Sokal Hoax, or Sokal ScandalA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWresearch as well as debates within sociolinguis-
tics are of relevance to the study of interpersonal
communication. See topic guides under
interpersonal communication; language/
discourse/narrative.
Sociology French philosopher Auguste Comte
(1798–1857) was the fi rst to use the word. Th e
discipline attempts a scientific and system-
atic study of society, employing precise and
controlled methods of enquiry. It is concerned
with social structure; social systems; social
action; the various groups, institutions, catego-
ries and classes which go to make up a society
or social system; the culture and lifestyle of a
society and the groups of which it is composed;
the processes of socialization by which such
cultures are communicated and maintained; and
the types and allocation of social roles. Social
groups, their inter-relationships and interac-
tion, and their conditioning of individual
behaviour could be seen as the building-blocks
of the discipline.
▶Gregory McLennan, Story of Sociology: A First
Companion to Social Th eory (Bloomsbury Academic,
2011).
Sociometrics (and media analysis) Socio-
metrics is the analysis of small groups, their
coherence and the interpersonal relationships
and communication within them. This mode
of analysis has been extended and applied
within media studies to ascertain the nature
of the relationships between owners of media
organizations and owners of other industrial or
commercial concerns and the degree to which
they are interlocking. The purpose of such a
sociometric map of capitalism is to discover
whether or not shared positions in and patterns
of social and economic life produce recognized
shared interests and a common cluster of beliefs,
values and perspectives which feed back into
and influence media organizations and their
products.
Increasingly, owners of communications
concerns are also owners of other businesses,
and these contacts are reinforced by overlapping
directorships. Board members of top media
corporations have been found to hold member-
ship of elite London clubs also favoured by direc-
tors of leading fi nancial institutions and some
business corporations. Of course evidence of
points of contact does not necessarily constitute
evidence of shared values, beliefs and perspec-
tives, or deliberate infl uence of media products.
See convergence. See also topic guide under
research methods.
Sokal Hoax, or Sokal Scandal New YorkTh ere is interest as to the media’s potential role
in this process: its capacity as a disseminator
of propaganda, for example, could be of
signifi cance. Additionally, media organizations
are themselves social institutions and as such
have their own patterns of behaviour, attitudes
and beliefs into which their members are social-
ized. Th e degree to which the culture of media
organizations aff ects their output is a consider-
able source of interest. See topic guide under
media: values & ideology.
Social lubricators Richard Hoggart in Speaking
to Each Other (Chatto & Windus, 1970) uses this
term to describe those people involved in the
research, design and presentation of material
aimed at aiding the smooth running of a tech-
nologically advanced society: communications
experts, public relations offi cers and advertising
executives, for example. See public relations
(pr).
Social networking See networking: social
networking.
Socially unattached intelligentsia See
impartiality.
Social perception See perception.
Social system Consists of a collective of people
who undertake diff erent types of tasks in order
to achieve common goals and solve common
problems. Th e term can be applied to a group of
two or more individuals, complex organizations
or whole societies. For the members of a social
system to cooperate, there must be a shared
language and some cultural similarities between
them, although within the overall system there
may be a variety of sub-cultures and language
codes, as well as other individual diff erences. All
social systems are liable to undergo transition, a
process by which the structures and functions
are altered. One focus for research has been the
role of the communication of innovation in the
process of social change. See socialization.
Societally conscious See vals typology.
Sociolinguistics Th e study of the way in which
an individual’s linguistic behaviour might be
infl uenced by the social communities to which
he/she belongs. It investigates also the linguistic
variations found between groups and their iden-
tifi cation through language.
Richard A. Hudson in Sociolinguistics
(Cambridge University Press, 1996) comments
that ‘in sociolinguistics ... the social questions
are in full focus’. Areas within the fi eld include
the study of dialects, codes, registers, Pidgins,
Creoles, the relationship between language and
thought, and gender diff erences in the use of
language. A number of aspects of contemporary