Suchergebnisse

Resumé Il existe une aspiration à une démocratie locale, européenne, mondiale... Mais la participation des individus, le renouveau d'une culture citoyenne, suppose des changements dans l'exercice du pouvoir et un renouvellement des relations sociales. L'entreprise, les territoires et l'Europe sont des lieux à investir.

The telephone looms large in our lives, as ever present in modern societies as cars and television. Claude Fischer presents the first social history of this vital but little-studied technology-how we encountered, tested, and ultimately embraced it with enthusiasm. Using telephone ads, oral histories, telephone industry correspondence, and statistical data, Fischer's work is a colorful exploration of how, when, and why Americans started communicating in this radically new manner. Studying three California communities, Fischer uncovers how the telephone became integrated into the private worlds and community activities of average Americans in the first decades of this century. Women were especially avid in their use, a phenomenon which the industry first vigorously discouraged and then later wholeheartedly promoted. Again and again Fischer finds that the telephone supported a wide-ranging network of social relations and played a crucial role in community life, especially for women, from organizing children's relationships and church activities to alleviating the loneliness and boredom of rural life. Deftly written and meticulously researched, America Calling adds an important new chapter to the social history of our nation and illuminates a fundamental aspect of cultural modernism that is integral to contemporary life

Title Page -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- About the Author -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Alone in America? The Issue at Stake -- 2. Studying Personal Networks -- 3. Counting People: Family -- 4. Counting People: Friends and Others -- 5. Counting on People -- 6. Feeling Connected -- 7. Conclusions and Speculations -- Appendix: Data Sources -- Notes -- References -- Index

My research so far has followed an interest in the classic concern about the social consequences of modernization, which led me to study urbanism, personal networks, the history of technology, and most extensively, American social history. A commitment to public sociology led me to a book on inequality, Contexts magazine, contributions to general media, a blog, and badgering sociologists about their writing. Some consistent themes include trying to address big questions with middle-range empirical work, focusing on ordinary lives and living, insisting on rigorous evidence whatever the method, and communicating with as wide an audience as lucidly as possible. The article closes with a few lessons learned.