Concept
sociology
The scientific study of society; the name comes from the word “sociologie” that Comte presented as a new term in a footnote in 1839.
The word “sociology” is presented as a new term in a footnote in the fourth volume (1839) of Auguste Comte’s Cours de philosophie positive; Comte says that the term is exactly equivalent to the expression “social physics” he had already used, and adds that he dislikes coining new words.
Comte’s sociology was very different from today’s: it was conceived as the last of the sciences and the one that coordinates all the others. Sociology as a university discipline in the modern sense took shape with later generations that include Durkheim, Weber, Simmel and Tönnies. In this course sociology is the source from which media research borrowed its concepts and questions: social order, individual and structure, the city and the crowd.
Example
The reason Comte gives in the footnote: to refer to the positive study of social phenomena by a single name.