Professor Michael Buroway on Public Sociology (Lecture)

MICHAEL BUROWAY: Public Sociology shares a communication with publics beyond the academy. What are Publics? Publics can be very diverse. Publics can be active or passive, mainstream or oppositional. Which implies a complex double communication among members of public themselves in communication with sociologists. Publics have an internal conversation even as they are in communication with Sociologists. Communication with Sociologists can be of two forms as 1) a mediated conversation (or also called) traditional public sociology where the conversation with publics is mediated through newspapers, books, blogs etc. or 2) organic public sociology where conversations with publics is unmediated, face-to-face (Here, Sociologists work directly within civil society, trade unions, social movements, neighbourhood associations, entering into a conversation with them that is direct and unmediated).