Structural Pluralism

Structural pluralism is a concept used to examine the way in which societies are structured, and specifically is a way to explain coverage differences in media markets. It is associated with philosophical, sociological and communication literature.

Structural pluralism is what makes civic community a unique form of civil society (Morton, 2000). Structural pluralism represents the extent to which the community has an open and inclusive structure that permits minority voices and opinions to be heard when citizens and citizen groups are addressing community problems (Young, 1999).

Communities are discussed in terms of having common institutions, such as governing or other political bodies, religious, educational and economic institutions. These bodies or institutions help to maintain the social order within the community.

This concept comes from the field of sociology, but prior to that, stems from writings by Hegel (1821) on civic society. This comes also from the functionalist writings of Émile Durkheim and Herbert Spencer (Hindman, 1999).

Durkheim writes that there are two organizating principle types of societies, that most like the premodern communities, called mechanical solidarity in which ethnic and extended families were central; and that called organic solidarity which examines the relationships of interdependence based on other components, such as work, and social organizations (Durkheim, 1933). These are equated to today's rural and urban societies respectively.

Read more about Structural Pluralism:  The Concept of Structural Pluralism in Journalism

Famous quotes containing the word structural:

    The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.
    J. David Bolter (b. 1951)