Regarding Societal Change

In this paper we introduce our special thematic section on societal change. We begin by providing an overview of the aims of the section, and how these aims grew out of a need to address conceptual and empirical challenges in the study of societal change. In response to these challenges, the section was intended to provide a forum for theoretical and empirical work from a range of disciplinary perspectives on how societies change, and how such change can be understood. Together, the contributions argue for (1) the need to contextualize the study of societal change, (2) the value of considering factors and processes other than collective action in transforming societies, (3) the importance of ideology and its operation through social institutions such as news media, and (4) an imperative to ensure that our research is fully engaged with society in terms of its grounding in social issues, its sensitivity to our own social context as researchers, and in its practices and outcomes.