Japanese Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 1884-2755
Print ISSN : 0021-5414
ISSN-L : 0021-5414
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Volume 69, Issue 4
Displaying 1-14 of 14 articles from this issue
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Articles
  • Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games
    Cultivating an Emergent Third Place within the Virtual World
    Keisuke TAKADA
    2019 Volume 69 Issue 4 Pages 434-452
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2020
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.69.434
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    The virtual world that exists in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game（MMORPG）functions as the third place. The third place is a comfortable place away from one’s home and workplace. However, the main motive for a player to enter the virtual world of MMORPGs is to enjoy game content, and the circumstances under which and ways in which players participate in the virtual world to interact with others are not clear. In this study, by employing the narratives of players and the transition of game content and exchange activities, the virtual world is revealed to be an emergent third place; the primary role gradually shifts from game content activities to exchange activities through repeating immersion and deficiency periods. The results revealed that reciprocal relations between exchange activities, which form the basis of the third place, and collective activities, which requires players’ active participation, are essential to cultivate the emergent third place. Game content activities（vertical membership）improve the cohesiveness and participation of the group by facilitating group achievement of common goals, and as the basis for the communication activities, they maintain and strengthen the connection between members of the community. In addition, relationship norms ensure that vertical relations among members in the game content activities do not negatively affect their horizontal relations in communication activities. Its existence has a significant influence on the creation and maintenance of the emergent third place.
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  • The Sociological Application of “Trauma” and Its Significance
    Examining Cultural Trauma Theory
    Satoshi KANEKO
    2019 Volume 69 Issue 4 Pages 453-467
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2020
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.69.453
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    In some cases, members of societies and social groups feel and talk about historical events, such as natural disasters and wars, as their tragedies without having had experienced them directly. However, in other cases, they remain silent on these events as if the latter had not happened. To describe and explain these phenomena, some sociologists use the term “trauma.” In their arguments, they use this term metaphorically and fail to develop analytical frameworks and methods. Examining the theory of cultural trauma developed by Jeffrey Alexander and his joint researchers, this paper attempts to show the sociological significance of the concept of “trauma” for exploring the dynamics of collective “awakening” and “silence” in such a large-scale society as a nation-state.
    The cultural trauma theory suggests that the collective silence and awakening over a tragic event cannot necessarily be explained by the objective characteristics of the event itself. According to cultural trauma theory, rather it depends on how the event is interpreted and narrated. Thus, the collective response to a tragic event varies depending upon whether the event is narrated as a deeply troubling injury for society or as an opportunity for its progress. Based on the cultural trauma theory, this paper argues that the dynamics of collective silence and awakening can be explained as culturally framed social phenomena, which cannot be reduced to the minds or spirits of individuals.
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  • Alfred Schutz’s Foundation for the Social Sciences and the Motivation and Significance of His Introduction of the Concept of the Life-World
    From Becoming to Inherence in the World
    Ken TAKAKUSA
    2019 Volume 69 Issue 4 Pages 468-484
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2020
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.69.468
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    Known as a phenomenologist of the life-world, Alfred Schutz offered a clue to reflecting on the meaning of the social sciences in addition to his discovery of the “life-world” as a research field of sociology. It was only during the development of his thought that he introduced the concept of the life-world. This paper examines the motivation for Schutz’s introduction of the concept of the life-world and how his theory changed as a result.
    Schutz’s works, written in the 1920s and at the beginning of the 1930s, inherited basic concepts such as “life and becoming” from the philosophy of life (Lebensphilosophie). His works also adopted a polar opposition model that placed life and becoming on one side and science as a logical or conceptual activity on the other. However, in doing so, science was characterized as being disconnected from life itself. This viewpoint resulted in some difficulty. This is because although science is a part of human life, the polar opposition model precludes a scientific life. In reexamining the concept of life, Schutz introduced the concept of the life-world, and in this way advocated the inherence of life in the world, regardless of whether it referred to ordinary people or those engaged in scientific activity. He argued that the world transcends the ego and forms the universal foundation of all activities. Consequently, Schutz ascribed three attributes to the concept of life: intersubjectivity, historicity, and perspectivity. Based on these attributes, Schutz characterized scientific life in the world as the (1) intersubjective structure of science, (2) historical formation of scientific situations and symbols as a medium of science, and (3) the perspective of scientific activity governed by “relevance structures”.
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  • Controlling the　“Ephemerality”　of Screens
    On the Standardization Practices of Film Showing During World War Ⅱ in Japan
    Kazuto KONDO
    2019 Volume 69 Issue 4 Pages 485-501
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: March 31, 2020
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.69.485
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    This paper focuses on the standardization process implemented by the nation on film exhibition practices during World War Ⅱ in Japan and examines how the viewing experience was regarded as a controllable object. This research is important because previous studies on wartime film reception assumed that viewing practices could be revealed by analyzing the film text itself and neglected that such practices were conditioned by various technical/technological logics. Focusing on discursive/material practices about the showing environment, this paper outlines the overlooked aspects and new perspective of Japanese screen culture.
    From the perspective of discursive analysis, this paper first explores how the nation discovered/refigured showing conditions as a problematic site after the enforcement of Eiga-hou, 1939. Second, focusing on the practices by which the site was regulated — especially on budgetary control, showing program, number of showing times, projectionists’ techniques, and projector technologies regulations — this paper analyzes how experiences within the theater were standardized across cinemas. Third, through analyzing the exhibition conditions of marginal areas, this paper reveals that the ephemerality of film forced the project of establishing uniform showing environments across the nation to end in failure. Finally, summing up the analysis, several implications of this perspective are described.
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