Both countries have citizens that may be largely satisfied with their governments and ways of life, while still holding some degree of distrust or discontent regarding their leaders. Both are technologically advanced, have dense networks of transportation and communications, rely on foreign trading partners for large portions of their economies, focus on education as a way to advance their citizens, and have large and expensive militaries. Typically, many societies also share a political authority.Ĭonsider China and the United States. On a broader scale, society consists of the people and institutions around us, our shared beliefs, and our cultural ideas. But what does this mean? Exactly what is a society? In sociological terms, society refers to a group of people who live in a definable community and share the same culture.
Hunting and gathering tribes, industrialized Japanese, suburban Americans-each of these groups constitutes a society. (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/flickr) significant advantages in scientific innovations. The space program is expensive, but throughout its history it has provided the U.S. How does technology influence a society? Here, a NASA engineer is working with samples of a coating typically used in space flight, and which now may play a role in preserving artifacts and scientific specimens on earth.
