Mass-Observation, Microscopy, and the Everyday

Mass-Observation, Microscopy, and the Everyday

The everyday is an assimilation of fragmented happenings that are interwoven to manifest society. A general stereotype of society can not be drawn from a single fragment, but must be created through an examination of the relationships between individual pieces. Every fragment, no matter how banal, contributes to the understanding of the everyday. In order to study the everyday, the use of microscopy and Mass-Observation are essential because they provide a way of viewing the everyday in a way that is unfamiliar.

Every minute atom is part of a whole intricate system of operations. Though the atom is minute, the way it interacts with the objects around it is important. Whether it is transmitting information, relaying information, or interacting with another atom, these inner-workings combine to create a functional system. In the everyday, the smallest of fragments is important to understanding society and what drives it through time. Interactions of fragments give insight into the general environment in which the fragment belongs. Formally, examiners of the everyday focused on studying society through large social structures. Simmel, one of the major theorists in German philosophy and social science around the turn of the century, views the everyday differently. He believes that the everyday can not be studied on the macroscopic level, but instead should be viewed at the microscopic level (Ben Highmore 37). Simmel emphasizes using microscopic investigations of interactions between fragments to gain insight into the everyday (Highmore 37). His project of ‘microscopy’ allows for the fragments of the everyday to be studied in a way that generalized society as a whole.

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...nd analyzed. Though social microscopy it used to study the social aspect of the everyday, every fragment is important. Simmel stated “Even the lowest, intrinsically ugly phenomenon can be dissolved into contexts of color and form, feeling and experience which provide it with significance” (Highmore 39). It is through microscopy and Mass-Observation that the everydayness of society is studied in a way that is made unfamiliar.

Works Cited

- Bancroft, Angus. “Georg Simmel.” Introduction to Sociology. (Nov. 1998). 8 Nov. 2004

<http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/undergraduate/introsoc/index.html>.

- Baudelaire, Charles. Paris Spleen. New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1970.

- Highmore, Ben. Everyday Life and Cultural Theory. London and New York: Taylor and

Francis Group, 2002.

- Kafka, Franz. The Trial. New York: Schocken Books Inc., 1998.