Toward A Renewed Sociology of Mass Media and Popular Culture

Abstract

In this issue we present a set of papers that examine sociology’s engagement with the study of mass media, communications and popular culture, from the perspective of historical efforts as well as possible future directions. The picture that emerges from the individual articles is rather paradoxical, for it appears that the fields of media and popular culture have been both mainstream and marginal within the discipline. The paradox is perhaps partly explainable in terms of shifts in what Don Levine has called “visions of the sociological tradition.” Thus, for several decades, the field was largely framed as “the science of institutions,” with emphasis on conflict, adaptation and survival (in both Durkheimian and Social Darwinist variants). Within such a perspective, a focus on media and popular culture is not highly valued, not taught in graduate programs, and not highly rewarded as a career path. In the same way, a dominant emphasis on sociology as “the science of inequality,” with particular attention to race, gender, class and sexual orientation, tends to discourage work on media and culture except insofar as it might deal with the overarching issues of power and differential victimization. Now, as sociologists think of themselves more and more within a “postmodern” framing that approaches “society as text” and embraces a “narrative turn,” the subjects of mass media, communications and popular culture take on a new relevance. The recent movement toward a “public sociology” also reinforces the shift, as sociologists become increasingly concerned about the image of the discipline in the popular imagination, and about the most effective means of engaging publics and conveying sociological messages with policy implications. Ronald Jacobs begins our discussion with an examination of the work of Robert Park in the 1920s, which he believes can help sociology regain a proper focus on “culture and the public sphere.” He approaches Park’s writings in terms of two organizing themes: (1) news and the power of the press; and (2) diverse cultural forms of newspaper discourse. Jacobs concludes that renewed attention to Park, Am Soc (2009) 40:147–148 DOI 10.1007/s12108-009-9076-z