Meaning & Measurement Mini-Conference

Balazs Vedres— Columbia University bv2002@columbia.edu My primary interest in meaning-measurement is to find tools to understand political action. Starting out from the works of Eric Leifer, John Mohr, Harrison White, Ronald Breiger and Mustafa Emirbayer I chart the dynamics of political discourse as a morphing network of symbols. The shifting prevalence, emergence and dissipation of blocks in this symbolic network is the key to understand strategies. I have found that political discourse is an arena of local action, achieved by multivocality - the simultaneous use of disconnected blocks in the symbolic netowork. The opportunity to unify these blocks - that is to claim a role in local action terms - is brought about by a master symbol, a symbol that 'resists' any frames of the other parties. Generally speaking, my interest in meaning-measurement is sociological - I believe that symbolic structures both shape and are shaped by social action.