Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 4/2010
Obsah čísla
Stati
Jana Lindbloom: Stratégie prezentovania väčšinového a menšinového názoru v online diskusiách o dotáciách do poľnohospodárstva [505]
Abstract: Drawing on discourse analysis and ethnomethodology, this study presents an analysis of online political discussions on the contentious issue of agricultural subsidies as a case of ‘talk-in-(inter)action’. A corpus retrieved from an internet forum biased towards right-wing framings of political issues furnished this study with a means to focus on an ‘inter-discursive’ contestation taking place within a debate setting characterised by an asymmetric representation of opposing viewpoints. Entries criticising and entries defending agricultural subsidies and/or farmers were juxtaposed and analysed as culturally adroit performances of the social role of a representative of a local majority or minority opinion. The paper provides an elucidation of the unequal demands on representation of these diverse positions and clarifies the effects of some frequently employed discursive strategies, which bolster both the persuasiveness of the promoted interpretation and the positioning of the represented discourse on the battlefield of gaining/maintaining discursive dominance. It is argued and shown that the position of local dominance vs. subordination is not a matter only of numerical prevalence, but also (and perhaps primarily) of the interactional co-production of respective positions and of the discursive accomplishment of corresponding social roles.
Keywords: discourse analysis, ethnomethodology, media, online discussions, discursive strategies, agriculture, subsidies.
Ze sociologických výzkumů
Petr Kaderka, Martin Havlík: Vytváření televizních zpráv: pracovní postupy v systému žánrových norem [537]
Abstract: In this article, the authors examine the production of television news by a public service broadcaster, Czech Television. The aim is to understand the way in which reporters and their colleagues ‘make the news’. Ethnomethodologically informed ethnography is used to analyse cooperation among TV professionals and make visible the everyday, routine, and situated practices with which they perform their tasks. The authors study how practitioners perform their work in consideration of their colleagues’ work, that is, with an awareness of a common aim. They argue that the professional system of relevances of newsmakers is structured by socially established and shared knowledge of the genre specifics of television news reports. The authors describe the genre structure of a standard television news report from a praxeological perspective, and they show how reporters, camera operators, sound technicians, editors, and others mutually collaborate to create a shared understanding of the system of genre norms. The article devotes particular attention to a key component of reporting work: the organisation and filming of interviews with respondents. The analysis demonstrates that interviews with respondents function as an auxiliary television news genre and that the system of relevances in this case is derived from the television news report as a superordinate genre.
Keywords: television news, communicative genre, work practice, Czech Television, public service broadcasting.
Ivana Hejhalová: Výcvik vodicích psů v organizaci [569]
Abstract: This article contributes to the ethnomethodological investigation of the human-animal relationship, focusing on practically oriented and situated members’ methods, categorisations, and forms of interactions. The analysis shows how members reconstruct the rules of the training of guide dogs at a particular guide dog training centre (SVVP), and, while acting, how they orient themselves towards the principles of the broader framework, namely, the ‘institution of the guide dog’. The participation of the dogs in these interactions is also considered. The use of the rules and the principles is interpreted through the concepts of positioning (Harré, Davies), claiming (Bottero, Irwin), and, in general, the framework of the ethnomethodological respecification of the concept of organisation, that is, ‘organisation-in-action’. The article demonstrates how the image of the professional charitable client-orientated organisation is constructed in situ, and how the positions of the guide dogs and the visually impaired are presented by particular speakers. It also reveals that telling moral stories is one of the most frequently used ethnomethods of self-presentation, and that the positions and the claims of the actors are constructed in two main contexts: visual impairment and the ‘dog companion culture’.
Keywords: ethnomethods, positioning, claiming, organisation, institution, human-animal relationship, visually impaired.
Eseje
Jiří Kabele: Heuristická strategie odborného studia společenských záležitostí [593]
Abstract: Heuristic methodology attempts to outline the justifications, philosophical assumptions, and rules for the scholarly study of human affairs in order to prevent such study from violating the rights of others and enable it to produce valuable knowledge. To solve this problem, the author draws theoretical support from his game-coordination solution to the agency/structure dilemma and takes inspiration from Garfinkel’s concept of ‘doing sociology’ and from the ‘epistemology’ of the independent justice-seeking court, which for centuries has developed procedural principles and rules that balance the protection of human rights with effective investigation. The study of human affairs is conceived as a sequence of three types of choices – search, hermeneutic, and presentation choice – in order to guarantee that such study become a responsible strategic and epistemological game. The resulting heuristic strategy is characterised in mainly procedural terms by the two closely related principles: of study independence and of review.
Keywords: accountability, civil rights, ethical review, heuristic choice, justice making, methodology, neutrality, research ethics.
Jiří Nekvapil, Ivan Leudar: Znovu k 11. 9. 2001: Jak se „dělá historie“ v politickém diskurzu [619]
Abstract: Drawing on ethnomethodology, this article addresses what participants do as ‘practical historians’ – how they use and produce history in and through their activities. Specifi cally, it studies how historical contingencies are built into antagonistic political talk and to what effect. To that end, the authors revisit three of their own papers, all of which analysed how the 9/11 attacks in the United States were represented. The authors reanalyse the texts focusing on how the protagonists in the confl ict (Bush, Blair and bin Laden) ‘did history’. The analysis reveals two related methods of ‘practicing history’: one is to situate contemporary events relative to historical antecedents and so provide them with history-contingent meanings; the other is to constrain the historical understanding of the events in future.
Keywords: political discourse, historicity, use of history, practical historian, ethnomethodology, reanalysis of discourse, 9/11, Bush, Blair, bin Laden.