Sociology

Sociology You are enjoying dinner after a hard days work and the phone rings. You pick it up and some mechanical voice asks you to hold. The voice runs through a programmed version of how you can now save more money than ever on long distance calls. You listen; then hang up the phone to resume your meal. How functional is this' Well Telemarketing is a booming industry within the United States. One only has to stay home on any given night to have this point proven. This paper will show that out of the three major theoretical perspectives in sociology (Functionalist, Conflict, and integrationist) the functional perspective best describes the boom in telemarketing over the recent years. The functionalist approach is simple. According to Talcott Parsons, a Harvard University sociologist, and key figure in developing the functionalist theory, “If an aspect of social life does not contribute to a society’s stability or survival-if it does not serve some identifiably useful function or promote value consensus among members of a society-it will not be passed on from one generation or the next (Schaefer, 15).” This simply means that as long as telemarketing, approach, conflict, perspective, functionalist, telemarketers, recent, one, over, interactionist, telephone, itself, consumers, business, boom, according, years, technology, success, schaefer, phone, out, merely, loyalty, lend, industry, explain, enough, three, society, social, promoting, probably, personal, people