Alex Woodward
September 29, 2015
Intermediate Comp.

Analyzing the Analyzers In the world of media and entertainment, nothing is as varied as printed word. When one thinks of different genres, movies may come to mind. There is adventure, horror, documentary, comedy, and a slew of others, each with their own techniques and rhetorical devices like the slow zoom, the music sting at the jump scare, and the witty dialogue break in between action set pieces. However, you could fit all of the genres of movies, video games, and TV shows combined, into a fraction of what books have to offer. In that legion of many genres, one in particular is starting to make strides (and catch cynical flak) in our modern social-media defined culture: Pop Sociology. Pop sociology is a relatively new genre, at least in the popular zeitgeist, that aims to take the otherwise formal, scientific, and somewhat closed off genre of sociology journals, and cast them out in the popular light. As “The Sociologist” page on Tumblr put it, “There are many sociologists who see it as an important part of their professional work to make their ideas and findings accessible to a wider social audience…” and unlike other more peer reviewed scientific journals, “…anybody, it seems, can call themselves a sociologist–even without formal professional training.” (Marshall) This can be both a good ting and a bad thing, as it gets more messages out there to the public eye, but they sometimes lack the stringent level of quality demanded by top peer reviewed journals. Jon Ronson, author of the Pop Sociology book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” isn’t a world renowned university taught sociologist, he has no letters next to his name, but in the genre of Pop Sociology, that really isn’t necessary. The most important thing to consider here is that word “Pop”, as it determines so much about who Ronson’s target audience is, what kind of language he uses, and what rhetorical devices he employs. Pop Sociology books specifically markets to a mainstream audience, or at least more mainstream than traditional essays and scientific sociology journals would. This means that the language will be easier, more formal, as to not intimidate, bore, or go over the heads of the average curious reader. Ronson seems to deliver this well, using casual diction and tone with his words. When he tells the reader about he situations he had been in, and the conversations he had with the people in his book (3 ; 33.) it feels like a friend or acquaintance simply telling you about their day or an encounter they had. It still gets the point across, without turning it into a case study analysis and losing the readers’ attention. Keeping the readers’ reading is a huge part of Pop Sociology, and “Pop” genres in general. When you market to an audience who picked this book out of curiosity at a book store somewhere or was recommended it by a website, they are expected to be entertained or at least informed without lecturing them. The audience isn’t necessarily as invested in the topic as much as a peer reviewer for a scientific journal on psychology might be. Ronson skirts this problem by passively commenting on and describing social situations, rather than analyzing them in scrupulous detail. This further includes the reader on the commentary and allows them to make opinions on their own about said social situations instead of simply having to ingest whatever theory Ronson throws to them. Take for instance when describes the reactions and behaviors of the people he is conversing with by saying things like “Dan looked briefly worried that he’d been caught saying something eerie (5.) or “ [Michael] looked as if he felt he were taking a risk even mentioning to me the existence of the terror” (31.) By painting this sort of picture, and describing the persons’ reactions and likely what feelings they are portraying, it sends a message to the reader about how this certain social situation is affecting them. All the passages Ronson writes documenting Jonah Lehrer’s roller coaster ride of feeling safe and assuming “Michael wasn’t going to write anything” (21.), to pleading “like a child’s toy breaking, running out of batteries, ‘please please, please...’” (24.), to finally icing over and brushing off Michael’s apology saying that he “doesn’t really care how he feels” (27.)