New Book Review: Tim Hallett discusses Diane Vaughn’s book “Dead Reckoning” #sssi #bookreview #STS #sociology #interactionism @sociologylens @UChicagoPress https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.624

Over the past decades, interactionists have made important contributions to
the field of science and technology studies (STS). Diane Vaughn’s study “The
Challenger Launch Decision” (1996) has become a classic contribution
in this regard. With her new book titled “Dead
Reckoning: Air Traffic Control, System Effects, and Risk“, Tim
Hallett writes in his review, just published on Early View of
Symbolic Interaction, has produced her early study’s sibling. Yet, while her
1996 books searched for the causes of a disaster, Dead Reckoning investigates
why (thankfully, one might want to add), there are so few accidents involving
aircraft.

Hallett is thoroughly impressed with the comparative ethnography produced by
Vaughn who over 20 years has studied the work at four air traffic control
centers. He, however, points out that Vaughn’s book “is more
interactionist adjacent than it is interactionist” as “she more
readily and deeply engages with the cultural-cognitivist traditions of DiMaggio
and Bourdieu than the interactionist traditions of Blumer and Strauss”.
Hallett does, of course, not criticize Vaughn for her perspective, but points
out that “that Dead Reckoning is another instance of
the “Sad
demise, mysterious disappearance, and glorious triumph of symbolic interaction”
(Fine 1993).” He suggests that maybe, by reading Dead Reckoning we see the
“boundary work” being undertaken by symbolic interactionists and
those working in the sociology of culture. This boundary work, however, is not
what Diane Vaughn’s excellent book is concerned with or should be assessed by.

SSSI Members can download the review by clicking the image below or HERE. To join
SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

 

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New Book Review: Arthur McLuhan discusses “Generally Speaking” by Eviatar Zerubavel #sssi #sociology #bookreview cc @sociologylens https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.622

We have just published Arthur McLuhan’s review of Eviatar Zerubavel’s book “Generally Speaking: An Invitation to Concept-Driven Sociology. In his review McLuhan states that “the reader encounters not only tips, tricks, and strategies for casing and comparing in the field, but also referential coordinates to a community of inquiry that coheres in a theoretico-methodological style, however wispy the community and inchoate the inquiry might be.”

SSSI Members can download the review by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

New Book Review: Michael J. Stitz discusses “In tersectional Automations: Robotics, AI, Algorithms, and Equity” by Nathan Rambukkana #sssi #sociology #technology #intersectionality @sociologylens

In his review of Nathan Rambukkana’s edited volume “Intersectional Automations: Robotics, AI, Algorithms, and Equity” Michale J. Stitz (University of Missouri) suggests that the book addresses many social problems stemming from contemporary technological processes (i.e., robotics, gaming, algorithmic advertising, etc.) while also posing some solutions to these issues. After a discussion of the contributions to the book that deal with robotics, gaming, algorithms advertising, Stitz concludes that the book “will be of interest to those in advanced undergraduate courses or even by graduate students seeking to study new computer technologies. Scholars working in this realm will also be appreciative of a text that covers so many areas of study in one compendium.”

SSSI Members can download the review by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

New Article: “Group Styles of Justice or Service: How Ticket Inspectors Manage Contested Citizen Encounters” by Friis Camilla Bank https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.617 @sociologylens

We have just published Friis Camilla Bank’s article “Group Styles of Justice or Service: How Ticket Inspectors Manage Contested Citizen Encounters” on Early View of Symbolic Interaction.

SSSI Members can download the article by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

New Article: Imko Meyenburg (@ImkoTjado) ““Brexit Means Brexit!”: Investigating the Production of Social Phenomena in Political Discourses” https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.615 #sssi #naa

In the UK, we are still feeling the vibrations of the 2016 Brexit referendum, the referendum in which British voters decided for the country to leave the European Union. In his article “‘Brexit means Brexit!’: Investigating the Production of Social Phenomena in Political Discourses” Imko Meyenburg analyses parliamentary debates from December 2018 concerning the European Withdrawal Act to reveal the linguistic devices used by parliamentarians through which the reality of Brexit was constituted.

The article comes with an excellent video-abstract.

SSSI Members can download the article by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

New Book Review: Robert Wade Kenny discusses “Jan Fuhse’s “Social Networks of Meaning and Communication” #sssi #networks https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.619 @sociologylens

Over the years, there has been considerable interest in networks and network analysis within Symbolic Interaction. Recently though, we have seen fewer interactionist studies concerned with this topic. In his review of Jan Fuhse’s book “Social Networks of Meaning and Communication” which is not an interactionist piece of work, Robert Wade Kenny highlights the importance of social network analysis for interactionist scholars.

SSSI Members can download the review by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

For papers on network analysis published in Symbolic Interaction go HERE.

New Book Review: Philippe Sormani discusses “‘Harold Garfinkel: Studies of Work in the Sciences’ edited by Michael Lynch” #sssi #emca https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.618 @sociologylens

Over the past few years, a number of manuscripts from the Garfinkel Archive have been published, some edited by Anne Warfield Rawls who runs the archive and most recently a volume on Garfinkel’s analyses of the work of scientists. We have just published Philippe Sormani’s “Harold Garfinkel: Studies of Work in the Sciences”, a volume edited by Michael Lynch a student of Garfinkel who is very well known for his own studies of the work of scientists.

SSSI Members can download the review by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

Other publications by Philippe Sormani in Symbolic Interaction

Sormani, Philippe. ‘Deconstructing Ethnography, Reconstructing Ethnomethodology? A Reflexive Note’. Symbolic Interaction 40, no. 2 (May 2017): 289–92. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.290.

———. ‘Reading and Reworking “Studies of Work in the Sciences” (Parts I & II)’. Symbolic Interaction n/a, no. n/a (26 September 2022). https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.618.

———. ‘Reflexive Ethnography as “Data Science”? A Sociological Contribution to Praxeology’. Symbolic Interaction 44, no. 1 (February 2021): 260–63. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.488.

Hoeppe, Götz. ‘An Instructive Return to Laboratory Ethnography’. Symbolic Interaction 39, no. 1 (February 2016): 158–61. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.199. Review of Sormani’s book “Respecifying Lab Ethnography“

New Book review: Marc Eaton discusses “Making Sense of the Paranormal: The Interactional Construction of Unexplained Experiences” by Rachael Ironside and Rob Wooffitt https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.614 #sssi #emca #ghosts #paranormal @sociologylens @DrIronside

There’s lot of interest in the paranormal and ghosts these days. For several years, Rachael Ironside and Robin Wooffitt have undertaken research into the work of people who conduct investigations into the paranormal. Their research uses ethnomethodology and conversation analytic studies of interactive meetings and sessions of these investigations.

Marc Eaton who himself has recently published a book titled “Sensing Spirits: Paranormal Investigation and the Social Construction of Ghosts” has reviewed Ironside and Wooffitt’s book “Making Sense of the Paranormal: The Interactional Construction of Unexplained Experiences”.

SSSI Members can download the article by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

New Article: “Instantiated Recoupling in Principals’ Enactment of Teacher Evaluations” by by C.P. Duncan and J.G. Everitt #sssi #education #inhabited #institutionalism #sociology @sociologylens http://doi.org/10.1002/symb.612

Inhabited Institutionalism has found particular resonance in studies of education. The approach demonstrate the contribution (symbolic) interactionism can make to the fields of management and organization studies (McGinty 2014, 2019, 2021, 2022). In their article titled “Instantiated Recoupling in Principals’ Enactment of Teacher Evaluations: Emotion Work and New Forms of Ceremonial Conformity in Educational Institutions” Duncan and Everitt examine how school principals enact state-mandated teacher evaluation policies with their teachers.

SSSI Members can download the article by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

References

Everitt, Judson G. ‘Inhabitants Moving In: Prospective Sense-Making and the Reproduction of Inhabited Institutions in Teacher Education’. Symbolic Interaction 36, no. 2 (May 2013): 177–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.56.

———. ‘Teacher Careers and Inhabited Institutions: Sense-Making and Arsenals of Teaching Practice in Educational Institutions’. Symbolic Interaction 35, no. 2 (May 2012): 203–20. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.16.

Everitt, Judson G., and Taylor Tefft. ‘Professional Socialization as Embedded Elaborations: Experience, Institutions, and Professional Culture Throughout Teacher Careers’. Symbolic Interaction 42, no. 4 (November 2019): 564–87. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.409.

Fine, Gary Alan, and Iddo Tavory. ‘Interactionism in the Twenty-First Century: A Letter on Being-in-a-Meaningful-World’. Symbolic Interaction 42, no. 3 (August 2019): 457–67. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.430.

Hallett, Tim, and Emily Meanwell. ‘Accountability as an Inhabited Institution: Contested Meanings and the Symbolic Politics of Reform’. Symbolic Interaction 39, no. 3 (August 2016): 374–96. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.241.

McGinty, Patrick J. W. ‘Divided and Drifting: Interactionism and the Neglect of Social Organizational Analyses in Organization Studies’. Symbolic Interaction 37, no. 2 (May 2014): 155–86. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.101.

———. ‘Reimagining the Interactionist Analysis of Institutional Action’. Symbolic Interaction 42, no. 4 (2019): 717–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.395.———. ‘Organizations and Institutions’. In The Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism, edited by Dirk vom Lehn, Natalia Ruiz-Junco, and Will Gibson, 181–93. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2021.

———. ‘Social Organization, Macro Phenomena, and Symbolic Interactionism‘. In Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism, edited by Wayne H. Brekhus, Thomas DeGloma, and Will Ryan Force, Oxford & New York: OUP: 2022

New Book Review: Don Weenink discusses Anne Nassauer’s book “Situational Breakdowns” #sssi #violence #interaction #ritual #sociology #video http://doi.org/1002.10/symb.613 @sociologylens

In interactionism, there is considerable interest in violence and the use of video to study it. While many studies adopt an ethnomethodological perspective to study violence (cf. Watson and Meehan 2021) Anne Nassauer “applies a micro perspective to study bodily-emotional processes in large scale social phenomena” […] “to identify the causal pathways that lead up to collective interpersonal violence in normally peaceful protest marches.”, as Don Weenink writes in his review of her book “Situational Breakdowns: Understanding Protest Violence and Other Surprising Outcomes”. In his review, Weenink highlights that save for its innovative approach, the book “brings methodological and conceptual problems and tensions to the fore that require critical reflection if micro-oriented qualitative studies want to make progress in this domain of study”.

SSSI Members can download the article by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

References

Watson, Patrick G., and Albert J. Meehan. ‘Handling Video of [Police] Violence: Theoretical versus Practical Analyses’. In The Routledge International Handbook of Interactionism, edited by Dirk vom Lehn, Natalia Ruiz-Junco, and Will Gibson, 215–30. Abingdon & New York: Routledge, 2021.

New Book Review: Jamie L. Mullaney discusses “The Cage of Days” by K.C. Carceral and Michael G. Flaherty #sssi #sociology #time @sociologylens @ei_schwartz http://doi.org/10.1002/symb.611

We have just published Jamie L. Mullaney’s review of K.C. Carceral and Michael G. Flaherty’s book “The Cage of Days. Time and Temporal Experience in Prison.” In their book “the authors bring attention to the specific experience of how prisoners “serve time” and ask, “What happens to people when they lose control of time? How does prison shape the time reckoning of inmates?”. In her review, Jamie L. Mullaney provides a detail, critical analysis of Carceral and Flaherty’s book.

SSSI Members can download the article by clicking the image below or HERE. To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction from $35 (£30) please click HERE.

Other Publications by Jamie L. Mullaney in Symbolic Interaction

Mullaney, J.L. 2015. Opening our Eyes to Sex Perception (Review of Asia Friedman’s “Blindness to Sameness: Sexpectations and the Social Construction of Male and Female Bodies”). Symbolic Interaction Vol. 38, 2: 315-317. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.147

Mullaney, J.L. 2020. A Year Then Forever: Personal Resolution Making and the Temporal Bridge of the Near Future. Symbolic Interaction Vol. 43, 2: 332-355 https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.455

New Book Review: Casey Scheibling (@cscheibling) on Steven M. Ortiz’s “The Sports Marriage” #sssi #sociology #sport @sociologylens http://doi.org/10.1002/symb.609

We have just published Casey Scheibling’s review of Steven M. Ortiz’s book “The Sports Marriage: Who makes it Work”. Scheibling suggests that “[A]s a platform for future scholars, The Sport Marriage opens up many new avenues to interrogate the interweaving of gender, work, and family in the world of professional sports.”

Members of SSSI and journal subscribers can download the review HERE.

New Article: “St. Clair Drake, the Chicago School, and the Emergence of a New Urban Black Perspective” by Roger Salerno https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.607 #sssi #race #sociology #ChicagoSchool @sociologylens

Symbolic Interaction has just published a new article St. Clair Drake, the Chicago School, and the Emergence of a New Urban Black Perspective” in which Roger Salerno discusses the particular ethnographic approach and studies of St. Clair Drake who was educated, amongst others by Robert Park and Ernest Burgess at the Chicago School of Sociology while his work was indebted also to W. E. B. Du Bois and E. Fanklin Frazier.

The article can be downloaded HERE.

To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction please click HERE.

New Book Review: Gary Alan Fine (@garyalanfine) discusses Raúl Pérez’s (@RaulPerezSoc) book “The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy” https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.608 #sssi #sociology #race #humor

On Early View of Symbolic Interaction, we have just published Gary Alan Fine’s review of Raúl Pérez’s book “The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy”. Fine argues that “Pérez has written the most consequential sociological analysis of humor in the past 20 years”. He ends his review stating that “[W]ith the current debates over who or what is racist, Pérez has provided a guide that will provoke debates that are essential in a world of comic possibilities and comic cringes”.

Members of SSSI and journal subscribers can download the review HERE

Message by the President of SSSI (20 July 2022)

Dear SSSI Members,


Greetings and I hope you are all enjoying the summer break. As a matter of
introductions, I am Tony Puddephatt, the new president of the Society for
this year. I look forward to doing what I can for the Society, and I really
look forward to seeing you at the many conferences awaiting us next
spring and summer.


I am emailing now to ask for volunteers interested in helping out on a new
committee that is tasked with making use of new resources to develop and
advance our society.


To be more specific, we have recently benefited from a very generous
donation from the family of Carl Couch, so it is up to this committee to
determine how this funding is to be managed and distributed, and to what
ends (perhaps an annual research scholarship, etc). There are other
potential funds that may come in from other sources that would also be part
of this conversation, beyond this recent Couch family donation. Dr. Joe
Kotarba, a long time member of SSSI, has been in touch with the family to
discuss this donation and what might be done with the funds. As such, he
has kindly agreed to chair the committee (thank you Joe!).


As suggested by Joe, the immediate tasks of the committee would likely
entail the following:

·    assemble a proposed policy statement for the acquisition and
management of resources for growth and innovation;

·    propose a more formal and lasting name for the committee (as we get a
better handle on what the committee is charged to do);

·    propose criteria for the selection of new members;

·    propose assurances that the committee will be representative of the
SSSI membership.


We were hoping to get 3-5 SSSI members on board the committee, to serve
along with Joe Kotarba as chair, and Jillian Crocker, our treasurer, as an
ex officio member. The more this committee is diverse so as to be
representative of the full membership of SSSI, the better, so please do
consider volunteering!


If you are willing to help on this new and exciting committee please let
Joe Kotarba know via email (joseph.kotarba@txstate.edu).


My very best to you all,

Tony

Professor Anthony Puddephatt

Lakehead University

President of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction

New Article: “Put Your “Hand Emotes in the Air:” Twitch Concerts as Unsuccessful Large-Scale Interaction Rituals” by Femke Vandenberg (@femvandenberg) https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.605 @sociologylens #sssi #sociology

We have just published Femke Vandenberg’s article “Put Your “Hand Emotes in the Air:” Twitch Concerts as Unsuccessful Large-Scale Interaction Rituals”. In her paper, Vandenberg explores “mediated concerts” disseminated via Twitch as a growing form of music consumption and investigates if interaction rituals can be accommodated appropriately in the virtual sphere. Vandenberg finds that the online sphere is better suited to small-scale interaction. 

The article can be downloaded HERE.

To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction please click HERE.

New Book Review: Lukas Szrot reviews Scott R. Harris’s book “How to Critique Journal Articles in the Social Sciences” https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.606 @sociologylens

In his review of Scott R, Harris’s book “How to Critique Journal Articles in the Social Sciences” Lukas Szrot argues that Harris “invites real participation in this collaborative framework, sketching the contours of a sort of “folk epistemology” for experiencing, describing, and interacting with(in) the social world, and then building on this framework, not only by comparing it to (and contrasting it with) social science research, but also offering numerous opportunities to experience, to take part in, social science discovery and discourse.”

The Book Review can be downloaded HERE.

To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction please click HERE.

New Article: “Erving Goffman on Misinformation and Information Control: The Conduct of Contemporary Russian Information Operations” by Martin Innes and Andrew Dawson https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.603 #sssi #sociology #goffman @sociologylens

There is currently plenty of debate about “fake news”, “propaganda”, “misinformation” and the likes. Martin Innes and Andrew Dawson put into dialogue a large corpus of social media data with Goffman’s concepts of “misinformation”.

The article can be downloaded HERE.

To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction please click HERE.

New Book Review: Ken Kolb (@kenhkolb) reviews the updated edition of “Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives are Surveilled and How to Work for Change” #sssi #sociology #race #policing https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.604 @sociologylens

We have just published Ken Kolb’s review of the Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith’s edited volume Earl “Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives are Surveilled and How to Work for Change“. Kolb argues that as “Hattery and Smith demonstrate in painstaking detail, the concept of policing offers a powerful theoretical device to unpack the ways all our institutions maintain systems of inequality. From this updated edition, we learn how policing Black and trans bodies can take both material and ideological forms, how it can include incarceration as well as social ostracism, and how it applies to both perfect victims (innocent and blameless) and those whose cases are not so cut and dry.”

SSSI Members can download the article HERE. 
To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction please click HERE

Further articles and book reviews by Kenneth H. Kolb in Symbolic Interaction can be found HERE.

New Article: “Politics of Crisis: Threatening and Defending Journalistic Expertise—A Processual Account” by Alexander Antony, Silke Steets, & Michaela Pfadenhauer https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.598 @sociologylens #sssi #media #sociology #journalism #politics #crisis

There is plenty of discussion about media in our journal. Save for David Altheide’s well-known research on news media and more recently Christopher Schneider’s discussion of social media and policing, a few years ago we published Valérie Bélair-Gagnon‘s article “Revisiting Impartiality: Social Media and Journalism at The BBC”. We now have published on Early View the article “Politics of Crisis: Threatening and Defending Journalistic Expertise—A Processual Account” in which Alexander Antony, Sike Steets and Michaela Pfadenhauer contribute to this debate by analysing the practical use of crisis claims in metajournalistic discourse.

SSSI Members can download the article HERE. 
To join SSSI and subscribe to Symbolic Interaction please click HERE