Sociological Metaphors for the Public

Social science and philosophy have generated a vast number of other metaphorical descriptions of the public, rooted in different and often scientific perspectives on systematicity and relation. These are technologies in the broad sense that they enable different kinds of questions to be asked. An account of these would include the public as: A Physical System or Mass: This metaphor underwrites work in mass commu- nications and allows one to ask questions like “What is the impact of a given...

 The History of Analogies Between Biological Evolution and...

From the early days of Darwinism analogies have been drawn between biological evolution and the evolution of culture. Darwin's contemporary Herbert Spencer studied the evolution of civilizations, which he viewed as progressing towards an ideal something like that of Victorian English society. Lewis Morgan's evolutionary theory of society included the three stages of savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The historian Arnold Toynbee used evolutionary ideas in identifying over thirty distinct ...