Vita e Pensiero

The author presents a summary of General Sociology of Barry Barnes, illustrating the connections and dependencies with the strong program in SSK. In particular, the article focuses on the nature and function of rules in social order, understood as cognitive. Finally, the article tries to give the constructionist sociology of Barnes a location in the context of contemporary sociological theory.

Overall explanations for the rise of modern capitalism are usually divided between productivist thesis which assign causal primacy to the production system and anti-productivistic thesis which give consumer culture an active role in the process. I claim that a multi-causal approach is more adequate if we want to better understand the interplay of production and consumption at the origin of modern capitalism; moreover, I suggest that a study of marketing is well fitted for such a task, since marketing is the link between the production system and the spheres of consumption. Drawing on the Nietzsche-inspired Weberian genealogical method and following the path-breaking works on consumer capitalism in America, I delved into a study of the origin and development of marketing in U.S. between 1890 and 1930 in order to outline a genealogy of consumer capitalism. This research is the object of my Ph.D. dissertation which I present in the essay.

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A. MANZATO, Mediated proximities: distance and responsibility in the media sphere In a more and more globalized world, our relationship with distant others is particularly guaranteed by media. More specifically, media are the devices through which we connect with images and narrations of distant suffering. In this context, the question arises of how to react properly to the suffering, thus approaching a moral dimension in media production and consumption. The article draws in the first instance from Roger Silverstone’s latest work, Media and morality, discussing how the space of appearance developed by media, the mediapolis, allows dialogue and care for the distant other. A proper distance in representation is required, which does not neutralize difference, nor makes it totally untouchable. Mediapolis has to be the space of hospitality and polyphony. Images of suffering, in a moral dimension, must involve a disposition to action that overcomes emotions through an «acting word». In this sense, the risk of «compassion fatigue» and of discursive strategies of denial has to be replaced by a personal responsibility as media producers, audiences and citizens. Key words: mediapolis, moral dimension in the media, proper distance, spectacle of suffering, compassion fatigue.