Category: Sociology of Media & Communication

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

"Those are the GIRLS' stuff!"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRZyymYe-FQ] By linanne There is a long tradition of using gender and sexual dualism as marketing strategies in industries from technology to entertainment. Discourses in advertisements are often framed as “targeting at” whether male or female consumers. Products are also packaged in ways that are gendered according to certain sets of binary codes. Such dichotomous gender representations not only reproduce the existing social and cultural structures of gender segregation, but also inform individual and collective activities which oftentimes are responses...

Class & Stratification / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Media & Communication

‘What’s it all about, Alfie?’

                                                                                                       by paulabowles Once again the emotive issue of teenage pregnancy has hit the headlines in the UK. The recent news that 13 year old Alfie, and his 15 year old girlfriend Chantelle have become parents, has sparked a frenzy occupying all branches of the media from the broadsheets to the tabloids and the BBC to YouTube, as well as attracting the attention of senior politicians. Although, very young, Alfie and Chantelle are by no means, the youngest children to...

Peace, War & Social Conflict / Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Colonizing the New Frontier: Bloggers Beware

 by ishein1 Newly elected president, Barack Obama, held his first official press conference on Monday evening.  This historically rich press conference on the surface was isomorphous with press conferences of the past.  This fact was accentuated by the presence of Helen Thomas, currently a columnist for Hearst Newspapers.  As she has done for the past four decades, and despite attempts by President Obama to lighten the moment, Thomas asked her usual critical and pertinent questions.  Obama responded as most past...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

New Technology, Fear, and the Priming Effect

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imLOGgs9Qyk] by NickieWild There is perhaps no more frightening an image to today’s parents of pre-teen and teenage children in the U.S. than that of the internet predator. A lone adult man siting behind a computer screen in a darkened room lures the innocent child into an unsafe situation. But is this just an image – a bogeyman created by the media? Shows like NBC’s To Catch A Predator certainly increase concerns. Although old shows still continue to be aired,...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Game Studies

by bmckernan Towards the end of 2008, the PEW Internet & American Life Project released two studies on video games whose results were met with some shock by the mainstream media. The first PEW survey focused on youth and video games and found that 97% of the respondents (ages 12 to 17) play video games, including 99% of boys and 94% of girls. A few months later, the project followed this up with a second study which found that 53%...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Is this person gay?

by kiddingthecity … Is s/he British? Is this person happy? Intelligent? These are some of the strong questions participants were asked to cast their vote about when faced with the anonymous picture of a stranger in latest Christian Nold‘s provocative installation. Over 14,000 people in one month cast their vote in the ‘Community Metrics’ in  Nottingham (UK) and decide ‘live’ who of the volunteers should be deported: a sort of ‘friendly fascism’, a dystopian version of Facebook, a tease out...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Media & Communication

Humans and the "Laws" of the Market

nmccoy1 In the midst of this economic “crisis” we might do well to (re)engage with the work of economic sociologist, Karl Polanyi.  At the heart of his critique of market economies is the notion that an economic system that functions autonomously of political, social, and cultural intervention is essentially a utopian project.  If the market could in fact operate fully disembedded from society, humans and nature would be destroyed.  The market is not governed by  its own internal laws but rather...

Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Multiple Births as Media Spectacle

by theoryforthemasses In the past week considerable debate has emerged over the birth of a set of octuplets to a California woman. Controversy has surrounded both the doctors who facilitated the births as well as the mother herself, who is single, unemployed, and has six other children. The attention that is being paid to this family by both the media and ordinary people who are eager to share their opinions on fertility treatments and parental responsibility has created nothing short...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Video Resources

Of the People, By the People, For the People — Linux for Human Beings

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFacRsGWZqQ&feature=related] “Are we creating world peace or fundamentally changing the world? No,” he (Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu and Canonical) said. “But we could shift what people expect and the amount of innovation per dollar they expect.” — New York Times Most people’s impression on Linux is something mythical which only computer geeks are involved with, if they have even heard of the operating system before. In recent years, volunteers and tech professionals had devoted major effort in developing...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Entering the New Frontier, There is no Turning Back

by ishein1 As the first week of Obama’s presidency passes, a top priority, set forth prior to his election, is to transform “the internet based machinery”, that helped him get elected, into an agenda setting tool.  The millennial generation tools within a new frontier of political interaction, i.e. social networking sites, like facebook, twitter, and YouTube are still in their embryonic form, particularly with regard to their impact on the political process.  It is clear, however, that if one wants...

Class & Stratification / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

Conflict, Propaganda, and “Homeland Security”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6akE9YDEUo] by NickieWild A new television show on the U.S. broadcast network ABC called “Homeland Security USA” has been stirring up controversy within the immigrants’ rights community. Ostensibly a Homeland Security Department version of the long-running show “Cops,” this version includes border and port security activity. Critics ask, is this just another reality show, or an elaborate piece of propaganda? Some civil rights groups believe the latter, and one has organized a protest and boycott directed against the show. They...

Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Hip-Hop in Beijing

by bmckernan In the last few decades, authenticity has become an increasingly popular area of social research. While much of the published work within this area has focused on authenticity in regards to notions of self, a growing body of literature has emerged that has sought to examine the relation between authenticity and popular culture. Within this burgeoning field, David Grazian’s Blue Chicago is perhaps one of the most critically acclaimed works. In Blue Chicago, Grazian uncovers what precisely an...

Gender & Sexuality / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Transphotography

by kiddingthecity Transsexual people are willing to become invisible, international acclaimed photographer and researcher Sara Davidmann maintains, in order to be accepted in the social norm, which wants a strict binary distinction between genders.  The issue of safety in public space here, I guess, is crucial – hence, the urge to comply to the visual stereotype of the male or of the female. As it is the issue of ‘medicalization’, that is, the tendency of western culture to push ‘deviance’...

Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Obamas and the Status of Black Families

nmccoy1     As the Obamas take their place as the nation’s First Family in the White House as well as history, they are also apparently stepping into the role of ‘model African American family.’  A recent CNN article (see below) articulates the positive possibilities for the African American community in seeing a loving and stable Black family.  Though the media’s portrayal of African Americans has been caricatured and stereotyped as hypersexualized, welfare mothers, drug addicts, and gang members, the...

Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

prosumers of the world unite

by nathan jurgenson Lately, we have been doing lots of work, for others. For free. Millions of users of sites like Facebook and MySpace are clicking away at their profiles, adding detailed information about themselves and others. “We” are uploading content to sites like Flickr, YouTube, the microblogging service Twitter and many others, and our labor creates vast databases about ourselves –what I previously described as a sort of mass exhibitionism. Facebook’s profit model is built upon an ownership of...