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RESEARCH
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RESEARCH
1. Olson, C.B., submitted, Newspapers and Social Change: Mainstream and Alternative Newspapers in a Local Context Compared: Media, Culture & Society.
2. Olson, C.B., submitted, Who Rules the City: Uncovering the Urban Power Structure Through Affiliation & Prestige Networks: City & Community.
3. “Organizations or Individuals? Urban Power Networks and the Appropriate Level of Analysis.” This paper will be submitted to the peer reviewed journal Organization Studies July 2009.
4. “Networks of Action: Networks as Resources and Schemas.” This paper will be submitted to the peer reviewed journal Urban Studies July 2009.Dissertation Work
(3.64 MB)
My recently completed dissertation examined the social network structure of the urban elites of a large southwestern American city. This study utilized a mixed method approach.
The first method provided a sketch of how growth coalition elites come to understand power in the community and how they believe they influence decision-making. Understandings and beliefs are decidedly cultural realms. In this study, culture was defined as situated knowledge, or positional, in that what becomes knowledge is determined by the position actors occupy in the social structure.
To rule the city, what must be won are not just proposals and programs, but the city itself, as a cognitive structure. The study asked: Which positional culture of the city will prevail? And, which is prevailing?
The second method addressed this positional or situated side of the culturally constructed city by drawing on social network analysis techniques in order to bring to the fore the ties of influence that work to weave together the city’s various apparatuses of control.
Ultimately, these two themes uncovered the relationship between elite network arrangements and their positional cultures that together condition community action, and are conditioned by community interaction. The challenge in this paper, then, was to weave together cultural and structural methods to provide an answer to the questions: Who rules to city? How do they rule? And, how do growth coalition elites believe they influence decision-making?
To carry out this study, 95 interviews were conducted with community elites that were identified through interorganizational affiliation and prestige networks of a city with a population of over 500,000 people. Respondents were asked to comment on their involvements in the city as well as identify their associates and affiliations in the city.
Future Studies (7):
Urban sociology is as old a field as any in sociology. As such, a great deal of scholarship has accumulated over the last hundred plus years. Within the numerous sub-topics that include social inequality, crime, diversity, planning, and urbanization, this study focuses on the persistent theme of defining, identifying, and explaining the urban power structure. Presently, urban political economy appears to be the dominant theoretical orientation. The linking of political and economic life with socio-cultural life (which includes attention to culture and actors) appears to be the most recent elaboration of this orientation. This development is not yet complete and a number of research opportunities still remain. Some of these future directions are briefly outlined below.
- Focusing on Neighborhood Associations (click for details)
- Focusing on the Region (click for details)
- Focusing on Non-Local Capital (click for details)
- Focusing on Public Education (click for details)
- Focusing on the Media (click for details)
- Focusing on the Organizational Life of Prestigious Individuals (click for details)
- Focusing on Population Density (click for details)
This list tries to focus future research spatially and conceptually in both horizontal and vertical directions. Cutting across the vertical dimension from the bottom to the top are the various levels of social organization. At the bottom are interpersonal interactions and the importance of individuals as agents of structural and cultural stability and change.
Research that does not take seriously the role of individuals will result in an incomplete picture. Above the interpersonal level, where status and self-esteem are key determinates of action, are the formal organizations that enable and constrain each other and enable and constrain individuals.
The interorganizational level remains a vital resource in reproducing the community.
The intercommunity level rests above the interorganizational level. At this level the efforts of organizational actors from different communities seek to win the development war or raise a white flag and invite each other to think regionally.
Regardless of the strategy, the regional level remains a vital component of urban studies.
Finally, cities close enough to refer to each other as a region contend with other regions for economic development and government expenditures. At this highest level of social organization cities or regions must come to terms with national and global shifts in the political, economic, and socio-cultural realm.
Horizontally, across the community are the various types of organizations that seek out linkages with each other to increase their influence in the community. This horizontal dimension, as if to look across the urban topography, includes the mountain peaks of large private businesses, educational institutions, the media, business organizations, think tanks and foundations, as well as the various governments active in the city.
Public education and the local mass media are highlighted above, but urban political economy would benefit from a more focused study on the contributions of the various organizations that make up this interorganizational mountain range.
Long Term Goal:
My long term career goal is to attain tenure at a liberal arts four-year institution of higher education. I love research and teaching and find that the best way to do either is to continue to do both.Past Research:
My research history includes both self-directed and directed research.Self-Directed Research
As an undergraduate at Western Oregon University I conducted qualitative research on Native American ethnic revitalization among the Siletz on the Oregon coast. During this research, I conducted interviews with several tribal elders and “cultural retention” tribal members about their economic and cultural programs.
As a Master's student I conducted a mixed method study which included semi-structured interviews with journalists and editors as well as a content analysis from the local mainstream and alternative print media. I am currently working on publishing this study in the peer reviewed journal Media, Culture & Society.
As a new doctoral student, I conducted a social network analysis on New Mexico street gangs and prison gangs. With data from the New Mexico Bureau of Prisons, this study analyzed the alliances and rivalries that exist between prison and street gangs. Particular attention was paid to the relationships between prison gangs and their alliances with street gangs in the state.
Directed Research
A s an undergraduate at Western Oregon University I began my directed research training working at a research center (Teaching Research) where I assisted in cleaning and analyzing time-series public education data.In graduate school at the University of New Mexico I joined Dr. Richard Boyle at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) on an evaluation of an early intervention project aimed at high-risk families titled Starting Early Starting Smart and funded by the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). With Dr. Boyle, I attended research meetings in St. Louis and San Francisco and analyzed qualitative and quantitative survey data. As a research assistant to Dr. Boyle, I was placed in a leadership position, responsible for hiring and managing a survey research team of undergraduates and graduates.
After the completion of the medical research, I joined Dr. Paul Steele and Dr. Lisa Broidy at ISR on another evaluation project titled Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), funded by the United States Justice Department. The aim of this ongoing project is the reduction of gun violence. During my time on PSN, I contributed to GIS mapping projects of homicides and aggravated assaults, gave monthly presentations to the law enforcement community, served on three law enforcement committees as a research partner, presented a research paper on the spatial relationships of victim and offenders of aggravated assaults, and analyzed with SPSS software various quantitative evaluations.