Tagged: bauman

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Culture

Valentine's Day and the (sociological) Power of Love

In case you were the only person who didn’t realise, last Friday was Valentine’s Day. I hate Valentine’s. Its ever increasing prevalence, its cloying, creeping appearance that infiltrates perfectly normal looking things and makes them red or pink, and the way the world suddenly becomes full of people perpetually and disgustingly in love, or stressed, or miserable and alone, or a combination of all three. If I sound bitter, please know it is definitely intentional. I am bitter, but not...

Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture

Celebrating Bin Laden's Death and the Return of the Knowable World

It is only hours since President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden, resulting in celebrations across the United States (in the streets, on Facebook and elsewhere). I want to point the Sociological Lens at this spontaneous and widespread cultural celebration not to argue that it is wrong or right to cheer for death, but to ask, in these first few hours, why. Beyond the obvious points surrounding Bin Laden’s involvement with the events on September 11th, 2001, I think he symbolized...

Opinion

The DeMcDonaldization of the Internet

On this blog, I typically discuss the intersection of social theory and the changing nature of the Internet (e.g., using Marx, Bourdieu, Goffman, Bauman, DeBord and so on). In a chapter of the new third edition of the McDonaldization Reader edited by George Ritzer, I argue that what we are seeing is a general trend towards the deMcDonaldization of the Internet. The shift from a top-down centrally conceived and controlled “Web 1.0” to a more user-generated and social “Web 2.0”...

Political & Economic Sociology / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Light capitalism, prize economics, and the prosumer

by bmckernan A few months ago, Sociology Lens news editor Nathan Jurgenson posted an intriguing article entitled “Facebook, the transumer, and liquid capitalism.” Among the interesting concepts that Jurgenson addresses and illuminates include Bauman’s notion of “light” or “weightless” capitalism as well as “prosumers.” Some recent events in American mass media and popular culture further illustrate these significant insights.

Opinion

weightless capitalism

by nathan jurgenson Google announced that its new operating system, Chrome OS, will be free of charge. Further, it is designed to operate in the “cloud,” meaning that most of its functionality will exist online, using internet applications like GMail and Google Documents instead of programs installed on a hard drive (as Windows does). The free cloud-based operating system is designed to run on smaller, lighter “netbooks” -a bright spot in the computer market in these tough economic times. I...

Opinion

facebook, the transumer and liquid capitalism

by nathan jurgenson During this “great recession” capitalism might become lighter and more liquid while older and more solidified traditions wash away in the flux of unstable markets (potentially an economic “reboot,” similar to Schumpeter’s notion of capitalism as “creative destruction”). Zygmunt Bauman’s “liquidity” thesis about our late-modern world becoming more fluid seems relevant in light of the “transumer” and “virtual commodities”, both having received recent attention. The transumer (video) is, in part, one who encounters “stuff” temporarily as opposed...