Matter of Record

John Scott is a reader in sociology at the University of Leicester, where he has taught since 1976. He is the author of `Directors of Industry' (1984) and `Corporations, Classes and Capitalism' (1979)

• List of Figures VIIPreface ix1 Social Research and Documentary Sources 1Evidence and data in social research 2What are documents? 102 Assessing Documentary Sources 19Authenticity: soundness and authorship 19Credibility: sincerity and accuracy 22Representativeness: survival and availability 24Meaning: literal and interpretative understanding 283 The Use of Documents in Social Research 36The search for King Arthur 38Who wrote the Zinoviev letter? 43The social meanings of suicide 48Social research and the relativity of accounts 544 The Official Realm: Public and Private 59The State, surveillance and secrecy 60Official documents in the State 63Official records in the private sphere 785 Administrative Routines and Situated Decisions 83Conceptual instruments and administrative routines 84Situated decisions 906 Explorations in Official Documents 96Occupation, class and inequality 96Class schemas and the problem of meaning 111Measuring the class structure 117The records of health, welfare and education 123Business and industrial records 1297 The Public Sphere and Mass Communication 136Public opinion, the media and the audience 137Images, content and meaning 143Directories, almanacs and yearbooks 156The annals of the rich and powerful 1638 Personal Documents 173Diaries, letters and autobiographies 174Photographs and visual sources 185Notes 198Index 227