Making sense of society: Understanding the social world

This document explores various aspects of understanding the social world, including qualitative and quantitative research, alienation, mechanical and organic solidarity, and health and well-being. It also delves into the role and impact of media in contemporary society.

Making sense of society
understanding the social
world

TABLE OF CONTENTS
SECTION 1.....................................................................................................................................3
Qualitative and quantitative research...........................................................................................3
Alienation....................................................................................................................................3
Mechanical and organic solidarity...............................................................................................4
Health and well-being..................................................................................................................5
SECTION 2.....................................................................................................................................5
Role and impact of media in Contemporary society...................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

SECTION 1
Ways in which these terms help in understanding the social world:
Qualitative and quantitative research
Qualitative research: qualitative research is the research which is expressed in Word
format and not in the statistical data representation. It is the research which is done to understand
the concepts and thoughts of the experience which is done in the world format. qualitative
research enables to gather the in depth insights of any particular topic which are not well
understood. The basic examples of qualitative method of research are the interviews with open
ended questions and observations which are described in words. Literature review is also one of
the qualitative method of research that explored the concept and theories of a particular topic.
Quantitative research: quantitative research is the researchers just expressed and done in
the numbers and the graphical representation of data it is used to test the theories in other
missions of the research of numerical data. this research helps in establishing the facts of
generalized data on a particular topic. The best example of quantitative method of research are
the experiment, and the observations which are recorded in the numerical form of data and the
survey which have close ended questions. it is very important and the data analysis is done in the
SPSS format (Shareia, 2016).
The difference between qualitative and quantitative research are there both works in
different format while quantitative work in numerical data representation in qualitative work in
Word format. qualitative research requires few respondent in terms to do the research and on the
other hand quantitative research require more respondent’s compared to qualitative research.
qualitative research other understanding and subjective, quantitative research items are the
testing, measurements and replica ability of data (Oflazoglu, 2017).
Alienation
Alienation in context to social world can also be termed as social alienation which is a
condition in social relationship that is highly reflected by low degree of common value and
integration and high degree of isolation or distance between various individual, or between group
of people and individual in a working environment or can be in community. It is sociological
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concept developed by several contemporary and classical theorist (Fanon ,2018). It is the concept
that has many specific- disciplined uses which can be referred as to both personal psychological
state which is subjective and with a type of social relationship that is highly objective in nature.
It refers to the process where social beings are disengaged from the process and structure
that constitutes person social environment in which person leaves. In simple words it can also be
termed as separation or withdrawal of person or person’s affection from an object or position of
former attachments. It is referred as act of causing someone to become hostile and indifferent or
can be termed as act of turning away, diverting or transferring things. Alienation in social world
is very broad concept that describes experiences of individual and groups that feel highly
disconnected from practices, norms, values and with social relation of their community or
society for variety of structural social reasons (Heath, 2018). Those who experience alienation in
social world do not share mainstream and common values of societies and are not well into
integration to society, various institution and groups and are being socially isolate
Mechanical and organic solidarity
In the development of social world, the French theory of mechanical and organic
solidarity plays a significant role as it elaborates the cohesiveness of small and undifferentiated
societies that are differentiated on the basis of a comparatively complex division of labour. The
two solidarities can be differentiated by various features on the basis of morphology and
demographic, existence norms, and the conscience collectively. Mechanical solidarity refers to
the social integration of society members that have common beliefs and values constituting a
collective science. The integration and cohesion arise from the homogeneity of people as they
feel related and connected by similarity of work. In contrast to this, organic solidarity is the
social integration arising out of the requirement of people for each other’s services and has a
higher division of labour. An interdependence develops and more advanced societies are created.
Individual tend to perform various tasks and may have varied interest and values. However, the
society relies highly upon on another as their dependence results in solidarity of the community
to perform specific tasks. Therefore, solidary is developed and maintained in highly complex
community by the interdependence of various segments. As an example, the food produced by
the farmers are consumed by the industrial workers that are involved in the manufacturing of
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tractors and other machinery, which in turns help the farmer in cultivation of crops (Gubanov
and Gubanov, 2018).
Health and well-being
Health is one of the most important part of any person as the first priority of every person
is to be healthy and to remain the best in their health. Health and well-being are a part of life and
every single person needs to understand the importance of help and well-being. Health and well-
being need to be kept in the best way so that a person can do more efforts in more hardware if he
is physically fit. both mental health and physical health is important an employee’s safety well-
being is very important for the company to be maintained so that the employees still happy with
the company and works more hard and improved the working.
All type of mental and physical health is important for the people as to work the best and
improve the performance a person should be physically fit and healthy also mental fit in healthy.
Mental and physical health both are interlinked and both plays a very important part if a person
is mentally ill he will not able to work physically and if a person is physically unhealthy then the
mental health will get affected (Saxena, 2019).
SECTION 2
Role and impact of media in Contemporary society
Role of media in contemporary society
Contemporary society can be defined as the setting characterized by innovation,
technological and enhancing human interactions and globalization. It leads above changes i.e.
literacy, gender equality, life expectancy and bringing a natural. Media does not have only
political meaning but also it covey’s wide information or knowledge related all possible aspects
of human being’s live (Role of Media in Society, 2019). Media is considered reflection of the
contemporary society and depict how society works. Media is a printed, electronic or the web
which plays significant role in making people informed. It also supports in entertaining the
public, educate and leads awareness in people about current happenings. As same in
contemporary society, media also playing vital role such as people become highly up to date
about world like what happening around them and what rules have been sated by government to
support human being. There are extensive variety of media platform i.e. newspaper, magazine,
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books etc. that have induced thoughts of younger generations in contemporary society. It also
involves some electronic form for spreading information that is one of the best application of
media of mass communication. In contemporary society, still people listen news with the support
of TV and radio that are also one of the major form of media. So, radio is considered audio
medium that has not only limited approach to urban areas but also it has covered wide range of
rural areas wherein people get more benefits from this audio medium of mass communication
like they get information that what their leaders going to do in country, what type services will
be offered in schools like this. The main purpose of the media is to give information or
knowledge about current news, fashion, gossip, latest gadgets in the market place of people.
Currently most of the company of contemporary society has started to use this media in trading
and marketing products purpose. It also provides geographical information like how people
divided in society. In current global pandemic scenario, media is playing vital role in
contemporary society. for example, with the support of media networks today each and every
people enables to get overall information related to global pandemic and social distancing rules,
lockdown etc. and keeps themselves safe from the pandemic (Lim, 2018). While students get
more benefits from the media network such as they do not get any negative impact on their
studies, teachers offer online classes to the student from the web media. It can possible by only
web media. In addition, media is considered mirror of modern society, infect, it gives shapes
human being life. For example, today we get all information about modern society like what
fashion trends is going on, which one electronic gadget are better, which food is healthy etc.
According to the modern society, we are started to demand for the new product and services. It
denotes that media plays wonderful role in contemporary society.
Impact of media
The media though plays a very important role in the lives of majority of the people. The
media impacts contemporary society both positively and negatively.
Positive impacts: The major positive impact which media has its information which is
accessible to all the people. the mass media which the important type of media helps in spreading
the vast information and also helps in increasing the speed by which relaying of message takes
place. This impacts the decision making which helps in coordinating the business and also which
helps the businessman to know about the areas where there are more chances of natural hazards
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or disasters. The mass media including the television which offers the cheapest and easily
available mode of entertainment which provides more fun than concerts and shows (Akram and
Kumar, 2017). Watching an interesting show can relieve the stress of a person within few
minutes. Even some people are entertained and being informed regarding various significant
information through the newspapers. As the technology is advancing day by day, the media is
completely transformed into digital media which uses internet in order to serve various purposes
like obtaining information, providing entertainment and the most special purpose served by the
social networking sites of digital media is that one can connect with the other at any time sitting
anywhere. The audio visual channel also helps in dimensioning the knowledge universe of the
people who receive the information by getting influence and also inducing the values,
convictions, conceptions etc. Therefore, the educative role which is played by media can never
be underestimated as it gave various new directions to the knowledge providers and the
knowledge receivers (Weinstein, 2018). Media gave many opportunities to the people who
wished to spread their knowledge and also gave many platforms through which people can gain
the knowledge. Television is also considered to be a culture broadcaster this is why there are
more viewers of television than the spectators of the concerts or shows.
Negative impacts: Media sometimes leads to destruction of the will to understand and react.
This also confuses the people sometimes as they pay close attention to the information which is
spread by media and the people forget to do something good regarding that. People sometimes
get misinformed through media because of the untrue articles in magazines and newspapers.
Media can also destroy the reputation of the people mostly in case of politics. The people who
secure high positions often misuse the internet by governing and leading the large institutions by
controlling the media which helps them to manipulate the population for the sake of their own
interests (Singh, Amiri and Sabbarwal, 2017). Large corporations sometimes use the media to
spread the false information such as to produce mass destruction weapons which supports
terrorism which later proves to be untrue. This creates a sense of fear in the public. Also,
television can lead to reading crisis because the people prefer to watch television more than
reading the same information in books because television spreads the information in audio-visual
form which attracts more readers and viewers to get back to television rather than reading the
books (Draganović, 2020). This decreases the reading skills of the people and made them
dependent on the audio-visual channels.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Akram, W. and Kumar, R., 2017. A study on positive and negative effects of social media on
society. International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering. 5(10). pp.351-354.
Draganović, S., 2020. NEW MEDIA’S POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE IMPACTS ON
YOUTH. Epiphany. 13(1).
Fanon, F., 2018. Alienation and freedom. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gubanov, N.N. and Gubanov, N.I., 2018, November. Mental bases of social solidarity.
In International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Ecological
Studies (CESSES 2018). Atlantis Press.
Heath, O., 2018. Policy alienation, social alienation and working-class abstention in Britain,
1964–2010. British Journal of Political Science,.48(4). pp.1053-1073.
Lim, M., 2018. Roots, routes, and routers: Communications and media of contemporary social
movements. Journalism & Communication Monographs. 20(2). pp.92-136.
Oflazoglu, S. ed., 2017. Qualitative versus quantitative research. BoD–Books on Demand.
Saxena, S., 2019. Social psychiatry in the era of sustainable development. World Social
Psychiatry, 1(1), p.47.
Shareia, B.F., 2016. Qualitative and quantitative case study research method on social science:
Accounting perspective. International Journal of Economics and Management
Engineering, 10(12), pp.3849-3854.
Singh, M.M., Amiri, M. and Sabbarwal, S., 2017. Social Media Usage Positive and Negative
Effects on the Life Style of Indian Youth. Iranian Journal of Social Sciences and
Humanities Research. 5(3).
Weinstein, E., 2018. The social media see-saw: Positive and negative influences on adolescents’
affective well-being. new media & society. 20(10). pp.3597-3623.
Online
Role of Media in Society. 2019. [Online]. Available Through: www.ssim.ac.in/blog/role-of-
media-in-society/
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