Name: Michael
Email:
Web Site: http://ginaandmike.thelightningpath.com/
Bio: I'm a professor of sociology at Athabasca University with interests in the transformation of scholarly communication, spirituality and sociology, inequality, gender, ethnicity, and social problems. I was the founding editor of the Electronic Journal of Sociology but realized the limitations of scholarly journals a couple of years ago. The Socjourn is a recent attempt to leverage the "sociology.org" domain to provide an alternative window into the world of sociology that does not depend on the staid and stuffy world of traditional scholarly journals.
Posts by Dr. Michael Sosteric:
Gendered Activities, gender difference, gender exclusion
February 26th, 2010As sociologists, one of our (my wife and I) biggest pet peaves is gendered activities. These are activities where an individual is excluded from participation based on a superficial external sexual characteristic. You know the drill right? Only boys allowed! Only girls allowed. You can’t come in because you have a vagina. You aren’t allowed because you got a penis. It is exclusion and sorting based on sex and gender and to be honest and frank, as two counselors and social scientists working on healing the damage done by patriarchy, and trying to create a saner and just world, it’s a real annoyance.
Why? Read the rest of this entry “
The cure for alchoholism
February 19th, 2010Two books that I have recently read deserve attention today. One is My Way Out and the other is The Cure for Alcoholism. Both are great books and both detail a pharmacological cure for alcoholism. I know that if you are someone who suffers from alcoholism or some other form of addiction, you’ll be skeptical at the whole notion of cure. For decades Alcoholics Anonymous has been advising there is no cure while preaching a powerful abstinence that just doesn’t seem to work for most people unless it is reinforced by constant monitoring and control. Traditional pharmacological therapies have been equally ineffective, helping a few but leaving most out in the cold. Read the rest of this entry “
Democracy’s Dirty Little Secret
February 6th, 2010A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power
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There are now a range of academic disciplines which have been indelibly marked by — indeed produced by — the interests and actions of the propagandists. The field of Public Relations research, the discipline of marketing, some aspects of Human Resource Management and Management and Business Studies more generally all bear the mark of propaganda victories by their systemic refusal to face their origins in propaganda. nor have sociology, psychology, and political science dealt with their demons over this. It is an incredible victory for great power that there is no institute for the study of propaganda (in its real meaning) anywhere in the world. Those that remain studying propaganda do so almost entirely from within the authorised framework that this happens largely in war. Let us be clear about this. We do mean that most academics have been ‘persuaded’ and have come to see things in terms conducive to great power. (Miller and Dinan, 2004: 180. Italics in original).
Hello world!
January 28th, 2010Welcome to the future home of the Socjournal. Brought to you by the founding editor of the Electronic Journal of Sociology, Dr. Mike Sosteric, this journal will provide a popular new media portal into the exciting world of sociology and sociological research. Read the rest of this entry “