In his 2004 ASA Presidential Address, Michael Burawoy identified the challenge of public sociology as engaging “multiple publics in multiple ways.” Since its founding, each editorial team of Contexts has pursued with zeal this magnificent mission for the magazine. Catching up with former editors Doug Hartmann and Christopher Uggen (2007-2011), the third team in the periodical’s illustrious history, Amin Ghaziani takes a deep dive into the many meanings of public sociology. What is the point of a magazine that speaks to the public—and when editors think about “public sociology,” who or what comes to mind?
Doug Hartmann
Chris Uggen
AMIN GHAZIANI (AG):Contexts is coming up on its 25th anniversary. The magazine has evolved in many ways, with each editorial team building from the previous and laying the groundwork for the next. What were some initiatives that you set out to accomplish?
DOUGLAS HARTMANN (DH): Two things we did, one is, we brought back the “discoveries” that founding editor Claude Fischer had done, the short write-ups of research now called “in briefs,” then did pieces on sociologists in the news called “reflected appraisals.” I think this was a good move—it was really exciting for our graduate students—and we’ve continued both as focal points on The Society Pages website. The other big thing that was probably our single biggest success, and it’s why we’re still doing what we do today, is the launch of the website (contexts.org) and realization of social media. We realized pretty early on that we were getting as much traffic and feedback from what we were doing online as we were in the print product.
CHRISTOPHER UGGEN (CU): That was number one on my list, launching the website. I remember going to ASA with a bunch of contexts.org guitar picks and handing those out, getting people to engage in this multimedia space where we had more flexibility beyond the page in the time between issues—and then bringing a network of sociological blogs and other writing online. I view that as one of the big-picture contributions that Contexts has made over the years.
DH: It was not only multimedia; it was open-access. We were really committed to that. It didn’t have some of the same firewalls that I think those of us who’ve done the editorship have struggled with around the print product over the years. I think that was really, really important. We were going to turn that over to ASA to be a permanent part of Contexts. But there wasn’t a lot of interest, even though it was pretty cost-effective. That’s actually when we spun off and created The Society Pages. We continued to host contexts.org—but we also continued the blogs because we didn’t think that niche was getting filled otherwise.
AG: Can you say a little more about the beginnings of The Society Pages and its relationship to Contexts?
CU: During our period as editors, we started building out a network of blogs. We had some energy, some ideas, and then we had a network of folks around the country. But the question is really, “Okay, we have a limited term; who’s going to take this over,” or “What’s this going to look like in the future?” We didn’t have a plan for that beyond our editorship, or how that would transfer. So we said, “Well, we certainly want to keep this site going.” It wasn’t terribly expensive, and we wanted to do something that was open-access and keep it open-access. We’ve been able to hold the line on that.
“What I learned during those early years as editor was that the Contexts constituency— we’re all doing public sociology. We’re all in our communities doing work.”
CHRIS UGGEN
AG: Interesting that you both emphasize open-access.
DH: The whole point of a publication like Contexts is to find non-academic readers, and when the main funding mechanism and properties of the content are available only through subscription or university library access, that’s a huge disconnect. We the ASA, we Contexts editors—we’ve never been able to solve that. I understand why: because there hasn’t been a funding mechanism, or a will, or appetite, or ability to fund open-access materials via the organization because of its own challenges. But it’s a real disconnect that you produce something for public consumption, but it has paywalls around it. That’s why open-access has been a principle for us on The Society Pages from day one, and we’ve never wavered on that, even though it’s limited some of what we could do because a lot of growth possibilities would rely on some kind of marketing or payment plan.
CU: The resource base—as sociologists, we know how important that is, the material base of the enterprise. We explored things like advertising, for example, for keeping things open-access. But how many advertisers would really be acceptable to an audience of sociologically informed folks? That meant more of an austerity plan in terms of how we could pay for things. Over the years, we’ve had at least 40 million visitors to The Society Pages. Relative to the paywalled sources, that’s a fairly large number.
AG:Contexts embodies an intellectual, visual, and narrative diversity that we seldom see in more traditional academic journals. Why is it important to have a space like this?
CU: I think the visual is really underutilized in sociological writing. The Contexts photoessays are magnificent and moving, and I think they get across to folks in a way that other forms don’t. To me, that is a real hallmark of Contexts.
DH: It’s crucial to have multiple and engaging modes of contact when the goal is to disseminate research and knowledge—and then also just to cultivate a better public understanding of what sociology is. Text isn’t the only way to do that.
CU: I think of how many words are thrown at us each day, in our email, our inboxes—it’s an assault of words, really. To have a powerful image with parsimony around the words? That can jump out, that can really be arresting and engaging. I think Contexts has been a tremendously important vehicle for doing that.
“Contexts has helped our field have a better understanding of itself, of its breadth and depth.”
DOUG HARTMANN
AG: The mission of the magazine is to champion public sociology. I’m curious how your term as editors shaped the way you think about the meaning of that idea.
DH: Obviously, it is about public sociology—but I also think what Contexts is, is maybe a different version of public engagement than many in the field have understood, following Michael Burawoy’s notion of the term. I think what Contexts is about is far more the vision of public engagement that Herb Gans envisioned in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which was less about advocacy and activism, less about on-the-ground engagement, action research, and community-engaged work (as crucial as those are). It was more about public and media dissemination, getting the word out about what we know about our insights and views. The big point here is the engagement is quite different than what many people imagine public sociology to be. Burawoy’s vision was far more locally engaged and critically and politically instrumental. This is public, but in some different ways that create a broader understanding of what public sociology and public engagement are and should be.
CU: Doug and I, we sometimes talk about the Contexts’ constituency, which is different than the constituency for other journals. The readership, it was very diverse, it came from all kinds of institutions. We really saw ourselves as an outlet for people doing more local and contextualized work. What I learned during those early years as editor was that the Contexts constituency—we’re all doing public sociology. We’re all in our communities doing work.
DH: I think where our vision of public engagement merges with Burawoy’s is around students. We all agree that students are our first, if not most important, public. We somewhat recently launched a new partner site called First Publics, which is all about online teaching, pedagogy, how to use online resources, and how to do that more effectively for our students. That’s inspired by a point that Burawoy prioritized early on when he was president [of the American Sociological Association] and championing public sociology. Even though sometimes we forgot about it or took it for granted, some of the most important audiences, outreach, and impacts of our work were in classrooms, getting used by sociology instructors to teach sociology, or even sociology students who didn’t know what site they stumbled onto.
AG: I’m drawn to the idea of students as our first and most important public.
CU: We stole that from Burawoy! [laughs]
DH: Our first role, for many of us, what we wake up to do and spend a lot of our time on, is working with students and being in classrooms. They’re not some entity separated from the rest of the world. They are the public, and they are the future of the leaders in our public. That phrase, “first publics,” comes from Burawoy’s ASA presidential address. The reality is, when you look at the circulation of materials, it’s from the students and teachers who find value in not necessarily in ASR articles but in the distillations and various articulations that we can do in a magazine like Contexts.
AG: Listening to you both, it strikes me that what we think is a singular idea, public sociology, is in fact manifold and multivocal. But I wonder, and would appreciate if we could discuss frankly, whether the magazine has been effective in reaching audiences beyond academic sociologists.
DH: It’s disappointing that we haven’t had a broader footprint, or that we haven’t had growth. And now we’re seeing some consolidation back from some of the commitments that we, as an organization, have made to this magazine over the years. We never really figured out ways to distribute and disseminate Contexts outside of the academic library platforms and fiscal models that guide all of our other journals.
I remember when we started this, some of the criticism or skepticism we faced in our editorship was that Contexts was popularizing sociology to the sociologists. That was seen as a criticism. I think there’s some truth to that. I also think that’s maybe, in retrospect, more of a success than we realize. Even if it hasn’t had direct public impact, Contexts has helped our field have a better understanding of itself, of its breadth and its depth.
I also think that Contexts has contributed to a growth in public awareness of sociology and sociological work. I feel like we should take credit for some of our colleagues out in the world who are writing regularly in public outlets. They benefit from the collective energies of sociology to public engagement that Contexts has been a part of.
One other thing that is a part of that is the writing style. I think Contexts was able to champion and model a different kind of writing. I think that’s trickled down so that we’ve got faculty and even grad students who are able to write in far more accessible and engaging ways than I think was the case before we launched these initiatives.
CU:Contexts has been a real site of innovation. I’m thinking of James Coleman writing about how sociologists developed public opinion research, they developed focus groups, they developed all of these things that turned out to be really useful in the world—but we’re not necessarily credited for. There are all sorts of areas in which sociology innovates, and then the world claims. I view it as kind of R&D for the field and for public writing. In that role, Contexts has been spectacularly successful.
DH: Work that gets written up in Contexts, as well as work that we cite on The Society Pages, I have a sense that that work and those scholars have really benefited from the public dissemination. I think some of the prominent public intellectuals out of sociology these days, their work has found resonance not only in the public but across our discipline and across other disciplines. I really do think that’s where Chris’s “R&D” thing really is right on. It’s not even research and development; it’s the actual mechanisms by which work gets circulated and disseminated, not only discipline-wise but across disciplines. Because you can’t write it for the insiders, you can’t write it for the technical methodologists. It’s got to be in a more general, accessible way. When you can do that, then it has not just a broader public visibility but a bigger academic impact.
AG:Contexts will start its 25th volume as an online-only publication. What advice do you have for the ASA as we do away with the printed edition?
DH: I do worry that the ASA doesn’t really understand the level of investment and the amount of work needed to be successful online, and how that’s not directly translatable from the great work that all the editors have been doing on the print publication. These are different formats, different audiences, different processes.... I worry that this move online is seen as an easy, simplifying, cost-saving method. To me, if it’s to be successful, it has to be the opposite. Reinvest and put more into making an online version as beautiful and as effective as the print publication has been for a quarter century.
CU: I’m a little romantic about the print publication and its value. The sensory experience of holding the issues in your hand, the visuals, the design work, et cetera—I think getting off-screen really helps in many ways. I don’t want to try to cost-out the cost-benefit analysis, but I will say, as a sociology department chair, that it was a marvelous calling card for our field to be able to drop a copy of Contexts in the dean’s office or outside our student advising office and say, “Hey, what is sociology about? Check this thing out.” In that way, it is good institutional advertising for sociology that might work better than a link.
DH: There are so many ways that sociology needs to engage the world. We need all of those not only to get our work out, but to do our work better.
Amin Ghaziani is in the Department of Sociology at the University of British Columbia. The co-editor of Contexts, he is the author, most recently, of Long Live Queer Nightlife.
