Category: Sociology of Culture

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

Tupac in Gaza

by bmckernan  A while back, the NY Times published an extended article on the reception of American cultural products in the Gaza. In some significant ways, the article mirrors many of the arguments recently put forward by social scientists who have become increasingly unsatisfied with the cultural imperialism thesis. Among this academic group includes recent work by the sociologist Ronald Jacobs as well as the anthropologist Daniel Miller. Both assert that while there is insight to gain from the cultural...

Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture

The Danger of Effervescence

nmccoy1   Recently, CNN reported on the case of a woman in Papa New Guinea being burned alive for witchcraft (see below).  Aside from the echoes to our own history of witch hunts, this case also highlights the collective effervescence, specifically religious, of which Durkheim was interested.  According to Durkheim, group energies can culminate in a kind of frenetic moment and can itself construct a collective reality.  This effervescence marks the delineation of the space between a heightened collective experience...

Sociology of Culture

Guest Post: Finding ‘Religion’ in Asia: personal reflections on a Singaporean appointment

Bryan S. Turner National University of Singapore     In general dons don’t leave Cambridge University. They die there or they get thrown out, but generally speaking the charm and prestige of the place are sufficiently strong to secure life-long loyalty. I was unusual; I left.  Having been appointed in 1998 as the new professor of sociology, I was soon teaching four ‘papers’ (lecture courses), supervising six PhD students, giving supervisions to college students, managing MA candidates, and sitting on...

Gender & Sexuality / Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Science & Technology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Video Resources

Capitalism's meltdown and the Body (II)

by kiddingthecity Jeff Wall is famous for grand tableaux, which he shoots in sections over several months before stitching together the final image using computer montage. He has been known to spend almost two years on a single picture, with actors and crew to shoot scenes of the everyday. He teases out the myth of reality outside perception to the point that he is able to re-create in studio the ‘decisive moment’ of Cartier-Besson, in which the elements of an...

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

That’s Virtually…a Nice Bag!

by ishein1 As the current economic crisis necessitates consumer frugality, various companies are attempting to reap additional revenue by innovative means of selling their brand.  Internet cultures and networking sites are expanding at a meteoric rate providing a spate of opportunity for celebrities and companies to capitalize materially from this virtual medium.  The company Virtual Greats, based out of California, is utilizing this opportunity by representing celebrities and brands that are being sold in virtual worlds.  These sop virtual goods...

Class & Stratification / Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Conspicuous or Inconspicuous Consumption?

by bmckernan Over one hundred years ago, noted sociologist Thorstein Veblen introduced the concept of “conspicuous consumption” to describe the lifestyle of members of the upper class who purchase goods and services not out of necessity but instead as indicators of their wealth and status. According to a recent Newsweek article, the era of conspicuous consumption may be placed on momentary hiatus as millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet. While the article should not be treated as a...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture

"Illness as Metaphor"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDsh98OxEQQ] (the video is a song by the inhabitants of Losheng Sanatorium, singing their love and attachment to the Losheng community) By linanne 10 Taiwanese students have been extremely busy for participating in social movements the past two months. After the protest against the regulation on the freedom of speech and assembly, Taiwanese students are now again bringing back the issue on the Losheng Sanatorium. The Losheng Sanatorium is a community like construction for displacing leprosy patients during the Japanese...

Sociology of Culture

The myth of religious tolerance

nmccoy1     As a recent incident in Olympia, WA shows (see article below), the belief that American is a place of religious tolerance is in some aspects a myth or perhaps even ideology.  Despite the imposition of more generalized Christian holidays in public schools, the pledge of allegiance, and the colloquial invocation of Christian beliefs (love thy neighbor for example), we can also find that religious tolerance only encompasses a very particular definition of religion.  It is clear from...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

the (post-structural) new-media digital-divide

by nathan jurgenson A major study (.pdf) on the way teens use social networking sites suggests that, “…their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.” [quote is from this article’s coverage] Parents can no longer view MySpace as just a waste of time. In fact, so important are the skills...

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

Who says what's news?

by dsantore   It seems like only yesterday that O.J. Simpson’s murder trial whipped up the country into a frenzy over crime, celebrities, race, and justice.  In the years since, we’ve had several chances (aided by mass media, of course) to revisit these themes: American football star Michael Vick and his dog-fighting ring, Michael Jackson’s bedroom, and several other high-profile instances come to mind.  This past week brings us a new case, involving New York Giants football player Plaxico Burress. ...

Political & Economic Sociology / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Science & Technology / Sociology of Culture

Perspective on Living in “Bad Times”

by rbobbitt Turn on the news on any given channel at any time during the day and more than likely you will hear something of the “hard times” befalling Americans as we continue to struggle through was has finally been recognized as a recession. As the holidays are upon us, pundits lament how holiday sales are down and people are modestly spending on one another. However, perhaps we Americans should be putting in perspective what we view as “tough times.”...

Sociology of Culture

World AIDS Day

Today marks the twentieth annual World AIDS Day, an international day designed to raise awareness of the global pandemic of HIV/AIDS a preventable disease which has killed more than 27 million people globally since its first reported cases in 1981.  Today, an estimated 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, many in the developing world where a lack of adequate information and financial resources has resulted in substantially higher mortality rates. Since the focus of World AIDS Day is to...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture

Capitalism's meltdown and the Body

by kiddingthecity My barber doesn’t bother at all: “Hair -he told me last week – will always grow on people’s head!”. The phantasmagorical numbers of the capitalist crisis do not mean anything at all to him (do they mean anything to most of us, by the way?). He carries on as he can, as he has almost always done, a coffee and a cigarette here and there, a joke quite often. He made me think that everyday’s life is a...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The Hannity &…Hannity Program?

by ishein1 The ubiquity of news programs on contemporary American television is palpable.  The four major network stations all have their own sister news station.  It can be said, without many cavils, that the Fox news station, a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, oscillates at varying degrees along the right side of the American political spectrum.  Fox News’ longest running and second highest rated program, only behind the O’Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, at the end of the year...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Just Where Do Trusted News Sources Get Their Information?

by NickieWild [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu-PF3O0ZpY] Remember all the reports immediately following the conclusion of the presidential campaign that an unnamed McCain-Palin campaign policy advisor leaked to the media that Sarah Palin didn’t know that Africa was actually a continent, and not a country? Remember all the interviews Palin did denying the reports, and calling the unnamed sources cowards and liars? Soon afterwards, reports swirled on cable news that the source of the leak had identified himself as Martin Eisenstadt, a member of...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

The end of storytelling?

On November 18, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced the creation of the Center for Future Storytelling. One of the center’s primary concerns, according to a recent NY Times article, is to examine whether the “old way” of telling stories is on the decline. By “old way”, the center is apparently referring to stories told with a traditional beginning, middle, and end. Not surprisingly, given that the center is receiving $25 million a year from a film production studio (Plymouth...