Essentials of Sociology George Ritzer 2nd Edition Chapter 1

Culture Jamming

Culture jamming radically transforms mass media messages, often turning them on their heads completely (Kuehn 2015; Lasn 2000). It is a form of social protest aimed at revealing underlying realities of which consumers may be unaware. The hope is that once people are made aware of these realities through culture jamming, they will change their behaviors or perhaps even band together to change those underlying realities.

The best examples of culture jamming are to be found in the magazine Adbusters and the media campaigns it sponsors. The magazine's main targets are in the realm of consumption, especially web and magazine advertisements and billboards. The idea is to transform a corporation's ads into anticorporate, anticonsumption advertisements (Handelman and Kozinets 2007).

The following are some examples of the ways in which culture jamming turns commercial messages inside out:

 "Tommy Sheep" is a spoof of a Tommy Hilfiger ad, with sheep (presumably representing the conformists who buy such clothing) pictured in front of a huge American flag.

 "Absolute on Ice," spoofing an Absolut vodka ad, depicts the foot of a corpse (presumably someone killed by excessive alcohol consumption) with a toe tag.

 People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) used the Burger King logo with the phrase "Murder King" to raise awareness of animal brutality in the beef industry.

 FORCE, a feminist organization, culture jammed Victoria Secret's "Pink Loves Consent" advertising campaign by using social media to troll the company's online brand community with the goal of starting a meaningful conversation about sexual consent (Madden et al. 2018).

 Brandalism, an activist artist movement, subverted advertisements with art at bus stops during the 2015 United Nations climate conference in Paris to promote environmental sustainability (Lekakis 2017).

These examples show the hidden realities (sickness, death, sexism, environmental problems, and other miseries) and goals (conformist consumers, obscene profits) of corporations. A broader objective is to show viewers the folly of consumer culture, which encourages the consumption of numerous harmful substances (e.g., cigarettes, alcohol) and wasteful goods and services (e.g., expensive clothing). In addition to advertisements, culture jammers create memes to spread ideas and information that challenge the status quo (Lasn 2012). For example, one meme designed by culture jammers depicts a photo of Walmart with the following words: "One of the biggest companies in the world owned by one of the richest families in America . . . holds food drive for needy employees instead of paying them a living wage" (CursedByTheDiceGods 2017).

"Absolut Impotence" is an example of culture jamming intended to counter the alcohol industry's influence by suggesting that alcohol will negatively impact drinkers' lives. Is this an effective way to change consumption?

Used with the permission of Adbusters Media Foundation.

Cyberculture

The internet is, as mentioned before, one site for the proliferation of consumer culture and perhaps postconsumer culture. It is also the site of an entirely new culture—cyberculture (F. Turner 2008). That is, the internet as a whole (as well as the individual websites it comprises) has the characteristics of all cultures, including distinctive values and norms.

Some of the distinctive values within cyberculture are openness, knowledge sharing, and access. These values have their roots in the open-source software that emerged before computing became an attractive commercial opportunity. They are also rooted in the knowledge sharing and continuous improvement that were the practice when early computer professionals survived through reciprocity (Bergquist 2003). These roots have been maintained through the open-source movement, through actions against censorship, and through organizations such as the Free Software Foundation and the "copyleft" movement. In line with the values of a postconsumer society, these "cyber-libertarians" favor user control of information and applications and free products (Dahlberg 2010; Himanen 2001). They are in conflict with the more dominant values of profit maximization and control of the internet by large corporations. This conflict of values, a culture war by the definition offered earlier in this chapter, goes a long way toward defining the internet today.

Various norms have also come to be a part of cyberculture. Internet users are not supposed to hack into websites, create and disseminate spam, unleash destructive worms and viruses, maliciously and erroneously edit user-generated sites such as Wikipedia, and so on. Many norms relate to desirable behavior on the internet. For example, creating and editing entries on Wikipedia is supposed to be taken seriously and done to the best of one's ability. Once an entry exists, the many people who offer additions and deletions are expected to do so in a similar spirit. Those who purposely add erroneous information on Wikipedia will suffer the stern disapproval of other contributors to, and users of, the site. They may even be banned from the site by those who manage it.

There is, of course, much more to the culture of the internet. For example, in addition to a general cyberculture, there are a number of cybercultures that vary from nation to nation. But the point is that cyberculture, like all culture, is emerging and evolving as other changes take place within and around it. The biggest difference between cyberculture and other cultures is that, because the internet is relatively new and the changes in it are so rapid, cyberculture is far more fluid than culture in general.

People need to be socialized in order to learn how to use the internet, and they increasingly interact online rather than face-to-face. In Chapter 4 we turn to a broad discussion of the sociological perspective on socialization and interaction.

Digital Living: Netiquette

Social media websites are developing faster than the norms that can help guide and regulate the behavior of their users (McLaughlin and Vitak 2011). Online etiquette, or netiquette, tends to be implicit—there are few if any formal rules on how to use Snapchat or Instagram. Norms for these sites often emerge when users directly sanction the behavior of each other and content they feel is inappropriate. They may flag a sexually explicit photograph or hide a person from their Facebook feed who posts too many status updates. Our understanding and practice of online norms typically reflect the habits of our close friends, whom we are more likely than acquaintances to confront with norm violations. For example, if our friends are discreet about the photos they post of us, then we will likely reproduce this norm of being considerate when we post photos that include them (McLaughlin and Vitak 2011). Reciprocity, or sharing, is one of the most important norms currently guiding online behavior. Adherence to these norms allows us to build trust and gain access to information.

Netiquette can be complicated, considering the diversity of our online audience—what might be appropriate for our close friends to read or see might not be acceptable to our teachers or bosses. Furthermore, some sites might encourage people to behave in ways online that might not be acceptable in the real world. Snapchat can automatically delete photos, which might encourage users to post inappropriate or unflattering pictures of themselves or their friends. The legality of such practices has become an issue with teenagers when they send sexual images of themselves to each other. In some states this is considered to be the distribution of child pornography. In addition, cyberbullying occurs on a variety of social media sites, such as Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, prompting some people to question whether these digital means of communication are making cruelty more normative. ●

Summary

Culture encompasses the ideas, values, norms, practices, and objects that allow a group of people, or even an entire society, to carry out their collective lives with a minimum of friction. Values are the general, abstract standards defining what a group or society as a whole considers to be good, right, or important. Norms are the rules that guide what people do and how they live. Culture has material and symbolic elements. Material culture encompasses all the objects and technologies that are manifestations of a culture. Symbolic culture, the nonmaterial side of culture, is best represented by language.

We are surrounded by cultural differences. Subcultures include people who may accept much of the dominant culture but are set apart from it by one or more culturally significant characteristics. Countercultures are groups of people who differ in certain ways from the dominant culture and whose norms and values may be incompatible with it. Culture wars pit one subculture or counterculture against another or against the dominant culture.

Many societies tend to be ethnocentric—those living in them believe that their own culture's norms, values, and traditions are better than those of other cultures. In many cases, newcomers are expected to assimilate, or to replace elements of their own culture with elements of the dominant culture. Groups that do not want to assimilate entirely may engage in identity politics, or try to use their power to strengthen the position of the cultural groups with which they identify. A society that values multiculturalism accepts and even embraces the cultures of many different groups and encourages cultural diversity. Multicultural societies often embrace cultural relativism, or the belief that there are no cultural universals.

Key forms of culture are global culture, consumer culture, and cyberculture.

Key Terms

 Americanization, 84

 anti-Americanism, 84

 assimilation, 79

 consumer culture, 85

 countercultures, 77

 cultural imperialism, 84

 cultural relativism, 83

 culture, 68

 culture jamming, 87

 culture war, 78

 cyberculture, 88

 ethnocentrism, 83

 folkways, 72

 ideal culture, 75

 identity politics, 83

 ideology, 76

 language, 73

 laws, 72

 material culture, 73

 mores, 72

 multiculturalism, 79

 norms, 72

 real culture, 75

 sanctions, 72

 subcultures, 76

 symbolic culture, 73

 values, 71

Review Questions

1 What do you and your peers think of Juuling? Are you considered "cool" if you Juul? If you don't Juul?

2 How and why might the American value of democracy have created tensions in Iraq and Afghanistan?

3 As part of our material culture, what values do smartphones reflect? In what ways have "brand communities" or other subcultures formed around smartphones and their use?

4 Consider the terminology that has developed around the internet. How does this language reflect changes in the world around us? In what ways does it shape the world around us?

5 Skateboarders constitute a subculture because they have certain cultural differences (in language, dress, values) that set them apart from other groups in society. What is another example of a subculture in the United States, and what elements of this culture (both material and symbolic) make it unique?

6 How does a counterculture differ from a subculture? Is it reasonable to say that computer hackers are part of a counterculture? Can you think of other examples of countercultures?

7 What is the difference between assimilation and multiculturalism? Would you say that the United States is an assimilationist or a multiculturalist society? Would you say that multiculturalism is more a part of the ideal culture or the real culture of the United States? Why?

8 What are some of today's important culture wars? In what ways and to what degree are you engaged in them? Even if you are not active in them, how is your life affected by them?

9 What do we mean by the term global culture? Do you think the evolution of popular social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter is related more to the evolution of a global culture or to Americanization? In what ways are these sites reflective of cultural hybridization?

10 To what extent are you and your friends embedded in a consumer culture? How has the development of technology (the internet, smartphones, and so forth) contributed to the development of cyberculture? What is the relationship between consumer culture and cyberculture?

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Descriptions of Images and Figures

Back to Figure

The map shows the extent of laws enforced by different states of the United States against cell phone use and texting while driving as of 2018.

A legend below the map has five categories. The states that fall under these categories are:

 Handheld phone use ban for all drivers: California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Georgia, West Virginia, New York, DC, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Hawaii

 Primary enforcement of texting ban for all drivers: Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, North Dakota, Alaska, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts

 Secondary enforcement of texting ban for all drivers: South Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio and Florida

 Texting ban for novice/beginner drivers: None

 No texting ban in the state: Montana

Back to Figure

A map of the world illustrates how major languages are distributed. The legend lists 11 major languages namely; Arabic, Chinese dialects, English, French, German, Hindi, Portuguese, Russian and other Slavic, Spanish, Turkic and Others.

The data for the map has been collated from Data from Languages of the World, One World, Nations Online Project.

Major nations that the languages are spoken in are mentioned below:

 Arabic: Arabian Peninsula nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, Syria; North African nations of Algeria, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, and Morocco

 Chinese dialects: China

 English: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Nigeria, Zambia and Kenya in Africa; Australia; United States and Canada in North America; United Kingdom

 French: Congo, Mali, Niger, Ivory Coast and Guinea in Africa; France; French Guiana in South America

 German: Germany; Austria, and Switzerland

 Hindi: India, Pakistan

 Portuguese: Portugal, Brazil, Angola and Mozambique

 Russian and other Slavic: Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Serbia, Czech Republic, Bosnia, and Slovakia

 Spanish: Mexico, Central American states such as Panama, EL Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica; South American countries including Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina

 Turkic: Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan

 Others: South East Asian states like Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines; Iran, Afghanistan; Nordic states of Sweden, Norway and Denmark; Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, Denmark, and Netherlands in Europe

Back to Figure

In the graph, bars represent the region of birth for U.S. immigrants across the period 1960 to 2016. The sum of the different percentages of birth regions totals 100 percent.

The X axis denotes the years namely; 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 and 2016.

The Y axis represents the share of total immigrant population and ranges from 0 to 100 percent.

The legend mentions six regions of birth which are; Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania as well as an option of Not reported.

Details of the graph are mentioned below;

 1960Asia: 5 percentEurope: 75 percentAmericas: 20 percent

 1970Europe: 60 percentAsia: 9 percentAmericas: 25 percentAfrica: 1 percentNot reported: 5 percent

 1980Europe: 38 percentAsia: 20 percentAmericas: 35 percentAfrica:2 percentNot reported: 5 percent

 1990Europe: 22 percentAsia: 25 percentAmericas: 45 percentAfrica: 2 percentNot reported: 6 percent

 2000Europe: 17 percentAsia: 25 percentAmericas: 54 percentAfrica: 4 percent

 2010Europe: 12 percentAsia: 28 percentAmericas: 55 percentAfrica: 5 percent

 2016Europe: 11 percentAsia: 30 percentAmericas: 54 percentAfrica: 5 percent

Back to Figure

The image is a map of the United States that displays the percentage of U.S. population speaking a language other than English at home in 2016.

The legend beside the map shows the percent by Metropolitan and Micropolitan Statistical Area. There are 4 categories; 47.5 percent or more, 23.6 percent to 47.4 percent, 9.7 percent to 23.5 percent and Less than 9.7 percent.

A few states on the west show a large segment of population that speaks a different language. States on the east have very small segments of population that speak a different language. The details are below:

 47.5 percent or more: Counties in California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Florida

 23.6 percent to 47.4 percent: Counties in California, Arizona, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Indiana, Florida, Georgia, D.C, New Mexico, Hawaii and Washington

 9.7 percent to 23.5 percent: Counties in California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Oregon, Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Washington

 Less than 9.7 percent: Counties in Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi.

4 Socialization and Interaction

LEE SNIDER/Alamy Stock Photo

Learning Objectives

 4.1 Describe the development of the self.

 4.2 Discuss the concept of the individual as performer.

 4.3 Explain the significance of socialization in childhood and adulthood.

 4.4 Describe the key aspects of interaction with others.

 4.5 Identify micro-level social structures.

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Socialization and Variance

Mack Beggs won his weight class in the Texas state wrestling championships in February 2017—in the girls' league . . . and he won it again the following year. Mack is an 18-year-old transgender boy, but state rules bar him from competing in the boys' league. The rules say that boys cannot compete against girls and that students are required to compete as the gender noted on their birth certificate. After Beggs's final competition in an undefeated season, the crowd erupted in both cheers and boos.

Beggs, who began transitioning a year and a half prior to the 2017 championship, has been taking testosterone as part of that process. Some felt that he shouldn't have been competing against girls because the added testosterone gave him an unfair advantage. A few parents even attempted legal injunctions to prevent Beggs from competing. Ignoring the controversy, Beggs credited his success to his teammates, noting that they all worked hard together. While the public, schools, and politicians debate the fluidity of gender, transgender students like Beggs face pressure to fit in with the social expectations of their peers, their families, and the wider world—and the repercussions when they don't.

The majority of transgender students from kindergarten through twelfth grade who are out or perceived as transgender while in school experience some form of mistreatment. In 2015, 54 percent acknowledged being verbally harassed, 24 percent said they had been physically attacked, and 13 percent were sexually assaulted because they were transgender. Some (17 percent) experienced such severe treatment that they left school. Such mistreatment due to gender identity or expression is not restricted to peers and schools but may also pervade family and work life. Transgender people have an attempted suicide rate nine times that of the general U.S. population.

Yet despite sometimes violent disapproval from the dominant society, many transgender people continue to express their gender identity (see Trending box, Chapter 9). Research suggests a biological basis for transgender identity. At the same time, behavior and experiences are as influential as biology. You are who you are because of the people, institutions, and social structures that have surrounded you since birth (and that have been in play even before then). You have been socialized to look, think, act, and interact in ways that allow you to live harmoniously, at least most of the time, with those around you. However, at times you may come into contact with those who socialize you into ways at variance with the dominant culture. In extreme cases, such socialization can lead to actions such as those taken by abusers of transgender people. Discovering how socialization and social interaction shape who we are and how we act, as we do in this chapter, is the most basic level of sociological analysis. But, in fact, sociologists are concerned with everything along the micro–macro continuum, which was introduced in Chapter 1. That includes the individual's mind and self; interactions among individuals; and interactions within and between groups, formally structured organizations, entire societies, and the world as a whole, as well as all the new global relationships of the "global age."

Sociology's micro–macro continuum means that rather than being clearly distinct, social phenomena tend to blend into one another, often without our noticing. For example, the interaction that takes place in a group is difficult to distinguish from the group itself. The relationships between countries are difficult to distinguish from their regional and even global connections. Everything in the social world, and on the micro–macro continuum, interpenetrates.

This chapter and the next introduce you, at least briefly, to the full range of sociological concerns along the micro–macro continuum. We start with the smallest-scale social phenomena and work our way to ever larger ones as these two chapters progress.

Essentials of Sociology George Ritzer 2nd Edition Chapter 1

Source: https://www.litres.ru/george-ritzer/essentials-of-sociology/chitat-onlayn/page-17/

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