Sociological imagination and media - Essay Example

The value of Sociological Imagination is explored in this paper. Reference is made particularly to the potential use of Sociological Imagination by Media. A well known British TV series, also available in US, is used as an example. It is proved that Sociological Imagination can be used for explaining daily human life but its role in improving the daily life of individuals worldwide seems to be limited, mostly because not all individuals are equally competent in understanding social rules and social forces.

The Sociological Imagination and Media – Crime drama series ‘Vera’, A Certain Samaritan, Season 2, Episode 4 The Crime drama series ‘Vera’ shows the efforts of Vera Stanhope, DCI, to resolve a series of murders ‘with the help of DS Joe Ashworth’ (Crime drama series ‘Vera’ 2012). In the 4th Episode of Season 2, released in May 2012 and entitled as ‘A Certain Samaritan’, Vera had to face a particular challenge: she has to identify the killer of a young man, Niall Coulter, who ‘was found dead in a lorry in Portsmouth’ (Crime drama series ‘Vera’ 2012) while having to face her own past. . The development of Vera’s life, as opposed to the end of life of Niall, shows that choices of individuals in regard to their social environment can highly affect their personal life.

Sociological Imagination can help individuals to understand the relationship between the historical events and their personal life and respond accordingly, not allowing historical events to have a critical impact on their choices in regard to their personal life. In order to understand the relationship between daily human lives and social forces, as developed in the Crime drama series ‘Vera’, it is necessary to refer to the key aspects of Sociological Imagination, a theoretical framework that is often used, as already mentioned, for explaining the above relationship.

The characteristics of Sociological Imagination are presented clearly in the study of C. Wright Mills (1959). In the above study, the Sociological Imagination is presented as ‘a quality of mind offering to individuals the potential to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals’ (Wright Mills, 1959, p.2). Reference should be made to the following fact, as highlighted in the study of Mills: individuals ‘are not always conscious of their social position’ (Wright Mills, 1959, p.2). The term social position is mostly related to the status of individuals but it can also be used for denoting the potential of individuals to respond to the demands of their social environment.

Sociological imagination can also imply the ability of individuals ‘to explain deeper social events, identifying the potential effects of these events on their daily life’ (Kornblum,