Garfinkel2008

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Garfinkel2008
BibType BOOK
Key Garfinkel2008
Author(s) Harold Garfinkel
Title Toward a sociological theory of information
Editor(s) Anne Warfield Rawls
Tag(s) Ethnomethodology
Publisher Paradigm Publishers
Year 2008
Language
City Boulder, CO
Month
Journal
Volume
Number
Pages
URL Link
DOI
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
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Abstract

n 1952 at Princeton University, Harold Garfinkel developed a sociological theory of information. Other prominent theories then being worked out at Princeton, including game theory, neglected the social elements of "information," modeling a rational individual whose success depends on completeness of both reason and information. In real life these conditions are not possible and these approaches therefore have always had limited and problematic practical application. Garfinkel's sociological theory treats information as a thoroughly organized social phenomenon in a way that addresses these shortcomings comprehensively. Although famous as a sociologist of everyday life, Garfinkel focuses in this new book-never before published-on the concerns of large-scale organization and decisionmaking. In the fifty years since Garfinkel wrote this treatise, there has been no systematic treatment of the problems and issues he raises. Nor has anyone proposed a theory of information like the one he proposed. Many of the same problems that troubled theorists of information and predictable order in 1952 are still problematic today.

Notes

Edited and introduced by Anne Warfield Rawls