Culture and Identity - Sociologists

Strinati

• Mass culture is made for profit and mass consumption on a global scale

• Mass culture is short-lived, ‘dumbed-down’ and inferior to high culture

• It is now much more difficult to distinguish between high and popular culture, as technology has weakened accessibility barriers

Storey

Identified 6 definitions of popular culture:

• Residual

• Quantitative

• Commercial

• Democratic

• Hybrid

• Relative

Frank and Queenie Leavis

• Mass culture is trivial and mindless

• It is processed, packaged and escapist fantasy

Bordieu

1. Different conceptions of culture

• High culture is seen as superior because the dominant class has the power to impose its own cultural ideas on the rest of society

3. The socialisation process and the role of agencies of socialisation

• Symbols of taste/lifestyle and identity - we try to present a particular impression which becomes the basis of social judgements of others

4. Identity and social factors

• Habitus - a cultural framework by which you live

Livingstone

TV soaps are useful as they can educate the public on important issues

Giddings

There is no longer anything special about art as it has become a commodity and a part of mass culture.

Adorno

Mass culture has created false needs

Ritzer

Uses the example of American food companies to illustrate the globalisation of culture and cultural homogenisation

Flew

Technology has helped the process of globalisation of culture as it has broken down cultural barriers

Lawler

2. The self, identity and difference as both socially caused and socially constructed

• Similarites and differences from others create our identities

• The formation of identity is a social and collective process

• People tell themselves stories about themselves to inform their identity

3. The socialisation process and the role of agencies of socialisation

• The social world involved people making interpretations and meanings

Althusser

Norms and values are transmitted via the ideological and repressive state apparatus

Mead

‘I’ is the real me and ‘self’ arises from social experiences

Becker

• Master status

• Identities are socially constructed

• People have multiple identities which change in different contexts and over time

Giddens and Sutton

• Primary and secondary identities - secondary identities are more fluid, fragmented and changeable

• Identities are a combination of personal factors and social influences

Woodward

On individual identities - ‘who am I?’

Goffman

2. The self, identity and difference as both socially caused and socially constructed

• Stigmatised or spoiled identities - this is impossible to conceal

3. The socialisation process and the role of agencies of socialisation

• Impression management - people manipulate their self-presentation to give the best impression

• Dramaturgical analysis - front vs. back of theatre

Garfinkel

People are cultural dopes passively accepting norms and values

Cooley

The looking glass self - our image of ourselves is reflected back to us in the views and reactions of others

Maffesoli

Subcultures are like neo-tribes - it is often music, fashion or consumer choices that unite them

Lyotard

People can choose what culture they wish to be a part of

Laslett

Third Age - how the increase in life expectancy, greater economic security and younger age of retired people has created a new generation of older people who can find fulfilment in a prolonged ‘third age’

Marhánková

Free from the demands of work and with lots more free time, older people can forge new identities

Johnson and Bytheway

On ageism:

• It is institutionalised

• Prejudice is expressed when someone’s competency is limited by their age

• Assumptions can be well-meaning but incorrect

Hebdige

Bricolage - often found in youth subcultures where everyday items are used to create new styles and identities and draw attention

Hall and Jefferson

Distinct styles are a form of resistance to hegemony

Biggs

• Found that representation of older adults in the media was largely negative

• Younger age groups were also represented as a problem

Parsons and Bales

Young people often join subcultures as a way of dealing with status frustration

McRobbie, Garber and Lincoln

• Many subcultures are male stream

• There are 3 main reasons girls are less involved with subcultures and seen more as just ‘girlfriends tagging along’:

  • Gendered socialisation

  • Parental control

  • Personal safety

Hollands

The female role is becoming more similar to the male role in subcultures

Bennett

Neotribalism - subcultures are not as cohesive as they were before

Barnes

Stereotypes of disability:

• Dependent on others

• Unable to contribute to society

• Non-sexual

• Unable to express and speak up for themselves

• Less than human

• ‘Monsters’ with maladjusted personalities

• To be made fun of, pitied or praised

Cumberbatch

Found little media portayal of disabled people

Shakespeare

Negative labelling leads to a social construction of helplessness

Scott

Features of the upper class (old rich):

• Primary socialisation - exclusive upbringing and intermarriage

• Secondary socialisation through private education

• Employment of domestic staff

• Taste for high culture

• Particular codes of etiquette

• Leisure activities such as hunting and shooting

Jones

The middle class maintains its superiority by ‘sneering’ at the tastes of the white working class, demonising and stereotyping them

Willis

Hard, manual work was central to a traditional working class man’s identity

Hoggart

Three attitudes of the working class:

• Immediate gratification

• Present orientation

• Fatalism

Murray

Characterises the underclass as consisting of:

• high levels of illegitimacy, lone parenthood and family instability

• drunkenness and ‘yob culture’

• involvement in crime

• educational failure

• work-shy attitudes

Clarke and Saunders

Class has become fragmented into a range of social groups

Pakulski and Waters

Class is no longer an important factor in identity - consumption and lifestyle is

Lash and Urry

Class subcultures have weakened, as they have become more individualistic and less influenced by their close communities

Margaret Mead

Studied a tribe in Papua New Guinea where gender roles were the reverse of those in Britain

Connell

Hegemonic masculinity and femininity

Jackson

More and more teenage girls are joining ‘ladette’ subcultures

Mac an Ghaill

Crisis of masculinity

McRobbie

The beauty stakes have gone up for men, and women have taken the position of active viewers

Hall

• Every nation has a collection of stories, images and symbols about its shared experiences, which people draw on to construct and express their national identity

• The growth of wider political unites like the EU can give rise to nationalism and a reassertion of national identity as a means of opposing the trend

• Ethnic identities are becoming harder to identify with diasporas

Palmer

National identity is promoted and maintained by heritage tourism, using historic symbols as means of attracting tourists

Orr

There has been a growing trend towards the assertion of negative identities - e.g. not Muslim, not European

Anwar and Ghuman

South Asian families emphasise family values

Sewell

• Young black students dealt with teacher racism through ‘black machismo’ identities

• Many aspects of the macho black identity of young African-Caribbeans were derived from the media

Jacobson

Religion is often used by British Pakistani Asians as a response and defence mechanism to racism

Fanon

Many British Asians may adopt a ‘white mask’

Gilroy

• There is no single black identity

• The historical experience of slavery still affects the perception of black people today

Mirza

The growing popularity of wearing the hijab was more of a statement of difference than religious or family pressure

Johal

‘Brasians’ - British Asians

Warsi

Fashionable Islamophobia - prejudice against Muslims is now seen as normal

Gini

Work helps to produce people - what we do is what we become

Parker

3 patterns between work and leisure:

• Opposition

• Neutrality

• Extension

Doherty

Work is a source of achievement and means to socialise with people outside the family, playing a key role in fulfilling personal and social needs

Morgan

Enmeshment - work eats into leisure

Bauman, Rojek and Roberts

The new focus of identity is lifestyle and consumer choice, not production - life has become like a shopping mall

Durkheim

Unemployment can lead to anomie

Bocock

Conspicuous consumption - goods are an important aspect of creating the identity an individual wishes to project

Urry

• Much tourism is now sold on the basis of identity packaging

• Tourist gaze

Baudrillard

• Tourists are often looking at imaginary reconstructions or ‘simulations’ where things are presented as real experiences

• We live in a media-saturated society

Bradley

• New identities are created by globalisation

• Social inequality is still important but there is more fluidity and choice now

Miller and Featherstone

Shopping has become a major leisure activity in its own right, as people buy into lifestyles and identities

Bauman and May

Goods have symbolic significance as they have an associated lifestyle

Jenkins

Identity is something rooted in social experience and cannot be changed at will

Ray

Globalisation creates a more complex and fluid world, creating more multiple and hybrid identities