Exploring Social Change: Process and Context

ISBN-13: 9780230361058 / Angielski / Miękka / 2014 / 256 str.

Bridgette Wessels

Opis

A critical introduction to the key processes and contexts of social change in contemporary society, combining a thorough grounding of key theorists with hot topics such the media, the environment and new technologies - ideal for students across the social sciences.

Spis treści

1. Introduction 2. Exploring Social Change 3. Key Periods of Change 4. Exploring Dimensions of Change 5. Everyday Life and Social Change 6. Work, Production and Social Change 7. Social Change and Consumerism 8. The Creative and Cultural Industries 9. Changes in Communication 10. Difference, Diversity and Contesting Power 11. Conclusion.

O autorze

Bridgette Wessels is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Socio-digital Worlds at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research and writing focuses on social change and the innovation and use of digital services in everyday life.

Blurb

Social change is intrinsic to our social lives and to social science research. The interaction of changes within different contexts – economic, political and cultural – shapes our life experience.

But how exactly do we define social change, and how can we recognise its significance to contemporary life? In this critical and dynamic text, Bridgette Wessels explores social change as a process, which enables us to better understand the world we live in and how it changes over time. Through this insightful conceptual framework, the book analyses a number of key sites of social change, from personal experience and everyday life, to work and production, consumerism, communication, diversity and power formations. 

Placing the study of social change within its historical, theoretical and contemporary context, Exploring Social Change helps both scholars and students develop a sensitivity to the dynamics of change in modern society.