present and, more particularly, on how our own time will look to their eyes? Drawing the implications of such a stance toward the classics is of course not straightforward. It is not for us to say that we may have achieved this in this special issue of Max Weber Studies. Neverthe less it is also true to say that this ambition to reverse modes of read ing Weber is what spurred the Max Weber Study Group of the British Sociological Association to set up a seminar series re-examining well-known and less well-known texts by Max Weber on issues that demand new thinking and taking a stance today—including the University; the print media; and financial markets. In entitling the seminar series 'Thinking the Present with Max Weber' we sought to convey an initial idea of that ambition to put Weber's thought to work in our time—an ambition whose full scope is better expressed through the perhaps more daunting idea of 'bringing to bear' (Frade© Max Weber Studies 2013, Clifton House, 17 Malvern Road, London, E8 3LP. 138 Max Weber Studies 2013a) Weber's thought on our present. This involves not a simple application but an active mobilization of Weber's thought, unfold ing its unrealised theoretical possibilities and eventually develop ing new conceptual constructions, in a confrontation with our own time. The seminar series was conceived of as a first step towards this much broader task. The second such seminar-workshop addressed the 'press, jour nalism and public opinion' and aimed to bring together Weberian and non-Weberian media and communication scholars and sociol ogists to reflect on the present situation of the press and the media through a renewed engagement with Weber's thought. Some of the speakers focused more on the understanding of Weber's texts on the press; others, on the current predicament of the press, journal ists and our own predicament as public opinion. But the overall and shared aim was to come out of this one day seminar with new ques tions. As Weber said to the members of the newly formed Deutsche Gesellscliaft für Soziologie (the German Sociological Society, hereafter DGS) in its first congress in 1910: 'for the formulation of the actual central questions to work on is indeed the decisive scientific task' (Weber 1988a: 436). The first terrain he suggested for it to carry out such task was, pre cisely, a sociological survey of the press (Press-Enquête). It is mainly with the texts written by Weber in connection with that survey as well as with his analysis of journalism in 'Politics as a Vocation and Profession' that contributors to the seminar-workshop, and to this special issue, refer. These include: - the Vorbericht über eine vorgeschlagene Erhebung über die Sozi ologie des Zeitungswesens, henceforth Vorbericht ('Preliminary report on a proposed sociological survey of the press') pre sented to the Board of the newly constituted DGS in April 1909 (Hennis, 1998:109); and - the Geschäftsbericht auf dem ersten deutschen Soziologi etage, henceforth Geschäftsbericht, Weber's report to the DGS in October 1910.1 1. The Geschäftsbericht was included by Marianne Weber in the Cesammelte A uf stitze zur...