The Flexibility of Scientific Rhetoric: A Case Study of UFO Researchers

The case of ufology demonstrates that cultural packaging—a sort of once-removed indication of scientific authority—can be key in creating knowledge accepted as scientific. This adds a new dimension to the argument that scientific legitimacy is constructed, not just from scientific methodologies and institutional location, but also of language, culture, rhetoric, and symbols. Fringe researchers can make their cases for legitimacy using a variety of strategies—few of which involve actual research. Outside of the scientific community, scientific-sounding explanations and proclamations of expert statuses hold sway. Ambiguities about what constitutes science can be capitalized upon by groups like the UFO research community that assembles shards of legitimacy using science as a cultural template.     

Collective violence as social control

Collective violence is often social control: self-help by a group. It typically defines and responds to conduct as deviant. When unilateral and nongovernmental, it appears in four major forms—lynching, rioting, vigilantism, and terrorism—each distinguished by its system of liability (individual or collective) and degree of organization (higher or lower). Following Donald Black's paradigm of pure sociology, the central assumption is that collective violence varies with its location and direction in social space—the conflict structure. I offer ten propositions that predict and explain the likelihood and severity of collective violence in general and the four forms of collective violence in particular. Conflict structures with a high degree of relational distance, cultural distance, functional independence, and inequality between the adversaries are associated with collective violence in general. Each of the four forms depends on the degree of social polarization between the parties as well as the continuity of the deviant behavior to which the violence responds. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1992, and the Centennial Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, University of Paris (Sorbonne), Paris, June 1993.     

Social Protest and Self-Enhancement: A Conditional Relationship

Data from a panel study are used to test the theoretically informed hypothesis that participation in social protest activities in the seventh grade has self-enhancing outcomes in the ninth grade and in young adulthood where the subjects in the seventh grade express alienation from the conventional social order. However, participation in social protest activities in the seventh grade is expected to have self-devaluing consequences in the ninth grade and young adulthood where the subjects in the seventh grade do not express alienation from the conventional social order. The results of OLS multiple regression analyses with interaction terms were consistent with the hypothesis. As predicted, among subjects who rejected the idea that one can get ahead by working hard, seventh grade social protest was inversely related to self-derogation; and, among subjects who affirm the idea that one can get ahead by working hard, social protest activities were related to higher subsequent levels of self-derogation.     

文体特色在翻译中的内涵与传达

文体之于翻译,即各种文本中语言变体的差异的传达。翻译时要力求文体的对等,要能准确地传达出语音、词汇、句法、修辞、篇章等各个层面上的各种语言变体的差别。但深层的标准应该是使译著读者能产生和原著读者相同的感受。     

性越轨行为羞辱性惩罚之省思

对性越轨行为的羞辱罚存在两方面的问题,一是性越轨行为者的羞辱感降低,二是公权力引导媒体、社会公众羞辱过当。问题的关键不是加大羞辱力度,而是要唤起性越轨行为人的羞辱感。羞辱罚具有正负效应,羞辱罚的有效威慑和威慑失灵并存。与传统社会羞辱罚的有效威慑相比,现代社会羞辱罚更多地体现出威慑失灵。我们应当根据羞辱罚的两个维度——正当性和表现力,进行羞辱分类和羞辱管理、当事人选择羞辱、重新融合羞辱,以凸显羞辱应有之力量。同时,要规制公权力滥用羞辱罚的行为,以现代人格力量和程序规则来规避羞辱罚的弱点。     

高校不良亚文化对大学生越轨行为的影响及应对措施

高校不良亚文化是存在于大学生群体中的与主流文化背道而驰,不利于大学生身心健康,阻碍社会进步及破坏社会风气、校园文化氛围的文化。这些文化现象对大学生不良人格的形成有着重要的影响,又对大学生违反社会公德、违反校规校纪以及违法犯罪等越轨行为起到了加剧作用。因此,必须采取多方面应对措施预防和矫治大学生的越轨行为。     

Redefining Racism: A Deviance/Responsibility Intervention Model

This paper considers a unique and direct approach to combating racism. The objective is to make racism deviant behavior. The authors believe that racism needs to be made as unnacceptable as drinking and driving or cigarette smoking. An intervention that considers the macro, meso, and micro level is discussed.     

高校学生越轨行为成因及对策思考

高校学生个体或群体在其主观意识的支配下,偏离社会主导行为规范的行为称之为高校学生越轨行为.高校学生的越轨行为严重影响着高校学生的成长和社会的稳定发展.为此,家庭需给予高校学生正确引导和适度关注,学校需加强和改进对高校学生的思想政治教育和管理工作,社会需创造适合高校学生健康成长的良好社会环境.     

Downloading culture: community building in a decentralized file-sharing collective

File-sharing collectives have significantly disrupted models of digital media distribution since their emergence and widespread popularization in the late 1990s. This study investigates how semi-anonymous and decentralized collectives construct their communities of practice. Conducting a case study of a private torrenting community, data were gathered via participant observation, interviews, and online postings (i.e., blogs and forums). Findings challenged dominant notions of opportunism, selfishness and task-oriented individualism advanced by Human–Computer Interaction scholars. Three key constructs were identified in private torrent community building: boundary construction, membership maintenance, and a sense of belonging and solidarity. Findings illustrate how a file-sharing community cultivates the formation of prosocial digital peers, fosters an affective approach to peer-to-peer collectives, and ultimately forges a downloading virtuoso community. This sisyphean, goal-oriented community seeks to create a comprehensive archive of media artifacts independent of and in opposition to dominant corporate platforms. The community demonstrates a downloading culture inspired by technological design, yet driven by trust and solidarity.     

Dialing for Dollars: Opportunities,Justifications, and Telemarketing Fraud

Opportunities for deviant economic exploitation grew significantly in the second half of the twentieth century. Drawing from interviews with forty-seven fraudulent telemarketers, this article describes the backgrounds and pursuits of one type of deviant actor that has stepped forward to exploit these opportunities. The men and women interviewed for this research were reared in middle-class, disproportionately managerial and entrepreneurial families. Their class and family backgrounds provided them with high, but ill-defined, expectations for material success. Their preparation for successful conventional careers was unremarkable. As a result, they were predisposed to economic activities that required few credentials but provided a high income. Once involved in and aware of the deviant nature of their endeavors, continuation in fraud was facilitated by the income it produced and the lifestyle it permitted, by self-definitions enhanced by their manipulative abilities, and by acquisition and use of a vocabulary of motive that deflected blame. An augmented version of sociological strain theory provides an analytic vantage point from which to examine the backgrounds, aspirations, and perspectives of those involved in fraudulent telemarketing.