Thoughts on ‘2011: A good year to be gay’
Aaron Hicklin, editor-in-chief of Out magazine, recently celebrated the progress made on the depiction of ‘gay culture’ in American TV shows. He writes in The Guardian: In many ways the transformation of attitudes has been ongoing for decades, accelerated in large part by the impact of Aids, which reconfigured gay identity around community and relationships. In TV shows such as Glee and Modern Family, gays are no longer comic stooges or punchlines, their relationships treated with the same respect as those of their straight counterparts. They hold hands, they kiss, they even share the same bed. This was a quantum … Continue reading Thoughts on ‘2011: A good year to be gay’
Marshall McLuhan
We’re just trying to fit the old things into the new form, instead of asking what is the new form going to do to all the assumptions we had before. Marshall McLuhan. Love a bit of McLuhan to round off the year. Continue reading Marshall McLuhan
Read All the Books
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited. Sylvia Plath. Continue reading Read All the Books
Michael Burawoy on Public Sociology
Michael Burawoy For Public Sociology, Part 1: Introduction. Michael Burawoy’s presidential address at the American Sociological Association (ASA) meeting in 2004. Burawoy is the current President of the International Sociological Association. He discusses the role of sociology in advancing American … Continue reading Michael Burawoy on Public Sociology
Visual Sociology
Continue reading “Visual Sociology”All photographs… represent more or less clearly what was framed by the camera at the moment the picture was taken; they also identify the vantage point of the camera and, presumably, the photographer… [N]ot only do images have a history and a politics, but also they often have a career, traveling from one context to another, with dramatically different meanings imputed to them on the way.
John Grady (2007) ‘Visual Sociology’, pp. 63-70 in Clifton D. Bryant and Dennis L. Peck (eds) 21st Century Sociology: A Reference Handbook, Volume 2. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Link Analysis of Science on Bitly
At Scientific American’s request, the chief scientist at bitly (www.bitly.com) [Hilary Mason], which shortens URLs for Web users, examined 600 science Web page addresses sent to the company’s servers on August 23 and 24. Then she tracked 6,000 pages people visited next and mapped the connections (below). The results revealed which subjects were strongly and weakly associated. Chemistry was linked to almost no other science. Biology was linked to almost all of them. Health was tied more to business than to food. But why did fashion connect strongly to physics? And why was astronomy linked to genetics? Check out the … Continue reading Link Analysis of Science on Bitly
Pepper Spray Cop Meme
This is a nice, brief analysis of the ‘Pepper Spray Cop Meme’. The video gives a quick run down of the development of this meme and it poses some interesting questions. Has the use of satire regarding this controversial act … Continue reading Pepper Spray Cop Meme
Hollywood Horror Trope: No Signal
Hate it how people’s mobile phones never seem to have any reception in horror movies? It’s a popular Hollywood trope. Here’s a montage featuring horror fils including: Jeepers Creepers 1& 2, Vacancy, The Hitcher, Hush, Eden Lake, When a Stranger … Continue reading Hollywood Horror Trope: No Signal
Labour force gender wage gap
Here’s an infographic on the global wage gap between men and women.
Continue reading “Labour force gender wage gap”
Social Science Insights 