Concept
social facts
In Durkheim, ways of acting, thinking and feeling that exist outside the individual and exert pressure on him, such as language, monetary systems, law and suicide rates.
In Durkheim’s The Rules of Sociological Method (1895) the subject matter of sociology is “social facts”: ways of acting, thinking and feeling that are external to the individual and invested with a coercive power by which they control him. Examples are a society’s legal order, religious beliefs, monetary system, ways of dressing and language. Currents of opinion and rates such as marriage, birth and suicide are also social facts.
A social fact also lives inside individuals; “externality” means external to other individuals. Durkheim’s methodological rule is to treat facts as “things”: that is, to treat them as data given to observation, independent of personal opinion. The rule is not about “reifying people”.
In media research the question whether aggregate measurements (audience ratings, opinion polls) show more than the sum of individuals can be read as an extension of this concept.
Example
One person’s sleepless night is an individual event; a country’s annual suicide rate is a social fact.