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This article uses relatively new methods of the analysis of qualitative data to investigate the socio-logical relation between animal species and occupation in the popular imagination, specifically in the world of children's literature, in order to test a claim that the class habitus that naturalizes the division of labor, erasing the contingent nature of class domination, does not simply arise via...
The papers in this special issue are introduced as exemplars of a new structuralist project in cultural analysis. The work is situated with respect to two sociological traditions, social network analysis which lends a style of structuralist methodology and the new institutionalism which provides a conception of institutions as objects of analysis. The problem of structural duality is highlighted,...
Each production market is socially constructed within relational networks across some population of firms. Profit maximization is sought by firms but only after footings of comparability are achieved among that set of firms which thereby constitute a market. This market mechanism adjusts to perceived contexts upstream and downstream. Discourse, written and oral, is principal medium of this social...
In this paper, we analyze the sociocultural mechanisms by which diverse and contending actors construct a 'civic' arena in a fractured, contentious, and multi-sectoral political field. We do this through a case study of the convergence of the 1992 Brazilian impeachment movement, which led to the impeachment on corruption charges of President Fernando Collor de Melo. First, we propose a conceptual...
This is a study in the analysis of correspondences. I consider a quantitative technique frequently used by Pierre Bourdieu and the mathematics developed by James Coleman for the foundations of his social theory, with respect to each other, from the respective analysts' points of view, and from my concern with developing more sturdy relations among the methodological tools in a practice theorist's...
This paper explores civic rituals in the late Progressive Era U.S. by focussing on an effort to replicate one ritual observance simultaneously in many locations: National Music Week, 1924. To gain insight into the changing relationship between localities and centers during this period, we examine the organizational strategies Music Week's promoters employed, before focussing on the local observances...
This article illustrates a strategy for representing and analyzing narratives as networks. The strategy that we use considers narrative sequences as networks. Elements are treated as nodes which are connected by narrative clauses, represented by arcs. By representing complex event sequences as networks, inducing 'narrative networks', it is possible to observe and measure new structural features...
The gender gap in fiction reading has been largely ignored by sociologists and scholars in the field of reading research. This paper investigates three primary explanations for why more women read fiction than men, including: the influence of childhood socialization and gender-role stereotypes, differences in cognition and prose literacy and differences in work status and available free time. Data...
This paper explores what the tension between information abundance and attention scarcity implies for the diversity of information accessible to users of the World Wide Web. Due to limited user attention, there is a role for gatekeepers in the online content market. Sites that catalog Web content and primarily present themselves as content categorization services are identified as the gatekeepers...
New information bases pose challenges and opportunities for researchers seeking to enhance content analysis and chart cultural shifts using public documents such as newspapers and magazines. A qualitative approach to media analysis is combined with a specific application, 'tracking discourse', to demonstrate how research questions can be transformed into a research design that permits rich textual...
The structural affect theory (Brewer and Lichtenstein, 1982) states that different affective responses can be evoked by manipulating the order in which a story's events are narrated. Suspense is evoked by postponing the story's outcome, curiosity is evoked by presenting the outcome before the preceding events, and surprise is evoked by an unexpected event. Apart from evoking different affective...
This paper explores the salience of gender in shaping culture consumption patterns in Sweden, independently of other socio-economic factors. The analyses focus on two indicators of culture consumption: highbrow leisure activities and lowbrow TV watching preferences. The findings indicate that gender differences in culture consumption are considerable and that they are stable independently of the...
This paper is an evaluative inventory of 29 data sets containing information on public participation in and attitudes towards the arts collected from cross-sectional samples of local, state, and national populations in North America. This paper reviews surveys focused on participation in the arts, and omnibus social surveys that include a selection of questions about participation in, or attitudes...
Despite much concern over the effects of deregulation and competition in the commercial radio industry, no studies have shown empirically how market characteristics, organizational policies, and programmer practices both promote and constrain music programming standardization in the United States. In this article we analyze playlists from a sample of radio stations to develop a measure of music programming...
This paper examines a tradition of empirical research that attempts to infer the existence of some form of cognitive ordering of beliefs by using aggregate data from some sample of respondents. This approach is called 'associationist' in that the non-independence between two or more beliefs in the aggregate is taken as an indicator of the cognitive association between these beliefs within the mind...
Chomky's theory of generative grammar largely guides modern linguistics. The theory, of course, posits that the principles of language are not learned, but are part of our bio-endowment. Prior to the emergence of generative grammar in the 1950s, however, linguistics focused primarily upon structural description of already produced linguistic output. The goal, in a very general sense, was to categorize...
In getting the day's news, many individuals never move beyond headlines, story leads, and sound bytes. Rather, in their attempts to apprehend and evaluate matters, readers and viewers process these brief media summaries and proceed to 'fill in the blanks'. They construct the details that media summaries fail to provide. This action embodies a unique practice to which I refer as story elaboration...
This paper investigates recent changes in diversity policies - from a program based on affirmative action to one based on outreach - at the University of California. Using a content analysis of a 1995 directory of UC programs we show that these developments are associated with a shift in institutional logic, from an individualistic emphasis on race to a corporatist discourse of class. The analyses...
This has been written in response to the editors' question, 'how did you get into the sociology of culture and how do you see what you have done?' The answer is that in trying to be what was then called an industrial sociologist, I stumbled on 'culture', a word that wasn't then being employed in a useful way. With others I tried to make something out of it that a wide range of serious sociologists...
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