Sociology Exam 2 Flashcards
Discography
a descriptive catalog or list of musical recordings, all the music that has been preformed, written or collected by a particular person
collective activity
pop culture is never a product of a solitary artist; it is always generated by interlocking networks of cultural creators
popular culture
one that is produced,consumed, and expierenced within a context of overlapping relationships
pxp entertainment, foods, aesthetic tastes shared by mass society
Popular culture MIU
the aesthetic products created and sold by profit seeking firms operating in the global entertainment market.
cultural items
social expressions of meaning that have been rendered into something tangible; an artifact that has shared significance embodied in form
collective activity
Howard Becker
social organization of culture and the arts are produced by collabartive webs of interconnected indviduals working together toward a common goal which is eventually consumed by audiences with shared meaning attached.
art worlds
networks of particpants who combined efforts to create movies,music, websites, graphic novels, advertising etc.
division of labor
specialization of work tasks
didgital divide
significant evidence that there endures a usage of computers and internet still reflects class and racial inequalities persistent in U.S. society
gatekeepers
a term used in social analysis to refer to persons who are able to arbitrate
access to a social role, field setting or structure.
media gatekeeping
occurs at all levels of the media structure - reporter deciding which sources are presented in a headline story to editors choosing which stories are covered, media outlet owners & advertisers, etc.
mash-up
a video where creators sample, manipulate and juxtapose together two or more media, in order to create irony and extreme pop culture awareness, often designed by pop culture fans themselves.
Fuctionalist Approach
llustrates how culture “functions” as an engine that generates solidarity within human groups and societies.
GRAZIAN
Critical approach
explains how the ascendance of certain kinds of pop culture can be explained primarily in terms of their ability to reflect and reinforce the enormous economic and cultural power of the mass media industry.
Interactionist approach
emphasizes the power that informal processes, such as word-of-mouth and peer influence enjoy in the cultural marketplace.
Symbolic boundaries:
Emile Durkheim
denoted the separation of the sacred and the profane
elements of the universe.
collective conscience
the totality of beliefs and sentiments common to average citizens in the same society
ritual
any ceremony, event, or set of behaviors performed in a customary way that is set apart from ordinary life and designed to convey meanings that bind people together ritual
Religion rituals
what Durkheim called:
▪ collective effervescence: a shared feeling of identity in which the individual members of the group (whether a tribe or a congregation) experience waves of emotion, a sense of unity and togetherness.
David Grazian (MIU) asks
What kinds of rituals will rejuvenate societies by generating collective effervescence they need to survive?
* What will serve as the social glue that will help bind societies together, through thick and through thin?
Functionalist approach to pop culture
how the symbols, rituals, & practices can bring people together by generating a shared sense of social solidarity
collective rituals
recurring behaviors and activities practiced by groups (such as sports fans) to augment ingroup/outgroup differences and further bolster the social integration of like-minded group members.
Paid-for-Patriotism
term used to describe how the Pentagon contracted with sports teams for millions of dollars to hold events that honor U.S. armed-services personnel.
“Dead Heads”
dedicated fans who followed the band along
their concert tour route to every show
imagined communities
viewers who, despite their lack of physical proximity to one another, still feel as if they are members of a collective audience sharing the simultaneity of a moment
pseudo-events
media rituals help simply for “the immediate
purpose of being reported and reproduced.
▪ Competitive reality t.v. series such as Survivor, Dancing with the Stars, and The Voice
fluff pieces
laudatory, puffed-up profiles
evergreens
journalistic context that is useful at any time, also during “slow” news periods
rituals of rebellion
institutionalized protest that allows subordinate group
members to momentarily let off steam without granting them real power
are embedded in popular entertainment and mass culture.
Criticial approach
certain kinds of pop culture can be explained by the enormous economic and cultural power of mass media and cultural history
cultural hegemony
the domination, or rule, of a society that is acheived through ideological/cultural means
Karl Marx
believed society’s culture & symbolic imagery reflect its economic & social structure & reproduce its culture over time.
“The German Ideology” (1848) (w/s/g Frederick Engels)
critique of modern German ideology
▪ argued that prevailing ideologies & cultural norms of any society serve to benefit its ruling classes & perpetuate their power.
Antonio Gramsci
societies are seamlessly controlled through the dissemination of mass media because it disarms and immobilizes its audience through the power of persuasion
Theodore Adorno
regarded commercial jazz & pop music as “factory-made” standardization has …
▪ “lasting domination [on] the listening public & their conditioned reflexes”
Theodore Adorno & Max Horkheimer
argued that rather than satisfying preexisting desires of the audiences, the media and culture industry relies on advertising, popular music, and the glamour of movies to invent new (and mostly useless) desires for consumer goods
Neil Postman
warned Americans that our collective reliance on television (social media today?) for our news AND our entertainment has transformed our national discourse into “dangerous nonsense … shriveled and absurd.”
Thomas Frank - The Baffler
Pokes fun at how contemporary advertisers attempt to tap into the lucrative youth market by appropriating images of countercultural style to repackage mundane products from diet colas to chewing gum as rebellious, radical, hip, and on the bleeding edge of extreme cool, sometimes to ridiculous effect.
cool hunters
young people, hired by corporations, to research the underground trends of fashion- forward youth to appropriate them for mass consumption
Interaction approach
emphasizes how popular culture spreads throughout a society as an outcome of interpersonal encounters experienced among groups of individuals within particular social settings and interactive contexts
peer group societies
working-class communities in which socialization occurs several times a week – not only among teenage gangs, close-knit groups of adults, cousins, in-laws, work colleagues, church goers, etc
social self
(or “looking glass self”) – individuals build their self-image from the judgements of others, or at least from what they imagine such evaluations to be
hidden curriculum
concealed culture within schools that “controls children’s bodily practices [and] serves to turn kinds who are similar … into boys and girls, … children whose bodily practices are different.
Gender Play (1993)
Observed how schoolteachers often use gender labels when interacting with children
George Herbert Mead
“taking the role of the other” – by reading & interpreting socialization messages in situations supervised by grownups, young children eventually acquire a concept of selfhood, a self-identity embedded in social relations.
Solonom Ash
our judgements are often influenced by the people who surround us.
▪ experiments on conformity→research subjects bowed to peer pressure when confronted with group consensus, even when the group’s answers were clearly false
Stanley Milgram
test subjects were willing to commit acts of torture - “electrocuting strangers” – in
response to social pressure applied by experimenters.
▪ “strangers” were actors – no one was electrocuted in Milgram’s lab
presentation of self
ersonhood includes a multiplicity of roles that we strategically embody when participating in different social worlds,
interactionist perspective
argued that pop culture is often dependent on the social contexts in which we interact with other people in 2 primary ways:
- our consumer & cultural tastes – music, food, clothes – are deeply influenced by our peers, acquaintances, & all who are part of our daily living.
- while the production of culture may be centralized by a handful of corporations, music labels, film studios, media conglomerates, etc. … the eventual diffusion of pop culture depends just as much on micro-level interactions among individuals within small groups, social scenes, and online networks.
dyad
a pair of individuals, linked together purposefully – marriage, college roommates, twins, work partners, etc.
triad
3 individuals linked together purposefully – things get complicated – love triangle, stronger/weaker ties between individuals, communication breakdowns, etc.
Mark Granovetter
studied how people find jobs – not surprisingly found that personal connections are
important
▪ most important finding – the kinds of personal connections that landed people jobs – NOT intimate or close relationships, but people whom job seekers are WEAKLY connected to
social networks
key to understanding how everyday pop culture trends, fads, and fashions become popular
connectors
cultural emissaries who bridge a large number of discrete & insular networks
opinion leaders
draw on their deep familiarity and involvement with specific kinds of cultural products, categories, or genres to make informed recommendations to their peers
early adopters
the first person in a social network to purchase the latest electric car, iPhone, etc. – exert passive influence when they conspicuously consume products in public, turning onlookers and bystanders on to new fads and fashions
active influencers
demonstrate to friends and acquaintances, etc. the exciting features of their new tablet, fitness tracker, etc
market mavens
maintain a vast wealth of knowledge about many different kinds of products and even a greater influence over the consumer decisions and cultural tastes of
their peers.
focused gatherings
occasions temporarily bounded in time and space where participants engage each
other in shared objectives
subcultures
a social world that stands apart of larger society in some distinctively patterned way, often because its members invest in alternative identities and with unique beliefs and practices.
scenes
places where subcultural participants experience their shared identity
social organizations
rovide stable arenas for human interaction surrounding the collective consumption of popular culture. (Book clubs, riding academies, bowling teams, etc.)
stealth marketing
quiet underwriting of products at independent events thrown by bikers,
skateboarders, art gallery owners, etc
reality marketing
sends volunteers (ordinary people) out into the world to promote their brands.
collaborative circles
collective worlds of creativity formed among friends, who provide a kind of dynamism that drives innovation & rebelliousness
Powers of Two (2015
Some creative pairs are known for their healthy competitiveness and differences in artistic vision, such as the Beatles’ songwriting team John Lennon & Paul McCartney, each trying to best one another in a productive rivalry buzzing with generative tension
Cultural Conventions
are the taken-for-granted rules & agreed-upon assumptions that make social activity possible (Becker 1982)
cultural survival
cultural phenomena that outlive the set of conditions under which they developed
concept album
a cohesive musical work intended to be heard in its entirety in one sitting, with songs woven together by common stylistic virtues & lyrical themes
