Definitions
- Culture: the symbols, language, gestures, norms, values and rituals that make our lives and that we use to understand our world.
- Religion: organised cultural practices and worldviews linking us to the supernatural.
- Division of Labour: The separation of tasks in a productive system. Generally divided into two forms: the division of labour in manufacture, referring to specialization within organizations or manufactories, and the division of labour in society, referring to an increase in occupational distinctions.
- Civil religion: In Bellah, a name given to an institutionalized collection of beliefs which has a quasi-religious or sacred character.
- Collective effervescence: In Durkheim, the name given to a feeling of excitement and group unity aroused by participation in communal gatherings and rituals.
- Protestant Ethic: A belief in hard work, thrift, and personal discipline, common to the values of the Protestant faith. For Weber, this was a cultural spark that had an elective affinity with capitalism and allowed it to grow in influence.
- Disenchantment: In Weber, the name given to a kind of change by which individuals develop a more rational, scientific understanding of the world. Disenchantment is associated with the devaluation of religious ideas and practices.
- Ideology: Beliefs, attitudes and cultural patterns justifying existing social institutions and hierarchies. Linked to power and the maintenance of inequalities.
- Hegemony: In Marxism, a form of cultural domination in which the worldview of a ruling class becomes widely accepted as normal or correct, legitimizing their power and justifying the status-quo.
- Popular culture: forms of culture which are common or prevalent in a particular social group.
- Manufactured Consensus: In Marcuse, the idea that commonly shared norms, ideas, and values are not the result of genuine agreement or free debate, but instead arise through efforts to manipulate and control the population.
- Culture Industry: A term used by Adorno and Horkheimer to describe how popular culture in capitalist societies is produced in an industrial, standardized manner. For Adorno and Horkheimer, the products of the culture industry promote docility and passivity in citizens.
- Pseudo-individualisation, In Adorno, the idea that elements of mass culture, such as products or popular songs, appear to be unique and different when they are in fact highly standardized. For Adorno, this creates an illusion of choice.
- False and true needs: A distinction introduced by Marcuse. False needs are needs which are manufactured by institutions like the media or the advertising industry. True needs are the intrinsic psychological needs of individuals. Marcuse argued that advanced industrial societies fulfilled false needs at the expense of true needs.
- Moral panic: an instance of widespread panic or alarm in response to behaviours that are seen to threaten moral standards.
- Self-fulfilling Prophecy: The idea that a belief or expectation about a certain outcome can help to bring about that outcome.
- Polarization effect: An aspect of moral panics, in which a split is created between two groups, typically the ‘deviant’ group and the ‘correct’ group.
- McDonaldization: In Ritzer, a process by which society adopts the characteristics or principles of a fast-food restaurant, namely, standardization, homogenization, and scientific management.
- Iron Cage of Rationality: A situation in which individuals are increasingly compelled to act in accordance with dictates of efficiency, calculation, and rationality.
- Platform capitalism: A style of capitalism characterised by the widespread use of digital platforms.
- Gig Economy: An economic model in which short-term, temporary, or freelance work is commonplace.
- Critical Theory: A style of social theory which is explicitly concerned with discovering and critiquing social injustices.
- Cultural sociology: A form of sociology which is specifically focused on interpreting the meanings and significance of cultural forms and patterns.
- Counterculture: a set of cultural patterns which are opposed to the dominant cultural patterns of a society.
- Semiotics: an approach concerned with the study of signs and symbols, especially with their meaning.
- Encoding and decoding: A model of communication developed by Stuart Hall. Encoding refers to the production of a message, in which a sender attempts to convey information via symbols, gestures, and other such means. Decoding refers to the recipient’s attempt to reconstruct the meaning of the message, or to interpret what the sender was attempting to convey with the chosen means.
- Birmingham School: A school of cultural studies, associated with the members of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.
- Subculture: A cultural group which exists within a larger culture and which typically adopts values, ideas, and cultural practices that are at odds with those of the larger culture.
- Strain Theory: A criminological theory, developed by Robert Merton, which suggests that crime occurs when individuals use illegitimate means to obtain socially valued goals or ends.
- Bricolage: A term used to describe the creation of new cultural forms via the combination, reworking, or alteration of existing cultural forms.
- Cultural identity: One’s sense of belonging to a particular cultural group.
- Distinctions: In Bourdieu, the means by which groups differentiate themselves from others, typically to establish their own superiority.
- Civilizing process: In Elias, a term given to the long-term historical process by which manners and behaviour became increasingly refined in European societies.
- Conspicuous consumption: A term developed by Veblen, referring to the spending of money on goods or services which are primarily designed to signal an individual’s status, taste, and economic power.
- Discourse: In Foucault, sets of widely accepted norms or ways of thinking about particular topics which are taken for granted in a particular time period or locale.
- Hybridity: In post-colonial studies, the creation of new transcultural forms within the zone of cultural contact produced by colonization.
- Border Thinking: A mode of thought which draws on the perspectives, knowledges, and forms of expression marginalized by colonial domination that focused on experiences, lives and structures intersections of different borders.
- Cultural dupes: A term used to criticize theories which treat the individual as a blind follower or consumer of cultural trends or products. Such theories are thought to see individuals as cultural dupes.
- Critical Theory: A style of social theory which is explicitly concerned with discovering and critiquing social injustices.
Books on the General Topic
Bauman, Z. 2013. Consuming life. John Wiley & Sons.
Humphrey, Kim 2010. Excess: Anti-Consumerism in the West. Polity Press: Cambridge.
Smart, Barry 2012. Consumer Society: Critical Issues and Environmental Consequences. Sage: London.
Mathur, N. 2014. Consumer Culture, Modernity and Identity. New Delhi: Sage.
Contemporary Research Monographs on this Topic
Luckman, S. 2015. Craft and the Creative Economy. Houndsmill: Palgrave MacMillan.
Miller, D. 2008. The Comfort of Things, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bennett, A., 2006. Culture and everyday life. London: Sage Publ.
Ransome, P., 2006. Work, consumption and culture. London: Sage Publications.
Contemporary Articles
- Discusses indigenous youth subcultures and their relative invisibility in discussions of contemporary aboriginal culture. Intersects with many of the issues discussed in this chapter.
- Discusses the cultural dimension of genocide using sociological ideas. It is also a good example of southern theory because it engages with indigenous people’s own understandings of the genocide term.
- Ethnographic study of the Carnival festival in Germany. Deploys Durkheim’s concept of collective effervescence.
- Uses Durkheim’s concepts to examine the meanings conveyed by a September 11 memorial. Deploys the concept of civil religion.
- This is an interesting empirical piece which discusses the possibility of human rights forming a global ‘civil religion’. It deploys some Durkheimian language. Raises questions about cultural difference and globalization as well.
- Engages with the concept of cultural hegemony and examines its relationship to race in a number of different countries. Useful for thinking about the relationship between culture and power.
- Case study of a contemporary moral panic. Good example of a critical media analysis.
- In this article Ritzer re-examines his McDonaldization thesis and considers its applicability to digital consumption. Especially relevant considering the mention of platform capitalism in the chapter.
- Good example of counter-culture. Ethnographic study of punk communities and the DIY ethic re: music production.
- Interesting example of subcultural behaviour. Discusses why people might participate in subcultures and examples various sociological theories of subcultures in an accessible way.
- Fun example of the civilising process. Even sleep is deeply linked to society and culture.
Discussion Questions
- Bellah argued that some countries have developed a ‘civil religion’. What did he mean by this? Can you think of any examples from your own country?
- Adorno and Horkheimer argued that popular culture makes people docile and passive, and encourages them to support the status quo. Do you agree?
- What is a moral panic? Can you think of some contemporary moral panics?
- What are some contemporary youth subcultures? How are these subcultures different from those of the past?
- What is McDonaldisation? Can you give some examples? Are things becoming more the same?
- This chapter discusses the possibility of belonging to a number of different cultural groups. What kinds of cultural groups do you identify with? Do they overlap, or do you think they are opposed?
Chapter References
- Adorno, T (1991) The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. Routledge.
- Alexander, JC (2003) The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford University Press.
- Althusser, L (2001) ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’, in Lenin and Philosophy and other Essays, trans. B Brewster. Monthly Review Press, pp. 85–126.
- Bellah, RN (1967) ‘Civil Religion in America’, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. 96, no. 1, pp. 1–21.
- Boltanski, L and Chiapello, E (2005) The New Spirit of Capitalism. Verso. Culture and Media 77
- Cohen, AK (1955) Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. Free Press.
- Cohen, P (1972) Sub-cultural Conflict and Working Class Community. Working Papers in Cultural Studies, no. 2. University of Birmingham.
- Cohen, S (2011) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of Mods and Rockers. Routledge.
- Durkheim, E (1915) The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. George Allen & Unwin.
- Durkheim, E (1933) The Division of Labour in Society. Free Press.
- Elias, N (1978) The Civilizing Process. Urizen Books.
- Gramsci, A (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. International Publishers.
- Hall, S (1993) ‘Encoding/Decoding’, in S. During (ed.) The Cultural Studies Reader. Routledge, pp. 507–517.
- Marcuse, H (1991) One-dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Routledge.
- Marx, K (1970) Critique of Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Right’, trans. A Jolin and J O’Malley. Cambridge University Press.
- McRobbie, A (2016) Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Polity Press.
- McRobbie, A and Thornton, SL (1995) ‘Rethinking “Moral Panic” for Multi-Mediated Social
- Worlds’, The British Journal of Sociology, vol. 46, no. 4, pp. 559–574.
- Merton, R (1938) ‘Social Structure and Anomie’, American Sociological Review, vol. 3, no. 5, pp. 672–683.
- Ritzer, G (2009) The McDonaldization of Society. Pine Forge Press.
- Taylor, C (2007) A Secular Age, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
- Thrasher, FM (1936) The Gang: A Study of 1313 Gangs in Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
- Veblen, T (1899) Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. MacMillan.
- Weber, M (1946) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Oxford University Press.
- Weber, M (1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- Whyte, WF (1943) Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. University of Chicago Press.
- Yinger, JM (1982) Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. The Free Press.
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