第200期| 什么是“共鸣”？互动中的认知距离化和情感正当化（ST,2017）

荐读文献：McDonnell, Terence E., Christopher A. Bail, and Iddo Tavory. 2017. ‘A Theory of Resonance’. Sociological Theory 35 (1): 1–14.

最近爆出来的，校园性侵是社会现象吗？

当我们说一个现象是“社会现象”时，是不是说这些现象引起了“共鸣”？

——那么，究竟是什么共鸣？

McDonnell, Terence E., Christopher A. Bail, and Iddo Tavory三人在2017年的Sociological Theory上发表了一篇致力于理论化“共鸣”（resonance）这一概念的作品。

1. 共鸣：熟悉的，还是意外呢？

三位学者首先认为，共鸣（resonance）作为社会生活的一种理论隐喻（metaphor），非常有用，尤其反映在文化社会学和社会运动研究的领域。

但是，三位学者也认为，他们在这篇文章更重要的是想说，共鸣不是什么，而非共鸣是什么。

社会学并非没有研究过“共鸣”。一般来讲，会将之视为一种align的moment（the concept typically describes the moment when discourses align with the worldviews of their audiences）。

在社会学的理论传统中，涂尔干的集体欢腾（collective effervescence）、柯林斯的互动仪式链都似乎在处理这一问题。

但是，如果接受这些观念，那么就意味着：共识=熟悉/共享/现存的价值或知识吗？

Does resonance emerge when people interact with objects that are familiar, embedded in people’s practical, habitual action? Or when objects express shared values? If cultural objects only succeed when they dovetail with existing shared values, how does cultural change occur?

想想近来的校园性侵事件，带来的对高校的“失望”、“期望中的断裂”、“预料之外”的想法——共鸣怎么可能只从shared的角度考虑？

从正面来讲，三位学者认为要从互动/突现/非常规/非预期的角度： how culture “works” in nonroutine situations and how resonance often motivates people to follow unexpected paths

其研究议程则指向： how interaction with cultural objects can have direct effects on mobilization and cultural change.

2. 理论视角：Peirce的实用主义——act-in-motion

What is pragmatic perspective?

三位学者商定三个方面：

（1）文化就是解决问题的“工具”

Instead, we argue that cultural objects are not relevant unless employed to solve a problem....

（2）行动者是解惑者

A pragmatist approach recasts actors as constantly “solving” their world, in the sense of encountering the world and needing to act on it through acts of meaning-making (see Dewey 1929; James [1907] 1981).

（3）共鸣是实验性/解释项的效应（而非符号-对象的结构属性）

In more formal terms, resonance is thus not a structural quality of the sign-object, to borrow Peirce’s (1991) phrase. Instead, resonance is a specific kind of experiential effect (or interpretant), emerging at the same time that actors come to see the world in a new light (Peirce 1991)

3. 定义“共鸣”

（1）共鸣是突现过程

resonance as an emergent process wherein the fit between a cultural message and its audience shifts over time.

（2）共鸣有人、物、情境

Instead, we argue resonance emerges in the relations among object, person, and situation

（3）共鸣是一种解惑的方式

seeing resonance as an experience emerging when affective and cognitive work provides actors with novel ways to puzzle out, or “solve,” practical situations

（4）共鸣是人和情境的文化适配（congruence）

Thus, to the extent that resonance is about congruence, we argue that it is about the act of making a cultural object congruent as a person works through a situation or problem they face

（5）共鸣不同于熟悉性，而是有意外的

resonance differs from familiarity in that the cultural object provides unexpected solutions to puzzles that actors are engaged with.

（6）共鸣来自于关系性情境

Resonance is a process, produced in relations between an object and audience in a specific situation.

 ——总结：

To construct a theory of resonance along these lines, we first redefine resonance in pragmatist terms, focusing on the ability of cultural objects to help actors solve puzzles they face, detailing how actors continuously interpret and reevaluate the world around them in response to repeated interaction with cultural objects.

4. 解释机制的识别

如何应用“共鸣”？如何具体解释其中的how-question？

三位作者提出了两个机制：

（1）认知距离（cognitive distance）机制，意在解释when resonance happens

例如，McDonnell’s (2014, 2016) 研究在加纳，作为外来概念的AIDS/HIV过程，要如何与本土文化产生共鸣，才能推行HIV防治工作。

就如同，《罗密欧与朱丽叶》中，有一句台词“Juliet is the sun”引起了共鸣。但是如果说：“朱丽叶是个姑娘”，或者“朱丽叶是个frying pan”呢？前者太close，后者太distant，所以能产生共鸣的时候，往往The relationship between cognitive distance and resonance is a curvilinear one。

（2）情感正当化机制

共鸣总在从少数人到多数人，总不得不面临判准自己的感觉，让自己的感觉正当化。Situations of heightened emotion may make objects or messages resonate, when they might not otherwise, by priming people to find solutions that justify their feelings. ...to search for information that validates their feelings

例如，在一项研究中，为什么911后，美国的“反穆斯林”的组织从边缘到主流？

Bail (2015) shows that anti-Muslim organizations resonated in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks not because their discourses resonated with prevailing views about Muslims or terrorism but because they were charged with palpable fear and anger that focused public attention on their peripheral claims.

（3）不管是什么机制，都在互动（interaction）中

：Resonance, then, flows interactionally among different people facing a similar set of challenges...resonance is something that happens interactionally, spreading through networks of people actively looking to “feel” resonance

最后，三位作者以“全世界最美社会学者”Ashley Mears才“超模”行业研究为例，说明“共鸣”如何发生与运作。

（豆瓣语~https://www.douban.com/note/210828300/）

模特产业是个特别没有安全感、稳定感的行业。

——大家颜值有差吗？如果没多少差，那么到底要投注在哪个人身上？为什么是这个人红了而不是另一个人呢？

结果是：大家都是寻找某个“超模”。

Mears研究，这个行业的agents，bookers会像寻找共鸣一样，一旦有一个人看到了某个模特，那么其它人都跟着投注过来，形成了自证预言的效应。

The puzzle that Mears exposes is that the modeling world is inundated with an endless supply of aspiring models—young women who mostly have very similar body measures and “look.” And yet, in the same context, people are constantly searching for “the next big thing” or the next supermodel. In the face of such uncertainty, why does the look of certain young woman resonate with modeling agents while extremely similar women leave them cold or uninspired?...In other words, once a high-status, centrally located booker decides that a specific model is “the next big thing,” others take their cue and book the model, thus turning her success into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

用“最美社会学者”（。恩恩，挺有共鸣的。）结束第200期。。

接下来要发几期【过刊的专栏整理】

链接：