Tagged: Bourdieu

Social Identity / Sociology of Media & Communication

Speech, Identity, and Losing the Accent

The voice isn’t often taken as a subject for Sociological analysis, despite affecting and representing a great range of highly sociological topics such as social stratification and identity, amongst many others. Taking the voice as an object of study can be incredibly illuminative, as trends in the way we speak are a clear indicator of wider social changes, as well as being highly applicable to social theory. I started thinking about this after hearing a radio programme on the BBC, that...

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”...

Class & Stratification / Race & Ethnicity Studies / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

status networking sites

by nathan jurgenson There has been recent news coverage on the relationship between social status and social networking site usage. CNN asked “Does your social class determine your online social network?” “Is there a class divide online? Research suggests yes. A recent study by market research firm Nielsen Claritas found that people in more affluent demographics are 25 percent more likely to be found friending on Facebook, while the less affluent are 37 percent more likely to connect on MySpace.”...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

What to Wear Today?

 by ishein1 Teenagers, especially during the years of economic prosperity, consistently cast their consumer vote at various clothing retail stores.  Marketers respond by relentlessly attempting to woo this coveted demographic.  Various stores, even ones owned by the same corporation, create varying images in order to create a perspective of “cool”.  “Coolness,” they believe, will induce the most profit.  In schools around the country teenagers define themselves by what they are wearing.  Brand names are signifiers that display identity.  An individual’s...

Class & Stratification / Gender & Sexuality / Social Movements / Social Change / Social Psychology & Lifecourse / Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Law, Crime and Deviance / Sociology of Media & Communication

the (post-structural) new-media digital-divide

by nathan jurgenson A major study (.pdf) on the way teens use social networking sites suggests that, “…their participation is giving them the technological skills and literacy they need to succeed in the contemporary world. They’re learning how to get along with others, how to manage a public identity, how to create a home page.” [quote is from this article’s coverage] Parents can no longer view MySpace as just a waste of time. In fact, so important are the skills...

Political & Economic Sociology

Ivy League Schools, Capital, and The Perpetuatuation of Class Inequalities

by PlantingSeedsFromUA Just as the Ivy League schools are concentrated in a small area of the country, the social and cultural capital required to attend and teach at these universities is concentrated in a small area of the population.  Bourdieu argues that social inequalities are due to the inequitable distribution of economic, social, cultural, and symbolic capital.  Conflict theorists have long emphasized how the educational system perpetuates social inequalities, including the prestige hierarchy of colleges and universities.   In a recent article posted at Businessweek.com (see below), Bianco and Rupani...