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Happy Holidays!

More results on our class's musical dislikes

GENDER:

Genres disliked more by women:

ethnic, classical, heavy metal (by alot), garage

Genres disliked more by men:

rap, jazz, rock, oldies, pop, religious, easy, country (by alot)

Maybe male sociology majors are more bohemian/alternative, while females are more mainstream in their cultural tastes? Any other explanations?

AGE:

There were no big differences across age groups in terms of disliking specific genres.

WEALTH:

Students with wealthier parents disliked almost every genre more than did students with less wealthy parents. The only exceptions: religious and pop music, which were more disliked by less wealthy students. Any explanations?

Due date for extra credit

It is officially due in class Wednesday. However, I will give full credit if you hand it in on Friday in class. Try to write something short but interesting.

Extra credit assignment

For a max. possible 2 pts, write a 1-page discussion of the findings from today's in-class survey of musical tastes. I will post more results tomorrow, but for now...

Most disliked genres:
religious - 62% of students disliked

heavy metal – 48%

ethnic – 44%

easy listening – 44%

country- 37%

Main findings so far:

Men had more dislikes than women

Younger students had more dislikes than older students (within college, age seems to increase musical tolerance)

Wealthier students had more dislikes than less wealthy students (maybe the snob model is right!)

An American remake of "The Dinner Game" is on the way!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0427152/

Sociology of Culture Lecture Notes for Final Exam

Michelle Lamont: Money, Morals, & Manners

Symbolic Boundaries and Status

 The study of “symbolic boundaries” and “cultural repertoires” is an important theoretical area within cultural studies, and it is mostly a French-American venture.

 Lamont’s research is especially qualitative and interpretive. Her writings are based mostly on interviews she has conducted over the years with, e.g., middle class Americans and French citizens, working class Americans and others.

 Lamont is from Quebec, which is a part of Canada with a heavy French influence, so she has been able to investigate two cultures—the Anglo-American world and France and French Canada—from a unique perspective.

 

Her theoretical ideas:

 

“symbolic boundaries” the types of lines that individuals draw when they categorize other people

 

“high-status signals”

 

“boundary work” work of maintaining distinctions between one’s own group and other groups

 

 

Types of symbolic boundaries

                     

                      moral boundaries

                                drawn on the basis of moral character

                                                honesty, work ethic, integrity, consideration for others

                                               

                      socioeconomic boundaries

                                wealth, power, professional success

 

                      cultural boundaries

                                education, intelligence, manners, taste, command of high culture

 

 

People in different countries value these boundaries differently. For example in America moral and socioeconomic qualities are more highly valued, while in France culture is more important

 

In both countries socioeconomic boundary work seems to be on the upswing

 

 

 

e.g. New Yorkers seeing Midwesterners as parochial

 

Businessmen seeing intellectuals as unrealistic

                      accountants, bankers, marketing executives, realtors

Social and cultural specialists seeing businesspeople as materialistic

                      e.g. artists, social workers, priests, psychologists, researchers, teachers

French seeing Americans as puritan moralists

 

 

She compares American and French members of the upper middle class

 

Midwesterners versus New Yorkers

 

Parisians versus residents of Clermont-Ferrand

 

Businesspeople versus social and cultural specialists

 

 

 

So Bourdieu looks at the social world and sees groups in conflict over forms of capital, attempting to reproduce their capital in their children, and struggling over symbols that define their existence. Naturally, one wonders whether his ideas reflect social reality, say, in France, or if he’s right about France, perhaps the situation is different in the U.S. Does having “refined tastes” in art, music, wine, home decorations and so on mean as much in the U.S. as it does in France? Maybe it does in some regions more so than in others (e.g. rural versus urban areas, Los Angeles versus Boston).

 

Questions like these are Michele Lamont’s starting point. To answer these questions, she employs a number of concepts, most of which are not terribly original (and many of which overlap):

 

1) symbolic boundaries, boundary work

2) high-status signals

3) evaluative criteria, “criteria of purity” (Mary Douglas)

4) cultural resources versus structural situations

5) structures of thought that organize perceptions of others (think of Foucault’s modes of objectification and dividing practices, and of Berger and Luckmann)

 

Her method is the individual interview—not the statistical analysis of survey data: Bourdieu’s method—which tends to corroborate a view of “boundary work” that is more individualistic than Bourdieu’s analyses of “social space.”

 

Her main findings:

1) symbolic boundaries and “boundary work”

                      looser boundaries in U.S., less consensus

                      moral boundaries are important, and Bourdieu ignores them

                      moral and socioeconomic boundaries are more important in the U.S., but are on the rise in both countries

                      cultural boundaries are clearer and stronger in France

                      symbolic boundaries are nation-level phenomena: there’s less regional variation within countries than one would think (NY versus Indianapolis, Paris versus Clermont-Ferand)

                      “social trajectory” matters a lot in people’s evaluative criteria, i.e. upwardly versus downwardly mobile (Bourdieu does not overlook this at all, though)

                      cultural specialists versus for-profit workers: occupational area matters a lot more in the U.S. than in France; overall capital matters more in France

                      Much of this is likely due to the high level of geographical mobility in the U.S.

                      Diverse ways of experiencing high culture—more emotional, social, “self-actualization” in U.S.; more expressly intellectual in France

 

RECEPTION STUDIES

 

Remember how Horkheimer and Adorno imagined audiences, i.e. the reception of culture…?

 

For Critical Theorists, audiences are basically passive, “narcotized” – they accept whatever popular cultural products are spoon-fed to them

 

                   We still see evidence of this kind of Marx-ish understanding of reception in the British Cultural Studies tradition

                                you will remember the ideas of dominant reading and oppositional reading

 

People actually go out and study how people receive mass media, for example how people from different class backgrounds interpret television shows that are very nationalistic

 

                   How people can creatively and reflexively interpret cultural products

 

                   How people actually watch TV or read in their everyday lives

 

Together, these sorts of studies lead us to question Critical Theory’s model of the passive consumer

 

 

e.g. “Watching Dallas”

 

Dallas was incredibly popular.

 

On the other, cultural critics often regarded Dallas as a threat to authentic national cultures and national identities.

 

e.g. in 1983 Jack Lang, the French Minister of Culture, proclaimed Dallas as the “symbol of American cultural imperialism”

 

Since Horkheimer and Adorno, and before them as well, “professional intellectuals” have been dismissive of American-style consumer culture. Many analysts see popular culture as not just entertainment. They think it has obvious, manipulative ideological effects.

 

 

Ien Ang studied the reception of Dallas in the Netherlands, and found that many people who enjoyed watching the show also disapproved of its capitalistic ideology. Some people defended watching it with a populist anti-intellectual discourse. Others adopted an ironic stance toward the show.

 

So reactions in Holland were complex, to say the least.

 

Katz and Liebes, two American-Israeli social scientists, studied the reception of Dallas among lower middle class Israeli citizens. Their groups included:

 

Israeli Arabs

New immigrants from Russia

Immigrants from Morocco

Kibbutzniks

 

These were compared to similar groups in Los Angeles

 

They watched the show, then participated in an “open structured” discussion and filled out questionnaires.

 

They found that people interpreted the show in very different ways, sometimes incorrectly.

 

Some of the Moroccan Jews claimed that the show made them more proud of their Jewish identity and their moral standards (as compared with the Dallas characters, many of whom are “bastards”)

 They conclude that the discourses of ordinary people about Dallas were quite sophisticated, so we should be skeptical about discussions of cultural imperialism and passive audiences.

 Also we learn to think carefully about the “mass” audience, which is not as uniform in its interpretations and the way cultural products are consumed as some theories suggest

 

Bethany Bryson

“Anything But Heavy Metal”: Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes

 

Music has many roles in social life, creating solidarities and encouraging political resistance.

 

People engage with music in many different ways in different areas of life.

 

Music becomes part of people’s identities, the way they identify themselves and draw closer to or else distance themselves from other groups and individuals.

 

While social exclusion is a well-understood sociological phenomenon, “symbolic exclusion” is the topic of Bryson’s paper. Symbolic exclusion is, in a word, taste.

 

Symbolic exclusion is a form of Lamont’s boundary work, the work of drawing lines between ourselves and others so as to establish our place in the social world.

 

Bryson examines musical exclusion and musical tolerance

 

From Bourdieu, we expect that elites will behave in a snobbish manner regarding music and musical tastes, excluding, or discriminating against, certain types of lowbrow music

 

Yet the opposite seems to be true: highly educated people are more musically tolerant than are people with less education, that is they are more open to more different kinds of music

 

Yet she finds that educated people are more tolerant generally but also very intolerant to low-status music, or music associated with uneducated people, such as country or gospel music in the United States

 

She calls this patterned tolerance

 

She refers to multicultural capital

 

 

 

Hypotheses

 

High Status Exclusiveness (wealth, education, occup prestige)à dislike more genres (not confirmed)

 

Educated Tolerance Educationà fewer dislikes

 

Symbolic Racism: Racist Whites will dislike non-white music (confirmed)

 

Patterned Tolerance: People who dislike few genres will dislike those types of music associated with people with less education

 

                      College students don’t listen to, or they say they dislike: heavy metal, rap, gospel, country

 There exists a “Tolerance Line” between high-statues cosmopolitanism and low-status group-based cultures

 

 

The Production of Culture

 

The “production perspective”

 

Alternative to strict market-based accounts of culture industries

 

H&A: the “culture industry” (singular)—shapes our knowledge and interpretation of current events, other cultures, international opinion of the United States

 

 

So much for cultural reception studies.

 

Why do people watch certain movies, certain kinds of movies, with certain themes?

 

Why are certain forms of music, television, film, and literature popular in certain places at certain times?

 

Where do museums come from? Concert halls? Libraries? Monuments? War memorials?

 

Sociologists discuss certain categories of people: gatekeepers and sponsors

 

Gatekeepers are taste-makers who work within and outside corporations to separate out certain cultural products (films, bands, songs, actors, television shows) because they believe they will become popular and profitable. These people work as agents, and for media corporations. They have to be hip, on the cutting edge of fashions.

 

Sponsors are wealthy and powerful individuals and organizations who provide resources (money, social and political connections) to promote certain cultural products and projects (museums, orchestras, theatres) that suit their tastes and interests. Sponsors include wealthy patrons, municipal governments, and even states.

 

At different times, due to social, technological and economic changes, different networks of sponsors and gatekeepers can emerge, leading to cultural changes and the popularization of new genres of art and music (e.g. impressionist painting in the early 19^th century, which was initially rejected).

 

 

 

 

Richard Peterson, Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music

 

Rock music, or some form of it, is a nearly universal form of music. Where did it come from? Why? And why did it begin in 1955? If we are interested in these sorts of questions, a production of culture perspective can be very useful, as it is very concrete, pointing to specific social, economic, and technological processes that shape what we listen to, eat, and watch.

 

In 1955 a rock aesthetic replaced the jazz aesthetic in American popular music

 

Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Perry Como à Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, and many more

 

Can we use a supply side explanation to account for this change? That is, people like Elvis Presley came and revolutionized the music scene?

 

But at any given time there are many creative, special talents, most of whom do not get recognized

 

What about a demand side explanation? That is, at some points in time there are major demographic changes, e.g. more young people, and they demand different kinds of music and other cultural products that reflect their own lives, not the lives of their parents’ generation. People want music that speaks to them.

 

                      In the case of rock music, the oldest of the baby-boomers was only 9 years old in 1955.

 

Richard Peterson argues that it was changes in the commercial culture industry itself that led to the popularity of rock music. These changes were legal and technological and business changes.

 

1909 “United States Copyright Law”—protected artists from sheet-music companies

 

ASCAP—American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers—formed to collect royalties from public performances—dominant by 1930s

 

 

As late as 1950 an oligopoly of only 18 music publishers controlled all the music which could reach the public ear. Everything.

 

The ASCAP oligopoly produced safe, smooth, melodic music with muted jazz rhythms and harmonies.

 

The work of black musicians in the blues, jazz, and r&b and later soul was excluded, as was Latin and country music. These musical forms were only for local audiences, and were not national.

 

In 1939 BMI, a new licensing agency, was formed by radio networks, but could not induce publishers and songwriters to defect from ASCAP. So instead, they began signing black, Latin, and country music singers and songwriters.

 

ASCAP, the musical oligarchy, failed to come to terms with radio networks over licensing fees in 1939, so these networks turned to BMI and began to provide exposure to black, Latin, and country music, although change was slow and rock had not yet been invented.

 

Technology and Patent Law

 

Columbia (12-inch, 33 1/3 rpm LPs) versus RCA (7-inch, 45 rpm)

                      Deal between two brokered by government

                      RCA small disks are durable, can be shipped by mail, hold singles, allowed for musical experimentation

 

1947—FCC approves more broadcasting stations

 

Popularization of TV and transistor radio—cheaply made by Japanese—encourages “Top 40” radio format

Sociology of Culture Final Exam Review Sheet

Sociology of Culture

Prof. Gabe Ignatow

 

Review Sheet for Final Exam:

Cultural Repertoires and Cultural Production

(December 8, 10:30-12:30)

 

The format of the final exam will be similar to that of the mid-term exams.

 

The exam will cover the following readings:

 

1. Michele Lamont, Symbolic Boundaries and Status (Spillman)
2. Bethany Bryson, Symbolic Exclusion and Musical Dislikes (Spillman)
3. Philip Smith, 167-182 (Smith)
4. Richard Peterson, Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music (Spillman)
5. “The Dinner Game”

 

You should be able to define and discuss all of the following terms (this list is not exhaustive):

 

Symbolic boundaries

Cultural Repertoires

Boundary work

Moral boundaries

Cultural boundaries

Socioeconomic boundaries

New York

Paris

Indianapolis

Clermont-Ferrand

Businesspeople

Cultural specialists

“Social trajectory”

François Pignon

Pierre Brochant

 

Symbolic exclusion

Musical tolerance

“Snob model”

Patterned tolerance

Multicultural capital

Gospel

Heavy metal

Educated tolerance

High-status exclusiveness

Symbolic racism

Patterned tolerance

Multicultural capital

“tolerance line”

 

Reception studies

Ien Ang

“Watching Dallas”

Cultural imperialism

Americanization

Ironic stance

Anti-intellectual stance

Katz and Liebes

Israeli Arabs and immigrants

 

Production perspective

“culture industry”

Culture industries

Gatekeepers

Sponsors

Supply-side explanations

Demand-side explanations

Baby boomers

Geniuses

“jazz aesthetic”

“rock aesthetic”

Copyright law

ASCAP

Blues, jazz, R&B, soul, Latin, country

BMI

LPs

Transistor radios

“Top 40” radio format

Ali G as Francois Pignon? Would it work?

http://www.thereeler.com/the_blog/from_borat_to_bruno_to_veber.php

Sociology of Culture Final Exam info.

date: Monday, December 8

time: 10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. in our classroom (Business 356)