Sociology: Books & eBooks

"Sociology in Modules allows you to assign the content you want in the order you prefer, and the format promotes student learning and success by presenting content in small, manageable chunks. Whether you're a first-time student, someone who is returning to the classroom, or even an instructor leading a discussion, you've probably thought about that question. Sociologists examine society, from small-scale interactions to the broadest social changes, which can be daunting for any student to take in. Sociology in Modules, Sixth Edition, bridges the essential sociological theories, research, and concepts and the everyday realities we all experience. The program highlights the distinctive ways in which sociologists explore human social behavior-and how their research findings can be used to help students think critically about the broader principles that guide their lives. In doing so, it helps students begin to think sociologically, using what they have learned to evaluate human interactions and institutions independently.

"We live in an age of insecurity. The Global Financial Crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the climate crisis are just the most evident examples of shocks that have increased the level of insecurity among elites and citizens in recent years. And yet there is ample evidence that insecurity is not equally distributed across populations. Bringing together disciplines such as political science, criminology, sociology, and anthropology and combining quantitative and qualitative studies from a wide range of rich and middle-income countries, this collection presents a new framework for exploring the two key social challenges of our times - insecurity and inequality - together. The volume analyses the nature, causes and distribution of subjective insecurities and how various actors use or respond to unequal security. The essays cover a host of themes including the unequal spatial distribution of (in)security, unequal access to security provision in relation to crime and welfare, the impact of insecurity on political attitudes, as well as policy responses and the political exploitation of insecurity. An important contribution to debates across several social scientific disciplines as well as current public debate on insecurity and politics, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of criminology, social policy, peace and conflict studies, politics and international relations, sociology, development studies and economics.

"This book offers a common set of concepts to help make sense of online shaming practices, accounting for instances of discrimination and injury that morally divide readers and at times risk unjust and disproportionate harm to those under scrutiny. Digital media denunciation has become a primary form of expression and entertainment across media environments, with new socially desirable forms of accountability under movements such as #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter addressing longstanding forms of systematic and interpersonal abuse. Building on recent scholarship on shaming, surveillance, and denunciation in fixed contexts, this study generates a cross-contextual and multi-actor account of practices like 'cancel culture', 'doxing' and 'status degradation ceremonies'. It addresses instances of moral ambivalence by discussing how digital shaming becomes normalised and embedded across socio-cultural and institutional settings. The authors establish key actors and practices in online denunciations of individuals in a range of cases and contexts, including responses to Covid-19, political polarisation, social justice movements, as well as more local and quotidian circumstances. They draw from empirical data including interviews with nearly 100 individuals targeted by mediated shaming and/or involved in these practices, as well as ethnographic observations of digital vigilantism and discourse analysis of press coverage and online comments relating to online shaming. Diverse applications and contexts, including China, the UK, Russia, and Central Asia, are considered, advancing an ambivalent understanding of media and denunciation that reconciles progressive and regressive practices, as well as celebratory and critical accounts of these practices. This book is recommended reading for advanced students and researchers of online visibility and harm across Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and Sociology"

"Authoritarian Populism and the Challenges for News Journalism: A Discourse Approach is a cutting-edge study of the practices of news journalism against the background of surging authoritarian populism. This book traces key challenges for news journalism when reporting on authoritarian populism, or on topics (such as immigration and terrorism) that are typically leveraged by far-right actors and platforms as a way of attracting media attention and boosting their popularity with national electorates. It also offers in-depth analyses of how these challenges are responded to by news journalists in the actual, day-to-day practices of news production, as evidenced in the discourse of news. By placing qualitative, critical analysis of discourse at the heart of the systematic inquiry into authoritarian populism in the news media, this book applies a broad methodological framework for studying a. political performances and their mediated representations, b. the complex, and, often contradictory, normalizing processes at work in the news media, and c. the attendant challenges and critical tasks for contemporary news journalism. Based on detailed analyses of political and news discourse in various European contexts, and in the US, spanning a decade (2014-2024), this book makes a timely and relevant contribution - as liberal democracies could be facing a new turning point in the global rise of authoritarian populism. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of journalism, media studies, political communication, political science, sociology and discourse studies who are interested in authoritarian and right-wing populism, related discourses of nationalism and xenophobia, populist communication and the role of news media and journalism"

The Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions of climate change are features of post-normal times. In Sociology in Post-Normal Times, Charles Thorpe contends that the modern project of creating normalcy within the nation state has broken down. Integral to this is sociology, which is the science of social reform. Drawing from the work of seminal theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman and Anthony Giddens, Thorpe contends that sociology's "society" is no longer viable because globalization has put an end to social reform, thus the assumptions and goals of sociology must be left behind in order to create a new global humanity. In the face of the pandemic and climate change, Sociology in Post-Normal Times demands no less than the birth of a global humanity beyond nation states as the precondition for human survival.