Abstract
Analysts and commentators periodically raise the prospect that large-scale social changes might substantially alter patterns of interpersonal relations, often for the worse. Among putative sources of such disruptions to the social fabric are industrialization, urbanization and the development and expansion of mass media. Wirth (1938), for example, wrote about consequences of a rapid rural-urban transition for modes of life, including declines in kinship bonds, neighborliness, and personal acquaintanceship (p.11), and substitution of secondary for primary social ties. Sociological analyses suggested that “mass society” entails a general reduction in the number of communal relationships, together with diminished functionality for those that remain; such atomization, it was feared, would render large numbers of people open to manipulation by elites and susceptible to mass appeals (Kornhauser, 1968). Wellman (1979) terms these “community lost” perspectives.
“Trends in Informal Social Participation, 1974-2008.” Pp. 240-266 in Social Trends in American Life: Findings from the General Social Survey since 1972, edited by P. V. Marsden. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.