Culture and Popular Culture: A Case for Sociology
01 Sep 2008-Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science (SAGE Publications)-Vol. 619, Iss: 1, pp 206-222
TL;DR: The sociological study of popular culture has a long and intimate relationship to the field of cultural sociology, being both a subcategory of the field and a separate arena of inquiry taken up by other disciplines as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The study of popular culture has a long and intimate relationship to the field of cultural sociology, being both a subcategory of the field and a separate arena of inquiry taken up by other disciplines. This article examines the intellectual traditions that have shaped the sociology of popular culture, traces the points of connection and difference between sociologists and other scholars studying popular culture, and argues for the continued relevance of cultural sociology for addressing key issues and concerns within the realm of “the popular,” broadly conceived. These developments include the rise of new media/communication technologies and the increasing interdependence between popular culture and other arenas of social life.
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TL;DR: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America: Highbrow/lowbrow in America as discussed by the authors is a seminal work in the field of American journalism, focusing on the emergence of cultural hierarchy in America.
Abstract: (1990). Highbrow/Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America. American Journalism: Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 202-203.
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TL;DR: The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century as mentioned in this paper is a thought-provoking and comprehensive analysis of why corporatization of the media is so pervasive today, why it is fated to get worse if the public does not get involved, and why this is dangerous for both journalism and democracy.
Abstract: The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. Robert W. McChesney. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004. 352 pp. $45 hbk. 16.95 pbk. Media scholar Robert W. McChesney has written what is probably the most important of his several books on America's media monopolies and oligopolies. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century is a thought-provoking and comprehensive analysis of why corporatization of the media is so pervasive today, why it is fated to get worse if the public does not get involved, and why it is dangerous for both journalism and democracy. In this latest account McChesney has pulled together the most powerful conclusions and insights from his earlier books along with new evidence and renewed focus. McChesney wrote to the reviewer, "The Problem of the Media really culminates 20 years of research on media for me, at least with regard to domestic U.S. policies and systems." The manuscript's completion in late 2003 gave McChesney time to document and explain the unprecedented and successful grassroots uprising against the FCC majority's high-handed vote of 2 June 2003 which would have allowed greater cross-ownership and national market control by the largest media corporations. The uprising was the first hopeful development after decades of public apathy toward increasing media consolidation. McChesney was so encouraged by its success that he devotes his final chapter to what he calls "a remarkable and mostly unanticipated first step" toward public participation in national media policy making. In the preface, McChesney presents eight myths of the media. He then devotes his book to dissecting the eight myths, explaining their consequences for news coverage, and disproving them. This review's length is not adequate to discuss all eight myths, but the publisher offers the preface on the book's companion Website at www.mediaproblem.org, and it is well worth the few minutes it takes to download and read. The eight myths, McChesney says, encourage and protect "the corporateinsider hegemony over media policy debates and the lack of public participation" that has prevailed for so long in the United States. The book is built on McChesney's foundational observation: "The corporate domination of both the media system and policy-making process that establishes and sustains it causes serious problems for a functioning democracy." He notes that most media outlets fail to cover issues that are not in the interests of the national and international conglomerates that own them; that, in turn, has led to a marginalization of the poor and the working class because of their undesirability as a market for advertisers. …
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TL;DR: Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness as mentioned in this paper is a seminal work in the field of race and race relations, focusing on the relationship between race and society and examining the role of television in that relationship.
Abstract: Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Herman Gray. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. 224 pp. $18.95 pbk. "Don't judge a book by its cover," the adage goes. In the case of Herman Gray's latest release, you can judge the book by its cover, and its introduction, because those are the only things that have changed from his 1995 book, Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness. Gray, a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, has written extensively on the relationship between race and society. In examining television's role in that relationship, Gray falls back on a tried and true Hollywood technique-the remake. Although Gray refers to his 1995 release as the first edition, there is little in the current version to justify calling it a second edition. The only substantive change comes in the form of a new introduction, one that offers the reader little in the way of new insights. This makes for a curious, and often confusing, read. It's curious because the reader is left to ponder the motivation behind this edition's release. In the updated introduction, Gray genuflects to the myriad changes that have transpired since 1992, and that is the last we hear of them. One example of how dated the material is comes from the book's reference section. Of the almost 300 citations listed, fewer than thirty come after 1992. Also curious, and somewhat disconcerting, is Gray's repeated reference to events of the early to mid-1990s as "recent." Along with his timeline, Gray is quite restrictive in his sample selection, looking only at the "Big 4" networks. While there was logic to such an approach at the time the first edition was released, that logic does not carry over to the present day. The most glaring omission is the absence of anything more than a cursory reference to Black Entertainment Television (BET), an outlet that provides numerous representations of, and draws a large portion of its audience from, the African American community. Gray's stated goal in the book is to take the attention that has been focused on African American identity and expressive culture and extend the discussion to how the mediated portrayal of these identities and cultures plays in regard to the American racial order. In the first half of the book, Gray tries to achieve this goal by taking us on a meandering journey through the policies and practices of the Reagan and Bush Senior administrations. …
183 citations
References
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01 Jan 1979
TL;DR: In this article, a social critic of the judgement of taste is presented, and a "vulgar" critic of 'pure' criticiques is proposed to counter this critique.
Abstract: Preface to the English-Language Edition Introduction Part 1: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste 1. The Aristocracy of Culture Part 2: The Economy of Practices 2. The Social Space and its Transformations 3. The Habitus and the Space of Life-Styles 4. The Dynamics of Fields Part 3: Class Tastes and Life-Styles 5. The Sense of Distinction 6. Cultural Good Will 7. The Choice of the Necessary 8. Culture and Politics Conclusion: Classes and Classifications Postscript: Towards a 'Vulgar' Critique of 'Pure' Critiques Appendices Notes Credits Index
23,806 citations
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TL;DR: For example, the authors argues that culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action."
Abstract: Culture influences action not by providing the ultimate values toward which action is oriented, but by shaping a repertoire or "tool kit" of habits, skills, and styles from which people construct "strategies of action." Two models of cultural influence are developed, for settled and unsettled cultural periods. In settled periods, culture independently influences action, but only by providing resources from which people can construct diverse lines of action. In unsettled cultural periods, explicit ideologies directly govern action, but structural opportunities for action determine which among competing ideologies survive in the long run. This alternative view of culture offers new opportunities for systematic, differentiated arguments about culture's causal role in shaping action. The reigning model used to understand culture's effects on action is fundamentally misleading. It assumes that culture shapes action by supplying ultimate ends or values toward which action is directed, thus making values the central causal element of culture. This paper analyzes the conceptual difficulties into which this traditional view of culture leads and offers an alternative model. Among sociologists and anthropologists, debate has raged for several academic generations over defining the term "culture." Since the seminal work of Clifford Geertz (1973a), the older definition of culture as the entire way of life of a people, including their technology and material artifacts, or that (associated with the name of Ward Goodenough) as everything one would need to know to become a functioning member of a society, have been displaced in favor of defining culture as the publicly available symbolic forms through which people experience and express meaning (see Keesing, 1974). For purposes of this paper, culture consists of such symbolic vehicles of meaning, including beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, and ceremonies, as well as informal cultural practices such as language, gossip, stories, and rituals of daily life. These symbolic forms are the means through which "social processes of sharing modes of behavior and outlook within [a] community" (Hannerz, 1969:184) take place.
6,869 citations
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01 Jan 1947
TL;DR: The Dialectic of Enlightenment as mentioned in this paper is one of the most celebrated and often cited works of modern social philosophy, and it has been identified as the keystone of the 'Frankfurt School', of which Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were the leading members.
Abstract: Dialectic of Enlightenment is, quite justifiably, one of the most celebrated and often cited works of modern social philosophy. It has been identified as the keystone of the 'Frankfurt School', of which Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer were the leading members, and does not cease to impress in its wide-ranging ambition and panache. Adorno and Horkheimer addressees themselves to a question which went to the very heart of the modern age, namely 'why mankind, instead of entering into a truly human condition, is sinking into a new kind of barbarism'. Modernity, far from redeeming the promises and hopes of the Enlightenment, had resulted in a stultification of mankind and an administered society, characterised by simulation and candy-floss entertainment. To seek an answer to the question of how such a condition could arise, Adorno and Horkheier subjected the whole history of Western catagories of reason and nature, from Homer to Nietzsche, to a searching philosophical and psychological critique. Drawing on psychoanalytical insights, their own work on the 'culture industry', deep knowledge of the key Enlightenment and anti-Enlightenment thinkers, as well as fascinating considerations on the relationship between reason and myth - the rational and the irrational - the authors exposed the domination and violence towards both nature and humanity that underpin the Enlightenment project.
4,868 citations
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01 Nov 1978
TL;DR: Newsworkers decide what news is, why they cover some items but not others, and how they decide what Inand others want to know as discussed by the authors, and the role of consciousness in the construction of social meanings and the organization of experience.
Abstract: PrefaceIn 1954 the Army-McCarthy hearings flickered across the nationrsntelevision sets, displacing soap operas, game shows, and daytimenmovies. I was one of the many children who came home from schoolnto watch that new form of daytime serial. Later I heard the adultsndiscuss the issues at family gatherings. In 1966, partially recallingnthose experiences and prompted by concern about the Vietnam war,nI began to study news. I reasoned that the news media set the framenin which citizens discuss public events and that the quality of civicndebate necessarily depends on the information available. Accordingly,n1 wanted to find out how newsworkers decide what news is, whynthey cover some items but not others, and how they decide what Inand others want to know. In short, I sought to uncover what sociologistsnnow call the latent structure of news.This book is the product of my attempt, over the past elevennyears, to learn about news as the social construction of reality. It is anstudy of the constraints of newswork and of the resources availablento newsworkers. It is a study of newsworkers as professionals and ofnnewspapers and television newsrooms as complex organizations.nAnd it is a study of methods of inquirymhow newsworkers determinenfacts and frame events and debates pertinent to our shared civicnlife.I cannot prove my early supposition that the news media set thencontext in which citizens discuss public issues, but I continue to believenthat they do so. Nor can I prove an early hunch, prompted bynmy participant observation, that news has an even greater impactnupon policy makers and politicians, although I continue to suspectnthat news is an interchange among politicians and policy makers,nnewsworkers, and their organizational superiors, and that the rest ofnus are eavesdroppers on that ongoing conversation. Other researchers,nmore skilled in the study of the mediars effects than I am, maynchoose to present those aspects of news in other volumes. I hope thatnI have offered enough material to facilitate their task.As well as presenting concrete descriptions, examples, andnanalyses of newswork, this book addresses a theoretical debate aboutnthe role of consciousness in the construction of social meanings andnthe organization of experience. With one exception, a brief review ofninterpretative theories appearing on pages 185-92, the debate is readilynaccessible to nonsociologists. Readers who are not concerned withnthe technical issues may skip those few pages and still follow thenthrust of my argument.I was a graduate student at Brandeis University when I begannthis study. I am grateful for the National Institute of Mental HealthnField Training Fellowship that enabled me to conduct the initial participantnobservation on which this book partially draws. As administratornof that program, Samuel Wallace read my field notes regularly.nEverett C. Hughes, Maurice Stein, and Kurt H. Wolff served onnmy dissertation committee. Robert Weiss and student-fellowsnNatalie Allon, Barbara Carter, Robert Emerson, Robert Laufer,nNancy Stoller Shaw, Jerold Starr, and Barrie Thorne providednencouragement and criticism that I still recall. Since the completion of that early work, I have been fortunatenin having other friends and colleagues who offered prompt criticalncomments when I needed them.n n n
3,592 citations