Observations On My First Sociological Interview

I began this interview and wrote the interview questions making certain assumptions, blindly, without considering the context of the questions I was asking and the results I was looking for.  This wasn’t just an interview like the others I had conducted in the past for www.radiocasbah.com, where I engaged in an informal conversation with a… Read More

Reflections on My Driving Research Interests

My driving research interests are more like lifelong passions, as any glance into one of several bookshelves of my library will reveal.  However, those interests are usually distilled into a few topics that contain a myriad of additional subjects.  I am fascinated by sociology in general, but I am especially fascinated by how people react… Read More

Reflections on Who I am as a Sociologist

Who I am as a sociologist is, by turns, a complex question, as well as one that will never be fully defined as I continue to evolve year by year, learning and researching people and their environments from the simple to the complex.  How and why I arrived at this present destination is also complex,… Read More

Propaganda as Musical Pop Culture Part 2

And there is still more, some popular and some early seminal punk.  We begin with Don Henley’s Dirty Laundry. As always, if you find or write any worthy of consideration, send them my way, and we may get to a few more additions and editions of these.… Read More

Propaganda And Goffman’s Face-To-Face Interactions

While Erving Goffman expanded the scope and study of sociology to face-to-face interactions between individuals and small group gatherings, little has been said of the application of those ideas to propaganda on a personal level.  I will argue that Goffman’s study of frame analysis and impression management apply to propaganda of various types that he… Read More

Mark Twain On Propaganda

While he does not use the word outright, his description is a dead-on description of our discussion, the application of propaganda to Goffman’s impression management in the frame analysis of small groups.  Indeed, it’s still a “duck,” as they say. “In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at… Read More

Propaganda as Musical Pop Culture Part 1

These songs scream propaganda to me and I have been fascinated by them for many years.  I am sure there are others.  If you encounter others, please send them my way. My friend, Ian Sklar, gave me something to ponder when he wrote, “Made me wonder whether the songs were meant to influence the listener… Read More

Habermas’ Grand Theory?

While social theorists attempt to incorporate all aspects of a given society to generate a grand theory that functions for all people all of the time, invariably, because the theory in question is so grand, there are elements that are excluded, misplaced or forgotten.  Jurgen Haberamas is no exception.  I will argue that, while his… Read More