Chapter 6: Culture, Media, and Communication
Cultural omnivore
A cultural elite that demonstrates high status through a broad range of cultural consumption and knowledge, including low-status culture.
Cultural universal
A cultural trait common to all humans and societies.
Counterculture
A group whose ideas, attitudes, and behaviors are in direct conflict with mainstream culture.
Value
A judgment about what is intrinsically important or meaningful. When it comes to research, values held by sociologists shape their views of and perspectives on the questions they ask.
Taste
A person's cultural preferences.
Subculture
A relatively small group of people whose affiliation is based on shared beliefs, preferences, and practices that distinguish them from the mainstream or larger social group to which they also belong.
Nationalism
A set of beliefs about the virtues of one's country. In the sociology of race and ethnicity, nationalism includes the assumptions that people are inherently members of a specific nation and that their identities are in large part defined by their national membership.
Public sphere
A social space—physical, virtual, or theoretical—where private citizens can come together as a public body to discuss and express opinions about matters of general interest.
Counterpublic
Alternative public organizations created by disadvantaged social groups.
Networked public
An online public sphere.
Culture wars
Disagreements about the proper role of family and religious values in society.
Because the ritual of cockfighting bestows social status, it can be regarded as a(n) ___.
symbol
Culture industry
The production for profit of popular music, movies, books, television, social media, and other types of mass-culture products by capitalist enterprises.
In a study of social life, one sociologist compares a group of people discussing their opinions about general social issues to a group of people exploring similar interests online. What is being compared here?
The public sphere and the networked public.
Group style
The set of norms and practices that distinguishes one group from another.
National culture
The set of shared cultural practices and beliefs of people living within a nation-state.
Digital divide
The social, economic, and cultural gap between those with effective access to information technology and those without such access.
Cultural capital
The type and level of education and cultural knowledge possessed by an individual. Having a high level of cultural capital signifies one's high status in the eyes of others.
Habitus
A concept introduced by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to refer to the diverse ways in which individuals develop intuitive understandings and engrained habits reflecting their class background and upbringing.
Language
A comprehensive system of words or symbols representing concepts, which is often but not always spoken.
Multiculturalism
Beliefs or policies promoting the equal accommodation of different ethnic or cultural groups within a society. It is sometimes also used to refer to the benefits of dialogue and interaction between different groups.
Which concept is better understood by sociologists from studying how childrearing practices vary by social class?
Class reproduction.
Mass communication
Communication within society as a whole through the mass media (television, Internet, newspapers, radio) as opposed to between individuals.
The social and political tensions in the United States that exist over issues such as abortion and gay rights could be considered a demonstration of which of the following concepts?
Culture wars.
What is the meaning of the word "barbarian"?
Having no language.
Last Saturday night you went to the movies with your friends to see the latest blockbuster. In the opening scene of the film you notice that the main character is driving a Camaro and using and using an iPhone 6. This is an example of what trend in the media landscape?
Hypercommercialism.
Tool kit
In the sociology of culture, the view that culture is a set of symbolic skills, devices, or strategies that people learn throughout their lives and can deploy strategically in different situations. The tool kit also supplies a set of ideas to justify a course of action retrospectively.
"It is common knowledge that the news media can manipulate public political opinion." What is wrong with this statement?
It is difficult to prove.
___ is also a system of ___.
Language; symbols
A big corporation owns a cable company, a number of radio stations, and numerous websites. When it added a group of channels to its cable stations, all the media outlets advertised, mentioned, and discussed it. This is an example of ___.
Media conglomeration.
Journalism
The production and dissemination of information about contemporary affairs of general importance.
Symbol
Something that communicates an idea while being distinct from the idea itself.
Culture
Systems of belief and knowledge shared by members of a group or society that shape individual and group behavior and attitudes. A society's culture includes its language, customs, symbols, rituals, and other forms of meaning that are widely shared.
How has the transition from the age of typography to the age of television affected cultural production in the United States?
Television has replaced reading and writing as the primary tool in the production of culture.
Cultural relativism
The idea that cultural meanings and practices must be evaluated in their own social contexts.
Ethnocentrism
The inability to understand, accept, or reference patterns of behavior or belief different from one's own.
Which of these correctly contrasts two opinions about media influence?
The media strongly influence public opinion. The media set the context for making events in the world intelligible.
Mainstream culture
The most widely shared systems of meaning in a society. Mainstream culture includes the most widely consumed cultural products (music, literature, films), foods, ways of speaking, and widely shared ideas about normal or appropriate behavior.
Class reproduction
The processes that cause class boundaries and distinctions to be maintained over time.
What do the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement have in common?
They are both countercultures.
Ken is sitting in front of the televised evening news passively consuming information about social issues. He has no response to them nor any desire to actively participate in the issues being discussed. What would German sociologist and philosopher Theodor Adorno most likely say about this scenario?
This is an example of the problems with the culture industry.
___ said, "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Thomas Jefferson
Hegemony
Widely shared beliefs about what is right or wrong that legitimize and empower a society's elites.
Imagine a situation where a man is born poor, works hard, and becomes wealthy. However, he seldom associates with wealthy people because he cannot catch on to their manners. This illustrates that ___.
class is reproduced not only through the money you have but the culture you practice
Because the ideal of equal participation cannot be achieved, subordinated social groups have frequently constituted their own ___.
counterpublics
Barbara is very attractive, makes a good living as a teacher, and likes country-western music, action movies, and philosophy. Barbara will probably be successful socially because of her ___.
cultural capital
The American social elite who have pride in wide tastes rather than in upper-class preferences are referred to as ___. This is because the United States has ___.
cultural omnivores; a pervasive mass culture
Unless they practice ___, sociologists' work will be flawed.
cultural relativism
A young Asian woman is used to asking people how old they are because social interaction differs depending on differences in age in her culture. She asks her middle-aged American hostess how old she is, and there is shocked silence. This is a misunderstanding based on ___.
habitus
National cultures exist because a group of people identify with the same customs, government, and ideals. In other words, they are ___ communities.
imagined
Victor is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He wants to get an education, vote, do his best at a corporate job, marry, and have children. Victor wants to participate in ___.
mainstream culture
A child raised by the method of concerted cultivation is probably ___.
middle class
Language is an example of ___, whereas architecture is an example of ___.
nonmaterial culture; material culture
Cultural democracy is a(n) ___ view of modern culture.
positive
