welcome back to another screencast for a-level sociology component 1 and in today's video we're going to look at a really important concept and that's the concept of power so in the last screencast we look to the concept to status which we can use to describe the way in which individuals and social groups are assigned their standing their respect their position within society what we're going to do in this screencast is use the concept of power to look at the influence of individuals and social groups and the influential sociologist manuel castells argues that power relationships are really the foundation upon which society is built upon and he argues this because those in power built the social political cultural institutions within society and shape the values and norms of societies according to their own interests and values however Castells argues that even in those societies where power appears to be highly concentrated there's always the existence of counter power or in other words wherever there is domination there is also resistance to domination and therefore social institutions are always the result at these constant power struggles and Manuel Castells has been particularly interested in the use of the internet and wireless communication devices in the politics of resistance and we've seen some really interesting uses of things like Facebook and Twitter in the politics of protests of recent years so these pictures are related to the Arab Spring uprisings and we've also seen the use of social media in protest movements that have emerged in more developed countries in recent years such as indignados movement in Spain and the Occupy Wall Street movement that emerged in New York a couple years ago so they start with a definition of power we're going to draw upon the work of Max Weber initially who was one of the founding fathers of sociology the discipline Weber defines power as a social relationship so he says that power exists when person a can get person B to do something that person B otherwise would not have done so power Envy Berrian terms is about this ability to get your own way even when other people resist now there are two main questions that sociologists ask about power and we're going to look at each of these questions briefly in the rest of this screencast so this first question that we look at is how do people actually get power and they even identify two main sources of power within society firstly you've got what he calls coercion okay this is illegitimate power that arises through the use of manipulation or force so this is power that we would associate primarily with islands or the threat of violence and then the other source of power which is more legitimate is what they becaus Authority and this is what I've called here consensual power this is a power relationship where people voluntarily submit to the will of others so people will obey somebody for example not because they're being forced but because they think that it's the right thing to do and they've identified three different types of political authority firstly we've got a very personal form of authority called charismatic Authority and this is where people will obey a political leader because of their personal qualities so well-known charismatic political leaders from no recent history would include people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King and then secondly you've got traditional Authority which is based on the authority of deeply embedded social customs and traditions and then thirdly and vapers preferred form of authority is legal-rational authority and this is much more impersonal than charismatic Authority this is to do with the position that somebody holds within an institution rather than their personal characteristics and the position that somebody holds within an organization is meant to place clear limits on the power that that office holder now in reality political leaders might derive their authority from a mixture of these sources so if we take the form of Prime Minister Tony Blair obviously when he was Prime Minister he had legal-rational authority but he was also seen as quite an effective prime minister because of his personal charisma okay let's finish this screencast by looking at this other key question that sociologists asked about the nature of power how do people use power how is power exercised and according to Stephen looks there are three main ways in which power is exercised what Stephen Luke's is famously called the three phases of power and they are decision-making agenda management which is also sometimes called non decision-making and then the manipulation of wishes which is what sociologists would often refer to as the ideological power so the first phase the power is decision-making and this is the most obvious the most visible the most measurable form of power and it's about the ability of individuals or groups to make influence and implement decisions which affect other people within society so hopefully you recognize this particular image of parliament at the House of Commons the 650 members of parliament who are entitled to sit in this chamber obviously had decision-making power because they can make laws implement decisions which affect other people and then the second face of power is often not as visible is often more subtle but is just as important according to Steven Luce and this is what is called agenda management or non decision made and this is the ability of groups and individuals to set the political agenda and to perhaps place limitations on the issues that are discussed and of course we could argue that the media play a particularly important role in terms of this type of power so the media have quite a bit of influence in our society in laying down the list of subjects for public discussion and then finally but most importantly for Steven Luke's we've got the third face of power okay the manipulation of wishes and this is the type of power that most sociologists would refer to as ideological power and according to Manuel Castells this type of power is the ability to shape people's minds in terms that favor the interests that the power holders or in other words if I think as you want me to think then you've got tremendous power over me so the Manuel Castells the fundamental struggle for power within society is always about the minds of the people any power that is based exclusively on coercion and intimidation according to Costello's is ultimately a weak form of power the critical battle is about what happens in our minds okay hopefully as usual you've made some really good notes during the course of this screencast and you might just want to check before we finish that you can now define power drawing upon favours definition that you can explain the difference between coercion and Authority and identify the three different types of authority that we've discussed and that you can also describe the three ways in which power is exercised according to Stephen looks the three phases of power