Inspired by the research and theory of Robert Freed Bales (Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Harvard University), this collection of research and applications using SYMLOG, a system for the multi-level observation of groups, provides the most recent examples of analyzing aspects of social interaction systems. The collection shows the relationship of SYMLOG to other theoretical models, gives examples of international research, includes applications in health, education, religion, and policy analysis, and illustrates problems and solutions regarding the validity and reliability of the method. The editors provide the widest selection of articles on SYMLOG, covering theory, research, and applications in organizational development and other fields.

Focusing on applied conversation analysis (CA), this timely book offers practical insights and guidelines for CA scholars studying social interactions in institutional settings. Written in an accessible style and packed with case studies, examples, activities, and practical tips, the book takes readers through the entire process of planning and carrying out an applied CA research study. By highlighting challenges, debates, and important questions, each chapter provides the theoretical foundation necessary for making informed decisions at every stage of a research project. The book is divided into three sections (context and planning, doing a project using conversation analysis, and disseminating your research) to mirror the research process.

Provides practical guidance for both students and academics on how to use video in qualitative research, how to address the problems and issues that arise in undertaking video-based field studies and how to subject video recordings to detailed scrutiny and analysis.

First Published in 1988. This special issue of The Journal of Mathematical Sociology reports continuing work on affect control theory — a theory of social behavior that deals with role actions such as those of doctors toward patients, with deviant behaviors such as those of muggers toward victims, and with creative responses to events such as sanctioning a misbehaved child or labeling a deviant.

In developing the most comprehensive theory of social interaction among humans to date, the author has also constructed a general theory of micro dynamics for sociology and social psychology. He does so by reviewing existing theories of the past and present, synthesixing these concepts into abstract models and principles of social interaction. In contrast to Talcott Parsons and many others, the book argues that social interaction, rather than action and behaviour, is sociology's most basic unit of analysis. This unit is conceptualized as involving three processes: (1) motivational, or the process of mobilizating and energizing interactive behaviour, (2) interactional, or the process of mutual signaling and interpreting with symbols, and (3) structuring, or the process of repeating and organizing social interactions in time and place. For each of these three constituent processes, the relevant theories are analyzed and then synthesized into composite models and general laws.

This Handbook provides a compendium of research methods that are essential for studying interaction and communication across the behavioral sciences. Focusing on coding of verbal and nonverbal behavior and interaction, the Handbook is organized into five parts. Part I provides an introduction and historic overview of the field. Part II presents areas in which interaction analysis is used, such as relationship research, group research, and nonverbal research. Part III focuses on development, validation, and concrete application of interaction coding schemes. Part IV presents relevant data analysis methods and statistics. Part V contains systematic descriptions of established and novel coding schemes, which allows quick comparison across instruments. Researchers can apply this methodology to their own interaction data and learn how to evaluate and select coding schemes and conduct interaction analysis. This is an essential reference for all who study communication in teams and groups.

Analyzing Interaction provides the practical underpinning and tools to carry out the sorts of sequential analyses essential to social psychology.

Within the rapidly-growing arena of 'virtual worlds', such as Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs), individuals behave in particular ways, influence one another, and develop complex relationships. This setting can be a useful tool for modeling complex social systems, cognitive factors, and interactions between groups and within organizations. To study these worlds effectively requires a cross-disciplinary approach that integrates social science theories with big data analytics. This broad-based book offers a comprehensive and holistic perspective on the field. It brings together research findings from an international team of experts in computer science (artificial intelligence, game design, and social computing), psychology, and the social sciences to help researchers and practitioners better understand the fundamental processes underpinning social behavior in virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, Rift, Eve Online, and Travian.

Analyzing the Social Web provides a framework for the analysis of public data currently available and being generated by social networks and social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare. Access and analysis of this public data about people and their connections to one another allows for new applications of traditional social network analysis techniques that let us identify things like who are the most important or influential people in a network, how things will spread through the network, and the nature of peoples' relationships. Analyzing the Social Web introduces you to these techniques, shows you their application to many different types of social media, and discusses how social media can be used as a tool for interacting with the online public. - Presents interactive social applications on the web, and the types of analysis that are currently conducted in the study of social media - Covers the basics of network structures for beginners, including measuring methods for describing nodes, edges, and parts of the network - Discusses the major categories of social media applications or phenomena and shows how the techniques presented can be applied to analyze and understand the underlying data - Provides an introduction to information visualization, particularly network visualization techniques, and methods for using them to identify interesting features in a network, generate hypotheses for analysis, and recognize patterns of behavior - Includes a supporting website with lecture slides, exercises, and downloadable social network data sets that can be used can be used to apply the techniques presented in the book

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315582931, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. This book is about Erving Goffman’s frame analysis as it, on the one hand, was presented in his 1974 book Frame Analysis and, on the other, was actually conducted in a number of preceding substantial analyses of different aspects of social interaction such as face-work, impression management, fun in games, behavior in public places and stigmatization. There was, in other words, a frame analytic continuity in Goffman’s work. In an article published after his death in 1982, Goffman also maintained that he throughout his career had been studying the same object: the interaction order. In this book, the author states that Goffman also applied an overarching perspective on social interaction: the dynamic relation between ritualization, vulnerability and working consensus. However, there were also cracks in Goffman ́s work and one is shown here with reference to the leading question in Frame Analysis – what is it that’s going on here? While framed on a "microsocial" level, that question ties in with "the interaction order" and frame analysis as a method. If, however, it is framed on a societal level, it mirrors metareflective and metasocial manifestations of changes and unrest in the interaction order that, in some ways, herald the emphasis on contingency, uncertainty and risk in later sociology. Through analyses of social media as a possible new interaction order – where frame disputes are frequent – and of interactional power, the applicability of Goffman’s frame analysis is illustrated. As such, this book will appeal to scholars and students of social theory, classical sociology and social interaction.