Narratives and Social Change: Social Reality in Contemporary Society (Culture in Policy Making: The Symbolic Universes of Social Action)

This book is an important contribution to narrative research and highlights how narratives can produce social change. The author demonstrates this through an analysis of concepts like future, uncertainty and risk, both in terms of individual impact and as collective forms of social life. The book reconstructs the relationships between future, uncertainty and risk through everyday how narratives exert power over individual and social life by influencing individual or collective decisions and choices. Narratives also change future prospects, thus producing social change. Some of the examples the author draws out for discussion are - in specific - the narration of the migration flows in the Mediterranean Sea, and the narration of the pandemic emergency from COVID-19. The result of different narratives has been the emergence of new ideologies and of a complex series of dynamics in which the local ends up becoming global and vice versa. Highly topical and interdisciplinary in its approach, this book is of interest to researchers and students of the sociology of culture and communication, media and communication studies, social and cultural psychology and cultural anthropology. Introduction: Narratives as Everyday Events 6 Contents 13 About the Author 15 Part I: Narratives, Sociology, and Research Perspectives 16 Chapter 1: Narratives and Sociology 17 1.1 What Are Narratives? 17 1.2 Towards a New Sociological Imagination 22 1.3 Narratives as Cultural Products 26 References 30 Chapter 2: Background and Theoretical Framework 33 2.1 Phenomenology and the Life-World 33 2.2 Symbolic Interactionism and Everyday Life 40 2.3 Ethnomethodology and Knowledge 47 2.4 Social Constructionism and Comprehension 51 2.5 Hermeneutics and Interpretive Processes 60 References 66 Chapter 3: Contemporary Perspectives in the Study of Narratives 70 3.1 Erving Goffman and Dramaturgical Action 70 3.2 Jerome Bruner and the ``Narrative Thought ́ ́ 77 3.3 Paul Ricœur and the Narrative Identity 83 3.4 Hannah Arendt and the Theory of Action 88 References 95 Part II: Narratives and Social Change 98 Chapter 4: Narratives Between Knowledge and Communication 99 4.1 An Ever-Changing Society 99 4.2 Communication and Knowledge: An Inseparable Dyad 102 4.2.1 Communication Between the Cultural and the Digital Revolution 103 4.2.2 Knowledge in the Face of the Challenges Posed by Globalisation 106 4.2.3 Communication and Knowledge in Space and Time 108 4.3 Narratives Between Knowledge and Communication 112 References 118 Chapter 5: Future, Narratives, and Social Change 120 5.1 Global Society and Uncertainty 120 5.2 Future, Imaginary, and Narratives 122 5.3 Social Change and the Balance Between ``Cultural Goals ́ ́ and ``Legitimate Means ́ ́ 125 References 129 Chapter 6: Risk, Social Change and Communication 131 6.1 Risk as a Cultural Product and a Social Problem 131 6.2 Risk and the Problem of Knowledge 136 6.3 Risk Communication and Credibility 141 References 146 Part III: Social Reality, Narratives, and Future Research Perspectives 149 Chapter 7: Social Reality Between Global and Local 150 7.1 Representations and the Construction of Social Reality 150 7.2 The Effects of the Media on the Construction of Social Reality 154 7.3 Media, Narratives and the Construction of the Self 157 References 160 Chapter 8: Social Reality and Narratives Between Interpretations and Metaphors 162 8.1 Social Reality and Narratives: Theoretical Framework 162 8.2 Narratives in Contemporary Society: Two Case Studies 165 8.2.1 The Narratives of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Metaphors of War and the Enemy 166 8.2.2 The Migration Crisis in the Mediterranean Sea and the Role of Narratives 170 8.3 Narratives as a ``Deforming Mirror ́ ́ of Social Reality 176 References 178 Chapter 9: Narrative Analysis and Future Research Perspectives 181 9.1 Models of Narrative Analysis 181 9.2 Towards an ``Integral Method ́ ́ for Narrative Analysis 186 9.3 Future Research Perspectives 189 References 191