Toward A Sociological Theory of Information

Harold Garfinkel, Anne Rawls

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781138678903
• eBook ISBN: 9781317250258
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

In 1952 at Princeton University, Harold Garfinkel developed a sociological theory of information. Other prominent theories then being worked out at Princeton, including game theory, neglected the social elements of "information," modeling a rational individual whose success depends on completeness of both reason and information. In real life these conditions are not possible and these approaches therefore have always had limited and problematic practical application. Garfinkel's sociological theory treats information as a thoroughly organized social phenomenon in a way that addresses these shortcomings comprehensively. Although famous as a sociologist of everyday life, Garfinkel focuses in this new book-never before published-on the concerns of large-scale organization and decisionmaking. In the fifty years since Garfinkel wrote this treatise, there has been no systematic treatment of the problems and issues he raises. Nor has anyone proposed a theory of information like the one he proposed. Many of the same problems that troubled theorists of information and predictable order in 1952 are still problematic today.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Editor’s Introduction
• Garfinkel: Memo #3 Organizational Behavior Project April 17, 1952
• I Various Conceptions of Information
• II Some Desired Properties of the Thing Called “Information”
• III The Conditions within Which a Definition of Information Will Be Sought
• IV The “Object-in-General”
• V The “Imbed
• VI Some Preliminary Terms
• VII A Working Definition of Information
• VIII Kinds of Information
• IX The Factors That Condition Information: Introduction
• X Factors That Condition Information: (A) Factors of the Order of Possibilities
• XI Factors That Condition Information: (B) Role Factors
• XII Factors That Condition Information: (C) Factors of Communicative Work
• XIII Factors That Condition Information: (D) Net-work Factors
• XIV Problems and Theorems
• Appendix 1 Memo #1 (undated): A Statement of the Problem of Communicative Strategies in Self-Maintaining Systems of Activity
• Appendix 2 Memo #2, October 4, 1951: Some Problematical Areas in the Study of Communicative Work
• Appendix 3 Research Proposal Draft (undated): Initial Proposal for Some Studies of the Determinants of the Effectiveness of the Communicative Work of Leaders
• Appendix 4 Research Proposal Abstract, June 1953: Predicting the Effects of Time and Rate of Supervisory Succession upon Group Performance
• Appendix 5 Research Report for Wilbert Moore, July 24, 1942: Bastrop Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author and Editor