The Place of Invisible Religion and New Media Folklore in the Social Construction of Reality

The paper is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the edition of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality. It was the occasion to convince about a real impact of this famous book, that was translated into Czech in 1999, on the thinking and the vocabulary of Slovak and Czech sociologists. But after initial interest in this book the sociological public gradually stopped at its formal recognition. However, even those sociologists who expressed interest in the theory of Berger and Luckmann, did not taken it as a theoretical whole, with own particular philosophical program. They are satisfied by choosing from social constructivism some original concepts, that as well as „symbolic universe“ must roofed their own account. It seems, that sociologists are afraid of social constructivism for its epistemological position, which is constant challenge to the realistic approach in sociology. However, these issues may be best resolved through discussions on philosophical and epistemological topics. We note three epistemological positions, each of which was a serious challenge to the idea of social construction. The first is the position of the classical epistemological realism. The second is the principle of philosophical apriorism, which is a prerequisite for any constructivism. The third position is presented by the theory of objectivation. This principle is a component of the social constructivism. We present each of these epistemological principles as one side of an imaginary triangle. The theory of social construction of reality is closed inside this triangle. This theory is the object of the philosophical influence of the three aforementioned teachings. They embody for it the pattern of philosophising, because they state the criteria of its philosophical competence. Therefore our proposed imaginary „epistemological triangle“ was used as a test tool for to ascertain the impact of various philosophical doctrines on ideological profile of social constructivism. The use of this triangle helped us to look deeper into the philosophical foundations of social constructivism and to verify their authenticity. It also helped us to dispel fears of social constructivism and of its allegedly excessive subjectivism.

Reflection on Social Construction of Reality

Purpose. To analyse the philosophical and psychological contexts of social expectations of personality, to form general scientific provisions, to reveal the properties, patterns of formation, development and functioning of social expectations as a process, result of reflection and construction of social reality. Theoretical basis of the study is based on the phenomenology of E. Husserl, the social constructivism philosophy of L. S. Vygotskiy, P. Berger, T. Luckmann, K. J. Gergen, ideas of constructive alternativeism of G. Kelly, psychology of social expectations of a personality as the unity of the mental process, mental state and properties of expectations. Originality. Social expectations of personality are considered as philosophical and psychological dimensions of the study, presented by analysing expectations in social constructivism, externalizing, building a model of the expected future. The authors clarified some theoretical and methodological aspects of the study of patterns of social expectations in the reflection and construction of social reality. The role of social institutions in the formation of expectations is outlined. The poly-aspect of the investigated problems is shown. It is substantiated that formation, realization of social expectations in organization of interaction of personality and social environment is possible in the presence of subject, object and content of activity. Conclusions. Social expectations influence social behaviour and determine the behaviour of an individual, small contact group, community, or large mass of people. Social expectations are able to set specific requirements, norms, sanctions, ideals that participants of the process must follow or must not violate. The philosophical dimension of the study integrates the ontological, epistemological, axiological preconditions for the formation and realization of the social ideal, represented by the study of the expected future in the forms of utopia, eschatology and thanatology. Psychological dimension of the study has a sufficiently developed content orientation from the psychological content parameters of social expectations to the role of expectations in social institutions and various spheres of human life. Systematic, actionable, self-regulatory, and subjective approaches have constituted a verified system of interpreting the social expectations of personality as a process, a result of the reflection and construction of social reality. The topic of social expectations of personality is far from being completed, in our opinion it is promising to create a deeper philosophical concept of social expectations of the personality. The specific topics are of particular relevance in the context of socio-political uncertainty, domination of the mass consciousness, loss of national and cultural identity.

The social constructionism perspective says that we never know what universal true or false is, what is good or bad, right or wrong; we know only stories about true, false, good, bad, right or wrong. The social constructionism abandons the idea of constructivist that individual’s mind represents a mirror of reality. The constructionism is focused on relations and sustains the individual’s role in social construction of realities. „Maps for the same territory” seems to be the essence of constructivist. The social constructionism is not interested to create maps; it surprises the processes that maps form. Our maps are formed from our experience and how we perceive them. All our maps are differing maps of the same world. Each of us creates our own worlds from our perceptions of the actual world. The social constructionism sees the language, the communication and the speech as having the central role of the interactive process through which we understand the world and ourselves.

Bongaerts postulates that the similarities and complementarities of Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality and Bourdieu’s theory of practice are apparent only at the surface of these approaches. He argues that the theory of practice is incompatible with social constructivism due to the different theoretical architectures and theoretical attitudes of the two approaches: The theoretical core of social constructivism is the tradition of phenomenology reflecting the structure of a lifeworld within a regional ontology. As protosociology, it represent a philosophy of consciousness-driven theory. By contrast, theory of practice is a problem-driven approach. From Bongaerts’ point of view, there is no way to overcome the differences between a theory that is based on an ahistorical, regional ontology of actors and a theory that is problem-driven and historical at the core of its concepts. Nevertheless, Bongaerts identifies certain similarities: Both theories combine subjectivism and objectivism, ending up with a concept of nonconsciousness. However, following Bongaerts, social constructivism offers a subjectivistic explanation of objectivism, whereas theory of practice sees socialized actors as incapable of acting against specific dispositions. Moreover, theory of practice tries to make the way habitus works in the social world, whereas social constructivism aims to explain how habitus is produced. Despite these differences, Bongaerts sees potential for cross-fertilization. With regard to social constructivism, theory of practice shows that tacit knowledge plays a key role in reproducing social order. In turn, theory of practice can learn to understand what influence social actors have in order to typify situational and objectified knowledge.

Behaviors, emotions, and reasoning are influenced by the presence or absence of others - both physical and imagined. Social conventions, norms and values determine behaviors even in the physical absence of people who observe these respective behaviors and sanction them based on a continuous process of social control. The theory of a social constructed reality (social constructivism) will allow us to argue throughout the article the idea that nothing exists in society that does not have correspondences, components and psychological implications.

BackgroundUganda has low levels of death registration, estimated at two per cent by the National Identification and Registration Authority (NIRA). There are 56 tribes and over 5 religious denominations with so many social norms and religious practices that could have contributed to low death registration in Uganda. Previous studies on the factors affecting death registration have not assessed the contribution of social norms and religious practices toward low death registration in developing countries.MethodsA qualitative study design was adopted to examine the contribution of social norms and religious practices toward low death registration in the 3 Health and Demographic Surveillance systems (HDSS) sites of Uganda. The methods of data collection included: focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and a document review of the death registration booklet. 6 FGDs, 2 from each HDSS site were conducted comprising 1 female FGD of 10 participants and 1 male FGD of 10 participants. In addition, 26 key informant interviews were conducted with the district leaders, local council leaders, health care workers, cultural leaders, elderly, HDSS scouts and religious leaders in the 3 HDSS sites.ResultsIn the 4 sub-counties and 1 town council where the study was conducted, only 32 deaths were registered with NIRA, the Civil Registration authority in Uganda for the entire year from 1st January to 31st December 2020. The study shows that social norms and religious practices have contributed to the low death registration in the 3 HDSS sites in Uganda. Social norms and religious practices either hinder or discourage death registration initiatives by the government of Uganda. It was found out that burials that take place on the same day of death discourage death registration. Cultural taboo to announcing the death of infants, neonates, twins and suicides in the community hinder death registration. The burying of a woman at her parent's house after bride price payment default by the family of a husband discourages death registration. The religious institutions have their own set of rules, practices, and norms, which in most cases discourage death registration. For example, religious leaders refuse to lead funeral prayers for non-active members in religious activities. Results also showed that mixed religions in families bring about conflicts that undermine death registration. Lastly, results showed that traditionalists do not seek medical treatment in hospitals and this hinders death registration at the health facilities.ConclusionThe study shows that death registration is very low in the 3 HDSS sites in Uganda and that social norms and religious practices contribute greatly to the low death registration. To overcome the negative effects of social norms and religious practices, a social behaviour campaign is proposed. In addition, community dialogue should be conducted to identify all negative social norms and religious practices, how they are perpetuated, their effects, and how they can be renegotiated or eliminated to bring about high death registration in the 3 HDSS sites of Uganda. Lastly, there is a need for partnerships with cultural and religious leaders to sensitize community members on the effect of social norms and religious practices on low death registration in the 3 HDSS sites in Uganda.

Sociology of Health & IllnessVolume 9, Issue 4 p. 439-441 Free Access Social constructionism and medical sociology: a rejoinder to Nicolson and McLaughlin M.R. Bury, M.R. BurySearch for more papers by this author M.R. Bury, M.R. BurySearch for more papers by this author First published: December 1987 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.ep11339989Citations: 6AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat References Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. (1966) The Social Construction of Reality. London : Allen Lane. Bury, M.R. (1986) ‘Social Constructionism and the Development of Medical Sociology Sociology of Health and Illness 8, 2, 137– 169. Nicolson, M. and McLaughlin, C. (1987) ‘Social Constructionism and Medical Sociology’, Sociology of Health and Illness 9, 2, 107– 126. B.R. Wilson (ed). (1974) Rationality. Oxford : Blackwell. Citing Literature Volume9, Issue4December 1987Pages 439-441 ReferencesRelatedInformation

Cognitive processes and social norms in natural discourse at the marketplace

The article analyzes the features of “Generation Z” as a harbinger of future planetary civilization. Attention is paid to information and digital technologies that affect the world community, rapidly transforming it into a single world, forming a “digital generation” that is effectively adapted to the new socio-cultural reality and feels more “citizens of the world” than their own country. The article analyzes the features of “Generation Z” as a harbinger of future planetary civilization. Attention is paid to information and digital technologies that affect the world community, rapidly transforming it into a single world, forming a “digital generation” that is effectively adapted to the new socio-cultural reality and feels more “citizens of the world” than their own country. The most important condition for their socialization is the construction of social reality, adaptation to new environmental conditions, its symbolization, separation of “their world”, restructuring of environmental conditions according to the thesaurus, built under the influence of macro- and microsocial factors, according to its symbolic universe. The interconnected processes of globalization and informationalization of society are revealed, which directly blur the boundaries of the modern interstate system, creating a contradictory and heterogeneous global society with a cosmopolitan worldview. The cosmopolitan approach is substantiated, which, overcoming state borders, allows to go beyond national practices, promotes their integration into the new world context through the establishment of a “compromise” of cultural, religious, ethnic and other differences. Cosmopolitanism is becoming a worldview and ideological platform and ontological unity of the planetary community. The modern generation needs to find its own way of mastering society. In order to understand the vicissitudes and metamorphoses of the modern world, we need a different perception of reality and the transformation of worldviews, values, the formation of a new identity. It is important not only to act locally, but also to think globally, systematically, taking into account particular and universal interests, immediate and long-term goals. The formation of a single world community, the formation of a global civil society, which in the long run must necessarily be formed as a result of overcoming fragmentation and the formation of a holistic world – „eternal peace” is becoming increasingly apparent.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s serial adventures of Sherlock Holmes comprise the best representatives of the subgenre of mystery writing called the ‘detective story.’ The word, ‘mystery,’ invites an inherent ambiguity and tension as it refers to the profound, the inexplicable, or the secretive. ‘Mystery’ carries both secular and non-secular references. The finite Being of humankind in its existential situatedness is circumscribed by a funda-mental transcendence. The great mystery of life horizons all meanings that humankind creates and constitutes in its socio-cultural constructions. Hence a typology and characterization of the literature of mystery must take into consideration a subgenre’s relation to the ever-present horizonal opacity, or existential mystery, inherent to the human condition. The thesis presented here is that the treatment of mystery by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the literature of the fictional sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, can be understood from a more profound standpoint than usually recognized in “the standard interpretations” of detective stories. My contending thesis is that the socio-functional processes underlying the detective mystery reveal a fundamental interconnection with profound symbolic provinces of meaning. This thesis is exhibited through a Schutzian based analysis in social phenomenology.2This paper is organized into three major sections. The first section offers an ontological, epistemological, and socio-logical analysis of mystery, which situates the “detective story” within mystery literature and which explicates how mystery functions within the detective story. The views of David I. Grossvogel on the subject of mystery literature are presented as a foil in order to counter the standard thesis to which he subscribes – that the detective story treats mystery in an essentially shallow manner.3A deeper understanding of the sense of the detective story’s framing of mystery is gained through a sociological description of life-world transcendencies, knowledge intransparencies, nomic orderings and anomic disorderings, legitimations, symbolic uni-verses, and world-maintenance. This analysis employs a phenomenologi-cal description in the sociology of knowledge, the social construction of reality, and the sociology of religion. That the Sherlock Holmes adven-tures exhibit a serious treatment of the profound mystery of life is corrobo-rated by the Unitarian minister, Stephen Kendrick’s interpretation of the adventures as parables.4Furthermore, I establish that Kendrick develops the Holmesian corpus in the service of a theodicy. A theodicy provides religious explanation for marginal life experiences for the purpose of subjugating the intrusion of chaos to the nomizing function of human world-building. The second section of this paper consists of implementing Schutzian structures of ideal typification: personal and course-of-action, in an analysis of two adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The purpose is to establish that the figure of Holmes cannot be reduced to a cold logician by exhibiting a richer reading of Holmes as not only a sagacious practi-tioner of applied human science and social psychology, but as someone whose efforts are guided by the profound mystery of life. This allows for a deeper understanding of the significance of the stories, for logical puzzles are one thing, but the complexity of the human psyche in its existential situatedness involves a deeper perspicacity and reverence toward life. I argue that Holmes is attuned to the opaque boundaries concerning the deepest mysteries of human nature and thus displays profound forms of compassion in his interactions. The third section of the paper explores why Alfred Schutz, who was a great enthusiast of the detective story, read the ending of the mystery first, which essentially defeats the psycho-logical context for the mystery reader. Schutz engages in the didactic methodology of social science training and the mystery genre is excellent for this purpose because it offers a closed world based upon the delimited relevancy structure of solving a mystery. Explorations of the structures of Schutzian social sciences disclose the structure of mystery writing in a way that reveals its peculiar possibilities for profundity.

The author tries to introduce contemporary understanding of transcendental analysis in phenomenalist and constructionist theories in this paper. We assume that a certain condition holds, and then try to show the presuppositions of that condition by transcendental analysis. There are two most important versions for this discussion, first, the view that the whole reality consists in conscious states, and second, the view that reality is socially constructed. First view has a label of "phenomenalist idealism" and the second of "social constructionism". The main question is, what a philosopher could motivate to take the transcendental turn. The author is inclined to assume that transcendental philosophy if based on the very ideas of phenomenological interpretation of life and construction of social reality is possible. Key words: transcendental analysis; consciousness; phenomenalist and constructionist theory.

Social constructionism, the social construction of reality, is an umbrella term accentuating difference, situatedness, and positionality in knowledge production, which has had a far‐reaching influence on the contemporary social science and humanities fields, geography included. Contentions surrounding the theoretical validity and political potential of social constructionism are extensively associated with the notion of discourse variously adopted in a broad range of scholarship, from critical realism and Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, to Butler's performativity theory. A non‐anthropocentric, nondiscourse‐centered approach, focused in geography on actor‐network theory and nonrepresentational theory, has further arisen as an ontological reflection on the prevailing debates of social constructionism. These various adaptations and modifications have contributed to a range of new avenues of research in human geography that stem from, yet seek to transcend, the limits of social constructionism.

This chapter offers a symbolic interactionist’s introduction to social constructionism in three parts. First, the author reviews Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality and considers its relationship to early symbolic interactionist thought. While the two perspectives shared assumptions about the ever-emergent quality of social life, it is argued, the constructionist perspective offered a conceptualization of social structure that likely appealed to later generations of interactionist scholars. Second, the author outlines interactionist debates about the nature of socially constructed realities, charting the split between “strict” and “contextual” constructionists. Finally, the author considers how recent critiques of constructionism in academic and public discourse might inform future interactionist scholarship. Specifically, the continued utility and potential hazards of social constructionism vis-à-vis race, gender, and a post-truth political environment are explored.

Focusing on the social construction of reality or knowledge, the social constructionist perspective exhibits characteristic features, including the critical role played by language; the social process involved in reality construction; the different levels of meaning making; individuals' agency; the co‐construction of social reality; power and knowledge construction; a pragmatic orientation to knowledge; and a preference for qualitative research. Social constructionism challenged the dominance of positivism in knowledge production. In relation to adolescence, social constructionist studies have examined how adolescence as a social category is constructed and how adolescents themselves form their identities and understand the social world. The perspective questions dominant discourses such as the developmental and peer group influence discourses; deepens our understanding of family dynamics and the various social discourses within which meaning making takes place; exposes the discursive power in disciplining different teenager groups; unravels the different meanings and identities that adolescents hold; and promotes their agency.