著者

中野 秀一郎

出版者

日本社会学会

雑誌

社会学評論 (ISSN:00215414)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.22, no.1, pp.57-70, 1971-07-30

被引用文献数

1

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In the writer's view, the Science of Human Society is divided into four sub-categories : <BR>the science of material property (roughly parallel to economics) the science of social power (roughly parallel to political science) <BR>the science of human bonds (roughly parallel to sociology in the narrow sense of the word) <BR>the science of social information (roughly parallel to culture sciences).<BR>This paper is an attempt to frame a rudimentary formulation of the science of social information as a social science discipline. There is yet no such a trial as to unfold a systematic theory of social information, though, as we see, much research materials as well as theoretical contribution is accumulated in the field of the study of social information phenomena. <BR>The integral theory of social information must include all the theoretical achievement in the study of mass communication, information system science such as MIS, NIS, as well as Marxian ideology theory, Weberian religious sociology, Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, logics, liguistics and structuralism. <BR>The theoretical sub-division of the science of social information is into two : <BR>' object' science type ; according to the kind of social information analyzed<BR>, 'method' science type ; according to the kind of the process in which information is produced, exchanged, accumulated, transformed and consumed. <BR>The fundamental difficulty in this 'underdeveloped' science, in the writer's view, are as follows : <BR>(i) theory-building concerning the possibility and the form of the existence of social information (or human knowledge); the writer defines social information as the total information factual as well as imaginary about the environments in which social actor individual as well as collectivity acts. He thinks that the approach must be biological, neurological, psychological and sociological. <BR>(ii) categorization of various social information ; the writer thinks it is productive to use the categorization, namely cognitive, cathectic, evaluative and directive. <BR>(iii) communication and media are also the items demanding the integral theory. <BR>Seeing the contemporary society, the important problems of social information phenomena, in the writer's opinion, are as follows : <BR>(i) micro information phenomena v. macro information phenomena, concretely how the personal, individual information converts itself into the social, collective decision ? <BR>(ii) elite or professional information v. mass or non-professional information, concretely how democracy is possible with specialization in treating social information ? <BR>(iii) rational, cognitive information v. irrational, evaluative information <BR>(iv) the technical aspect v. the semantic aspect of information <BR>(v) the majority information v. the minority information <BR>Though the points above mentioned do not exhaust all the important problems concerning social information phenomena, the paper being a introductory formulation of the science, further discussion is to be postphoned for the next opportunity.