• Involves the fragmentation of meaning, localization of politics, the decline of the ideas of Truth, and the decentering of the subject
• "floating signifiers" signs are not tied to one code, signifiers and signified are fragmented
• The Truth is derived from individuals in positions of privelege

• We control our lives through reason, science, and democracy
• Life is orderly
• Belief in the ability to create a more just, equitable world-human emancipation is possible and we shuld strive for self and group actualization (our highest/greatest potential)

• lack of control, lack of structure, and lack of meaning
• images are more important than reality
• There is no authenticity
• because change is so fast the social world is fragmented
• era categorized by hyperconsumption in which many of us consume far more than we need and more than we could ever use

• Power is Knowledge!
• knowledge is a specific means for exercising power

• all seeing eye
• designed for surveillance of prisoners

• society with a lot of monitoring
• control is pervasive

• the practices and techniques by which control is exercised over people
• this idea can be extended to any institution pr individual who has access to instruments of disciplinary power
• 3 main "instruments of power"

• those in power decide what is deviant and what is normal
• those who violate the norms are judged as abnormal

• used to monitor subordinates, used in many settings and especially places with hierarchial organization

• on an individual level we can resist this "overmonitoring" force that constrains us (lawsuits, awareness, pretending to be compliant)
• the more monitored we are the more we'll be tempted to change ourselves

• Reality is fluid and changing
• it depends on signs, codes, and language

• Trade-mark images that people/companies use to defne what we think a product is all about
• being cultural members helps us to understand these signs
• comes to be more important than the quality of the product itself

• a system of rules that allows us to understand the meaning of signs
• we learn how to place meaning on what we are encouraged to consume
• the mass media creates a code of its own symbolic logic about what 'lifestyle image' is associated with certain products

• simulations come to be more 'real' than reality itself
• there is no longer any reality, but only simulations of reality

• imitations, models, and reproductions that increasingly dominate cotemporary society
• because of this culture has become less genuine

• a fragmented and unified self
• powerlessness against global forces and knowledge to appropriate the latest technology
• the authority and uncertainty access to the internet gives a user

• disembeddedness of global society
• dilemma of the self
• corporations are the dominant agents within the world economy - exacerbates on a global level class-based inequalities found in local economic markets
• dialectical nature of globalization

• Global systems theory
• class polarization
• nation-states are increasingly becoming less relevant

• three classes of global workers necessary to the coordination and maintenance of the globalized financial and service infrastructure
• Professionals/executives, government bureaucrats, low-skilled workers

• Nation-states are becoming less autonomous and less powerful political-economic-military territory
• Liquid Modernity

• cultural icons, products, and standards are increasingly similar across the globe
• captures the convergence and homogenization of culture across the globe

• tool for understanding global inequality
• a social system, distinct from nation-states, that has structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence and that contains within its boundaries a diversity of cultures and an expansive division of labor that links together smaler social units to form a whole
• made up of conflicting forces which are held together by tension
• Consists of 3 hierarchial structural positions

• deals with teh concept of the 'other'
• notion that the other is inherently inferior, weak, and evil - colonizers have to civilize these savages

• Westerners have created the reality of the Orient through their writings, helped Europe to define itself by creating a contrasting "Other"
• Consists of 3 dimensions - Orientalists, style of thought, the truth of Orient

• Exploitation of cheap labor
• political upheavals
• increasing fragmentation from groups that wish to preserve their identity
• loss of influence of nation-states as transnational banks and corporations gain more power
• increased # of vagabonds who roam the gloabe looking for work
• environmental destruction
• lopsided development

• Increased cross-cultural exchange and growth of multicultural awareness
• world standards for human rights
• collapse of socially constructed racial and ethnic identities
• growth of transnational communities and networks
• spread of education and literacy
• sharing resources

• Success
• Value
• Stimulus
• Deprivation-satiation
• frustration-aggression

• explained how social ogranizations are influenced by social forces that are independent of the individual (social facts)
• deals with the importance of collective norms

• feelings, less tangible
• inside of you

• tangible, surface rewards
• exterior you can see them

• this happens when exahnges are imbalanced
• the more a person or entity has of something I want, the greater power they have
• the existence of alternatives makes a person less dependent on something and the power of that someone or something declines

• surplus of resources
• network connections
• expertise
• alternatives

Diffuseness of expectations

• unspecified expectations characterize non-economic and non-contractual social relationships
• recipient is the one who decidess when to, if at all, reciprocate the favor

• reward individuals tangibly for participation in group activities
• reward individuals intangibly - personal satisfaction, increased social approval
• enforce participation through negative sanctions for non-participation - ostracism, boycotting etc

• the exchange in one direction is contingent upon the exchange in the other
• exchange between A and B is contingent upon exchange between B and C

• the exchange in one direction is contingent upon the non-exchange in the other
• exchange between A and B is contingent upon B and C not exchanging

• the self is a product of performances in social life
• the self that an individual is able to perform and have accepted by others is determined by the positions/roles (scenes) that one ends up in

• powerful negative social label that affects a person or group's social identity and self-concept, roles become more difficult when we have spoiled identities
• types: physical challenges, character defects, definitive traits (religion, gender, race, sexuality, occupation)

• visible
• known
• interaction is uncomfortable, problem is attempting to project identity while being seen as socially competent because assumptions about competence are often unfairly made

• potentially hidden
• invisible
• problem stems from whether or not to reveal the stigma to others

• how social order is maintained
• consists of interdependent groups pursuing common goals
• through consensus and agreement on values and norms which hold society together
• focus on how social structures determines, and are effective in (functional to) maintaining, the social order, society (social equilibrium)

• society is composed of different groups which are in competition for scarce resources and are in constant struggle. those in power try to enforce conformity to limit the struggle, but this in turn creates resistance.
• composed of groups in conflict, each pursuing its own interests.

• the theory of knowledge especially with regard to its methods, validity and scope. 
• the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion

• Universalistic vs. particularistic
• Specificity vs. Diffuseness
• Achievement vs. Ascription
• Neutrality vs. affectivity
• Self vs. collective orientation

• conformist
• innovator
• ritualist
• retreatist
• rebel

• is institutionally regulated in democratic societies and typically does not lead to violence
• group conflict emerges wen the manifest interests of one group conflict with those of another