Adam Bohannon's List: Communication reading list

• Parsons developed his ideas during a period when systems theory and cybernetics were very much on the front burner of social and behavioral science. In using systems thinking, he postulated that the relevant systems treated in social and behavioral science were "open," meaning that they were embedded in an environment consisting of other systems. For social and behavioral science, the largest system is "the action system," consisting of interrelated behaviors of human beings, embedded in a physical-organic environment.
• To survive or maintain equilibrium with respect to its environment, any system must to some degree adapt to that environment, attain its goals, integrate its components, and maintain its latent pattern, a cultural template of some sort. These are called the system's functional imperatives.

• He held that "the social system is made up of the actions of individuals."^[8] His starting point, accordingly, is the interaction between two individuals faced with a variety of choices about how they might act,^[9] choices that are influenced and constrained by a number of physical and social factors.^[10]
• As behaviours are repeated in more interactions, and these expectations are entrenched or institutionalised, a role is created. Parsons defines a "role" as the normatively-regulated participation "of a person in a concrete process of social interaction with specific, concrete role-partners."^[12] Although any individual, theoretically, can fulfil any role, she is expected to conform to the norms governing the nature of the role she fulfils.^[13]
• Parsons later developed the idea of roles into collectivities of roles that complement each other in fulfilling functions for society.^[15] Some roles are bound up in institutions and social structures (economic, educational, legal and even gender-based). These are functional in the sense that they assist society in operating^[16] and fulfil its functional needs so that society runs smoothly.
• Parsons recognises this, stating that he treats "the structure of the system as problematic and subject to change,"^[20] and that his concept of the tendency towards equilibrium "does not imply the empirical dominance of stability over change."^[21] He does, however, believe that these changes occur in a relatively smooth way.

• Individuals in interaction with changing situations adapt through a process of "role bargaining."^[22] Once the roles are established, they create norms that guide further action and are thus institutionalised, creating stability across social interactions. Where the adaptation process cannot adjust, due to sharp shocks or immediate radical change, structural dissolution occurs and either new structures (and therefore a new system) are formed, or society dies.

   

  This model of social change has been described as a "moving equilibrium,"^[23] and emphasises a desire for social order.
• Merton criticised functional unity, saying that not all parts of a modern, complex society work for the functional unity of society.
• Some institutions and structures may have other functions, and some may even be generally dysfunctional, or be functional for some while being dysfunctional for others. This is because not all structures are functional for society as a whole. Some practices are only functional for a dominant individual or a group [Holmwood, 2005:91].
• Here Merton introduces the concepts of power and coercion into functionalism and identifies the sites of tension which may lead to struggle or conflict. Merton states that by recognizing and examining the dysfunctional aspects of society we can explain the development and persistence of alternatives. Thus, as Holmwood states, “Merton explicitly made power and conflict central issues for research within a functionalist paradigm” [2005:91].
• Merton also noted that there may be functional alternatives to the institutions and structures currently fulfilling the functions of society.
• This notion of functional alternatives is important because it reduces the tendency of functionalism to imply approval of the status quo.
• The last of Merton’s important contributions to functionalism was his distinction between manifest and latent functions. Manifest functions refer to the conscious intentions of actors; latent functions are the objective consequences of their actions, which are often unintended [Holmwood, 2005:90].

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