In this posthumous volume, renowned sociologist Herbert Blumer analyzes George Herbert MeadOs position in the study of human conduct. Engaged with MeadOs work for over half a century, Blumer explored MeadOs ideas for developing the theoretical and methodological position of symbolic interactionism, a term that Blumer would later introduce. Although Blumer focused on the sociological and social psychological implications of MeadOs pragmatism, his objective was to explore social processes em...

Herbert Blumer wrote continuously and voluminously, and consequently left a vast array of unpublished work at the time of his death in 1987. This posthumously published volume testifies further to his perceptive analysis of large-scale social organizations and elegant application of symbolic interactionist principles.Blumer's focus on the processual nature of social life and on the significance of the communicative interpretation of social contexts is manifest in his theory of indu...

This anthology of hard-to-find primary documents provides a solid overview of the foundations of American media studies. Focusing on mass communication and society and how this research fits into larger patterns of social thought, this valuable collection features key texts covering the media studies traditions of the Chicago school, the effects tradition, the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, and mass society theory. Where possible, articles are reproduced in their entirety to pres...

This reader shows the rich history and wide contemporary application of symbolic interaction theory.

Tamotsu Shibutani is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Social Processes: An Introduction to Sociology and Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor.

Originally published in 1989, The Dilemma of Qualitative Method is a stimulating guide to the discussion of qualitative versus quantitative approaches to social research, originated in nineteenth-century debates about the relationship between the methods of history and natural science. One of the key theorists in this area was Chicago sociologist Herbert Blumer. The book analyses the historical context of the dispute and provides a detailed account and systematic analysis Blumer’s...

During the 1920s, the Chicago school of sociology developed an ecological orientation toward the study of the city. At the same time, other Chicago scholars developed the social psychological approach that was to be named symbolic interactionism. Over fifty years later, Gordon Ericksen examines the best of these two schools to present a revisionist human ecology. In The Territorial Experience, he gives us a fresh perspective on human ecology by reconstructing the discipline in a way that g...