socio culture Flashcards
nature
(our biology and genetics)
nurture
our environment and surroundings that also shape our identities)
Culture is
the non-biological or social aspects of human life, basically anything that is learned or made by humans is part of culture.
Culture encompasses
objects and symbols, the meanings given to those objects and symbols, and the norms, values, and beliefs that pervade social life.
The objects or belongings of a group of people are considered
material culture.
in contrast, __________ consists of the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society.
Nonmaterial culture
. A metro pass is a material object, but it represents
form of nonmaterial culture, namely, capitalism, and the acceptance of paying for transportation. Clothing
Values
are a culture’s standard for discerning what is good and just in society.
Values are deeply embedded and critical for
transmitting and teaching a culture’s beliefs.
Beliefs are the tenets or convictions that
people hold to be true.
ideal culture
the standards society would like to embrace and live up to
ideal culture differs from real culture,
the way society actually is, based on what occurs and exists.
Sanctions are a form of
social control, a way to encourage conformity to cultural norms.
sanction
People positively sanction certain behaviors by giving their support, approval, or permission, or negatively sanction them by invoking formal policies of disapproval and nonsupport.
Norms
define how to behave in accordance with what a society has defined as good, right, and important, and most members of the society adhere to them.
Formal norms are
established, written rules. T
informal norms
casual behaviors that are generally and widely conformed to
People learn informal norms by
observation, imitation, and general socialization.
Mores (mor-ays) are
norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group. Violating them can have serious consequences.
Unlike mores, folkways are
norms without any moral underpinnings. Rather, folkways direct appropriate behavior in the day-to-day practices and expressions of a culture.
Cultural universals are
patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies.
Murdock found that cultural universals often revolve around basic human
survival, such as finding food, clothing, and shelter, or around shared human experiences, such as birth and death or illness and healing.
ethnocentrism,
valuating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one’s own cultural norms.
cultural imperialism
, the deliberate imposition of one’s own ostensibly advanced cultural values on another culture
Ethnocentrism can be so strong that when confronted with all of the differences of a new culture, one may experience disorientation and frustration. In sociology, we call this
culture shock.
Cultural relativism
is the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of one’s own culture.
. Xenocentrism
is the opposite of ethnocentrism, and refers to the belief that another culture is superior to one’s own. (
high culture
to describe the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in the highest class segments of a society.
The term popular culture refers to the
pattern of the more accessible cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in mainstream society.
A subculture is just what it sounds like—a
smaller cultural group within a larger culture; people of a subculture are part of the larger culture but also share a specific identity within a smaller group.
countercultures
which are a type of subculture that rejects the larger culture’s norms and values.
Technology
is the application of science to address the problems of daily life.
culture lag
Sociologist William F. Ogburn coined the term culture lag to refer to this time that elapses between the introduction of a new item of material culture and its acceptance as part of nonmaterial culture (Ogburn 1957).
media globalization
is the worldwide integration of media (all print, digital, and electronic means of communication) through the cross-cultural exchange of ideas.
Technological globalization
refers to the cross-cultural development and exchange of technology.
The speed with which culture is diffused has changed as a result of
technological advances.
Media consolidation
is a process in which fewer and fewer owners control the majority of media outlets.
Media consolidation results in the following dysfunctions:
consolidated media owes more to its stockholders than to the public and represent the political and social interests of only a small minority
Media consolidation results in the following dysfunctions:
there are fewer incentives to innovate, improve services, or decrease prices
Media consolidation results in the following dysfunctions:
cultural and ideological bias can be widespread and based on the interests of who owns the purveyors of media
Functionalists view society as a
system in which all parts work—or function—together to create society as a whole. In this way, societies need culture to exist.
gatekeeping
Shoemaker and Voss (2009) define gatekeeping as the sorting process by which thousands of possible messages are shaped into a mass media-appropriate form and reduced to a manageable amount.
The panoptic surveillance envisioned by Jeremy Bentham, depicted in the form of an all-powerful, all-seeing government by George Orwell in 1984, and later analyzed by Michel Foucault (1975) is increasingly realized in the form o
of technology used to monitor our every move.
Neo-Luddites are people who are
critical of technology and who see it as symbolizing the coldness and alienation of modern life.
