Taste Regimes and Market-Mediated Practice
by Zeynep Arsel
Co-authored with Jonathan Bean. Forthcoming in Feb 2013.
Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily... more Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily practice. In this paper, we develop a practice-based framework of taste through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a popular home design blog, interviews with blog participants, and participant observation. First, we define a taste regime as a discursively constructed normative system that orchestrates practice in an aesthetically oriented culture of consumption. Taste regimes are perpetuated by marketplace institutions such as magazines, web sites and transmedia brands. Second, we show how a taste regime regulates practice through continuous engagement. By integrating three dispersed practices—problematization, ritualization, and instrumentalization—a taste regime shapes preferences for objects, the doings performed with objects, and what meanings are associated with objects. This study demonstrates how aesthetics is linked to practical knowledge and becomes materialized through everyday consumption.
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Download (.pdf) Media Culture: The social organisation of media practices in contemporary Britain
by David Wright
Co-authored with Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth B. Silva, Alan Warde and Modesto Gayo-Cal
A report for the British Film Institute.
'How to make an iconic commodity. The Case of Penfolds' Grange Wine'
by Ian Woodward
A chapter written with David Ellison, now published in the new book on iconography, visuality and materiality, 'Iconic Power', edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Dominik Bartmanski & Bernhard Giesen.
New approaches to iconicity in cultural sociology link the aesthetic surface of an object with the depths of its... more New approaches to iconicity in cultural sociology link the aesthetic surface of an object with the depths of its cultural meanings. Linking pragmatics and haptics with symbolism and mythology, such innovations offer a way of understanding how the aesthetic surface features of an object or image attract and enroll human interest by way of physical engagements. In addition, these approaches promise cultural analysts new resources to identify how such objects frame, and ultimately concretize in aesthetic form, complex culture structures of myth and narrative. By using the case study of a much-lauded wine, this chapter considers the conditions under which an object assumes iconic form, as well as the uses and understandings made available by this transfigured state. For our purposes, we have selected Penfolds’ Grange, widely regarded in the popular imagination as Australia’s premier wine. Because of its expense, Grange is tasted relatively rarely, and even then it is only engaged directly by a small group. Yet, while it is not widely circulated amongst the population at large, Grange is nevertheless generally perceived as a landmark Australian wine. More than this, it draws on a cache of national myths and powerful cultural stories that both elevate and continue to authorize its status as an iconic Australian wine. Thus, like any cultural icon, this wine not only stands as an exemplar of the Australian wine industry, but refers to cherished and valued national stories. Therefore—confirming its iconic status—as much as it valued for being a premier wine, the wine thus also distinguishes and stands for the history of Australia’s wine industry while simultaneously drawing on, and giving tangible expression to, archetypes, narratives, and coded symbols of important national myths.
New tourisms and cultural processes in local development
WP 4 - This paper set outs some of the thinking developed during a national sociological research project (PRIN 2004)... more
WP 4 - This paper set outs some of the thinking developed during a national sociological research project (PRIN 2004) coordinated by the University of Teramo about “Innovations in the development local systems of the Third Italy”. In particular, it refers to the role local productions can play in the configuration of new patterns of development based on the tourist valorisation of territorial resources. The idea these processes might lead towards the shaping of some “Districts of Taste” has been hypothesized. A typical mark within contemporary consumption experiences is that people have begun to look for what can be perceived both as unique and authentic. By choosing to consume a typical product instead of a standardized one, they can express a “taste choice”, able to perform a distance from mass culture products, often considered as anonymous, tasteless (even kitsch), and meaningless in terms of intellectual interest.
WP 5 - Within national parks’ latest regulatory innovations and thanks to the opportunities offered by eco–tourism, anthropic component is gaining a new pivotal role. In fact, whilst in the past men were considered as being guilty for destroying environment, now they are becoming themselves a resource to be enhanced. This kind of process is at the core of the configuration of more sustainable patterns of development, aiming to be considered as the more appropriate instrument for the revitalization of those areas (especially the mountain ones) which were reduced to marginalization both on a demographic and a social level, because of emigration flows towards big cities. A case study conducted in the National Park of Gran Sasso and Laga Mountains has offered to the researcher the opportunity to focus on the opportunities as well as on the critical situations that such a pattern can outline with regard to local communities.
Consumption as Cultural Interpretation: Taste, Performativity and Navigating The Forest Of Objects
by Ian Woodward
Out now ....
Published in 'The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology', Eds. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ronald Jacobs, Philip Smith. 2012.
Through its varied theoretical and empirical contributions, cultural sociology shows that myth and narrative are... more Through its varied theoretical and empirical contributions, cultural sociology shows that myth and narrative are elemental meaning-making structures that form the bases of social life. Collectively experienced and personally felt, they allow social structures to find an internal life, compelling and committing us to the diverse things we hold sacred. We interact with these meaning-structures in a variety of ways, but one of the most important is through the material and objectual forms with which we engage. We reside within a forest of objects (cf. Turner 1967). Most of these objects have not been directly made or produced by us, but through visual, corporeal, and imaginative engagements, we negotiate and construct their meanings, using them to make ourselves and, in turn, a larger universe of meaning. Rich with symbolism, demanding our attention, sparking our imaginations and bodies, rife with possibilities for pleasure, devotion, distinction, and play, we revel in and among this material forest (Bollas 2009). Material objects constitute much of what we as members of a society know and are also the means by which we come to know it. Materiality, the substance of consumer societies that needs to be analytically and morally disentangled from the trait of materialism, becomes a basic means for immersing ourselves within this forest of meaning.
Superman vs Shrödinger’s Cat: Taste, Etiquette and Independent Cinema Audiences as Indirect Communities
This article uses empirical audience research gathered at three East Midlands’ independent ‘art’ cinemas to examine... more This article uses empirical audience research gathered at three East Midlands’ independent ‘art’ cinemas to examine the cultural and social value of specific cinema spaces. It will argue that the value of ‘art’ venues lies in a sense of collective identity that participants see as lacking at commercial multiplexes. This collective identity is formed around a number of factors including taste, class, age, ideology and etiquette. As such, these audience members form ‘indirect communities’ that lack the face-to-face interaction of traditional community structures, but maintain a strong collective identity that distinguishes them from other cinema audience. For these audiences, ‘art’ cinema is not just about the film onscreen, but also about who you are watching it with.
Influence of Social Values and Music Preferences on the Use of Music Distribution Channels: An Exploratory Study
Baltzis, Alexandros; Gardikiotis, Antonis
E-Proceedings of the conference: "Arts, Culture and Public Sphere. Expressive and Instrumental Values in Economic and Sociological Perspectives", Pages: 29, Published: 2008
Objective: An empirical research is presented that focuses on music acquisition patterns among students in a major... more
Objective: An empirical research is presented that focuses on music acquisition patterns among students in a major urban centre (Thessaloniki, Greece). Main objective of this study is to test whether there is any relation between the use of various music distribution channels on the one hand, and music preferences, social values, and demographic factors, on the other.
Methods: 456 students from the three institutes for higher education in the city were asked to indicate the frequency of use of various music distribution channels. Respondents were also asked to indicate their preferences for 24 musical genres and the importance of 24 values in their personal lives. Standard demographic data were also collected (gender, education and occupations of parents, geographical origin, annual family income) and a scale of socioeconomic status was constructed. The ratio of the use of each channel to the total use of all music distribution channels by each respondent was then calculated to obtain the music acquisition patterns. In addition, channels were grouped in formal and informal as well as in free and pay channels.
To explore the relation between the patterns of distribution channel use on the one hand, and the education of parents, the geographical origin, the socioeconomic status and the annual family income, on the other, one-way analyses of variance were conducted. Independent-samples T-tests were also employed to detect differences between males and females on the patterns of music acquisition. Finally, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were carried out to explore whether music preferences and social values may predict the patterns of music acquisition.
Findings: Music preferences, gender, and cultural background, are better predictors for the patterns of music acquisition compared to social values, geographical origin, family income and socioeconomic status. Findings contradict the rhetoric of the (major) recording industry that employs a simplistic representation of the users of informal and free distribution channels, ascribing exclusively negative instrumental values to them.
The literature review revealed that the major paradigms used in the sociology of music and in sociology of the arts to interpret patterns of cultural consumption (homology theory, omnivorousness hypothesis, the scenes perspective) do not get into the details and particularities of the ways in which the various forms of cultural capital are objectified. A theoretically significant outcome of this research is the indication that in the case of music - unlike preferences - the acquisition patterns do not correlate with the lifestyles of any particular strata. This finding - if confirmed by further research - might contribute to the improvement and refinement of the theory and to a better understanding of the functions of the arts in contemporary societies.
One conclusion is that further research needs to be done to understand better the ways in which music acquisition patterns are constructed and examine whether they constitute forms of symbolic resistance or conformity, disdain of the artistic activities or awareness of their speculative uses in the market. A better understanding of these patterns may shed some light to cultural practices in everyday life and finally to contribute to a more efficient and productive policy than repression.
The findings rather support the argument that perhaps it would be more fruitful and beneficial for the recording industry (and its audiences) to invest in serious research for alternative policies rather than in litigation of questionable efficiency in defense of an outdated policy that ignores the complexities of cultural consumption. This might improve its public image as well, as it is the only industry fighting its own consumers.
'Rock Music for Myself and Justice to the World!': Musical Identity, Values, and Music Preferences
Gardikiotis, Antonis; Baltzis, Alexandros
Psychology of Music, 40(2): 143-163, Published: 2012, DOI: 10.1177/0305735610386836
The present study examined the relationship between music preferences, values and musical identities in a sample of... more
The present study examined the relationship between music preferences, values and musical identities in a sample of 606 Greek college students in the three institutes for higher education in Thessaloniki (Greece). Students indicated the importance of their music preferences in defining and evaluating themselves and their values on an abbreviated version of the Schwartz Value Survey (1992). The questionnaire included 26 musical genres resulted from an exploratory research.
The factor analysis revealed a typology of music preferences with five items: Sophisticated and Complex (e.g. jazz), Native-Greek Traditional (e.g. 'rembetika'), Sentimental and Sensational (e.g. pop), Established Rebellious (e.g. rock), and Non-mainstream Dissonant (e.g. punk).
Hierarchical regression analyses showed that values and perceived importance of music to self-definition (i.e. musical identities) contribute differentially in predicting the music preference structures (e.g. self-transcendence predicts Established Rebellious, conservation Sentimental and Sensational etc.).
The findings are discussed and interpreted in a social psychological framework as well as from the point of view of the sociology of music that has a long tradition in studying the musical taste and the factors that may have some influence on it. The chosen approach and point of view are based on the fact that during the last years it becomes more and more difficult to explain cultural consumption based on the "classical" demographic factors. As a result, there is an increasing interest to explore the common grounds between the omnivorousness hypothesis, developed by R. Peterson, and the homology argument, formulated by H. Gans and elaborated by P. Bourdieu.
This is the first study of this kind carried out in Greece, while the analysis of the relation between values and musical taste is not very common in the literature.
Le goût des autres. Une analyse des répertoires culturels de nouvelles élites omnivores
Co-authored with Guy Bellavance et Michel Ratté, Sociologie et Sociétés, vol. XXXVI, no 1, printemps 2004, p. 27-57, Montréal : Presses de l’université de Montréal
résumé
Des enquêtes récentes menées en France et aux États-Unis conduisent aujourd’hui à revoir si, de la... more
résumé
Des enquêtes récentes menées en France et aux États-Unis conduisent aujourd’hui à revoir si, de la stratification sociale des pratiques culturelles observées statistiquement et qui semble incontestable, l’on peut déduire l’existence d’une stratification sociale des goûts, aussi bien stabilisée et hiérarchisée que celle que proposait Bourdieu dans La distinction. À partir cette fois d’un matériau qualitatif, cet article offre un retour critique sur la théorie de la légitimité culturelle et de ses variantes contemporaines. Trois portraits d’amateurs d’art, membres des nouvelles classes moyennes supérieures au Québec, montrent en effet que l’éclectisme des répertoires culturels dissimule en fait des usages contrastés et souvent discriminants du goût. Par ailleurs, la juxtaposition de plusieurs systèmes de classification, chacun générateur de distinctions/différences, complexifie d’autant la relation aux répertoires. Discutant directement la montée apparente de l’«omnivorisme» et de l’éclectisme branché pointée dans les travaux respectifs de R. A. Peterson et O. Donnat, l’article défend ainsi la nécessité de prendre en compte la question
des usages des répertoires culturels, qui échappe largement à la statistique des pratiques culturelles, afin de repenser la relation entre goût et statut social.
summary
Recent studies conducted in France and the USA lead us to question whether it is possible, from the apparently indisputable social stratification of statistically observed cultural practices, to deduce the existence of a social stratification of tastes, as well stabilized and hierarchically ranked as that proposed by Bourdieu in La Distinction. This time based on qualitative data, the article offers a critical re-examination of the theory of cultural legitimacy and its contemporary variants. Thus, three portraits of art-lovers, members of the new upper-middle classes in Quebec, show
that the eclecticism of cultural repertoires in fact conceals contrasting and often discriminant usages of taste. Moreover, the juxtaposition of several classification systems, each generating distinctions/differences, makes the relation to the repertories even more complicated. Directly addressing the apparent rise of ‘omnivorism’ and ‘fashionable eclecticism’ noted in the respective studies of R.A. Peterson and O. Donnat, the article argues that the question of usages of cultural repertoires, largely overlooked in the statistics on cultural practices, must be taken into account in order to reconsider the relationship between taste and social status.
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