Chapter 3: Culture and Media

Cultural scripts

modes of behavior and understanding that are not universal or natural.

Hegemony

a condition by which a dominant group uses its power to elicit the voluntary "consent" of the masses.

Culture

a set of beliefs, traditions, and practices; the sum total of social categories and concepts we embrace in addition to beliefs, behaviors (except instinctual ones), and practices; that which is not the natural environment around us. numberous, majority.

Ideology

a system of concepts and relationships, an understanding of cause and effect. shared beliefs

Media

any formats or vehicles that carry, present, or communicate information.

Stereotypes

define you as your group generalize, characterize about you stop seeing you like individual an exaggerated or oversimplified belief about who belongs to a certain group

Material culture

everything that is a part of our constructed, physical environment, including technology.

Norms

how values tell us to behave

Culture

justifies given relationships on production (Marx)

Cultural relativism

taking into account the differences across cultures without passing judgment or assigning value.

Culture jamming

the act of turning media against themselves.

Ethnocentrism

the belief that one's own culture or group is superior to others and the tendency to view all other cultures from the perspective of one's own. Ex: I am number one, others are less than number one.

Subculture

the distinct cultural values and behavioral patterns of a particular group in society; a group united by sets of concepts, values, symbols, and shared meaning specific to the members of that group distinctive enough to distinguish it from others within the same culture or society. some groups are different from culture, seperated beliefs. Ex: Amish culture.

Reflection theory

the idea that culture is a projection of social structures and relationships into the public sphere, a screen onto which the film of the underlying reality or social structures of our society is projected. Language reflects culture. (ice vocabulary, camel..) Sapir-Whorf

Socialization

the process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a given society and learn to function as members of that society. the lifelong process => learn => funtion doesnt end when dead

Consumerism

the steady acquisition of material possessions, often with the belief that happiness and fulfillment can thus be achieved.

counter Culture

values, beliefs, and behaviors that go against the norm or larger culture. reject dominant culture values

Nonmaterial culture

values, beliefs, behaviors, and social norms.