Chapter 3

Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc.
You
May Ask
Yourself
Core Third Edition
Dalton Conley
You
May Ask
Yourself
Third Edition
Dalton Conley
Chapter 3
Culture and
Media

2Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc.
Paradox

What Is Culture?
• Culture can be loosely defined as a
set of beliefs, traditions, and
practices.

What Is Culture?
• The concept of culture has evolved and
expanded throughout history.
• The oldest understandings of culture focus
on the distinction between:
– natural environment and
– what is modified or created by humans.

What Is Culture?
• As Europeans came into contact with non-
Westerners, culture evolved in terms of
differences between peoples, which could be
viewed positively or negatively.
• In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a
new dimension was added to the concept of
culture – the idea that culture involved the
pursuit of intellectual refinement.

Material vs.
Nonmaterial Culture
• Material culture is everything that is a part of
our constructed environment, such as books,
fashion, and monuments.
• Nonmaterial culture encompasses values,
beliefs, behaviors, and social norms.

Cultural Relativism
• Coined by Ruth Benedict in the 1930s,
this is the idea that we should recognize
differences across cultures without
passing judgment on or assigning value
to those differences.

Cultural Scripts
• Cultural scripts are modes of behavior and
understanding that are not universal or natural,
but that may strongly shape beliefs or
concepts held by a society.

Subcultures
• A subculture is a group united by sets of
concepts, values, traits, and/or behavioral
patterns that distinguish it from others within
the same culture or society.

Values and Norms
• Values are moral beliefs.
• Norms are how values tell us to act.
• Socialization is the process by which a
person internalizes the values, beliefs,
and norms of society and learns to
function as a member of that society.

Reflection Theory
• Reflection theory states that culture is a
projection of social structures and
relationships into the public sphere.
• A Marxist version of reflection theory argues
that cultural objects reflect the material labor
and production relationships that went into
making them.

What Is Media?
• Media are any formats or vehicles that carry,
present, or communicate information – books,
posters, Web pages, clay tablets, and radio.
• Mass media refers to any form of media that
reaches the mass of the people.

Media
• Hegemony refers to the impact of media on
culture and how people and societies shape,
and are shaped by, the dominant culture.

The Media Life Cycle
• Media studies open paths of investigation,
including:
– textual analysis and audience studies
– how people create media and the biases
involved in that creation
– how media reflect the culture in which
they exist
– how individuals and groups use the media
to change culture

Media Effects
• Media effects can be placed into four
categories according to their duration and
intention:
– short-term and deliberate
– long-term and deliberate
– short-term and unintentional
– long-term and unintentional

Where Do Stereotypes
Come From?
• Intentionally or unintentionally, subtly or
overtly, the media can create or reinforce
ethnic, racial, gender, religious, and other
stereotypes.

Political Economy of the
Media
• Media ownership in the United
States is in the hands of six
companies.
• Those companies affect the
information and messages
communicated to the public.

Media
• The media, especially
advertisements, play a large role in
the maintenance of consumerism:
the belief that happiness and
fulfillment can be achieved through
acquisition of material possessions.

Interview
Allison Pugh

Media
• The globalization of the media has
spread American culture around the
world. This has effects on culture, values,
and ideas on others' behavior, and it has
experienced a drop in popularity
recently because of some American
foreign policies.

Media
• Culture jamming
is one example of
subverting the
power of media

Concept Quiz
1. Which of the following is an example of
material culture?
a) Buddhist temple
b) music Web site
c) English garden
d) all of the above

Concept Quiz
2. Ideology can be described as _____.
a) an aspect of material culture
b) a system of concepts and relationships that guides
an individual or large group
c) an extreme point of view on a given topic
d) none of the above

Concept Quiz
3. Cultural scripts are _____.
a) modes of behavior and understanding that are not
universal or natural
b) a type of role-playing that helps people learn
about different cultures
c) a type of study developed by sociologists to
catalog cultural differences
d) patterns of behavior that can be found in almost
all cultures

Concept Quiz
4. Examples of media include _____.
a) television, websites, and radio
b) books, magazines, and ancient scrolls
c) records, cave paintings, and streaming video
d) all of the above

Concept Quiz
5. True or false? The globalization of the media
has spread American culture around the
world.
a) true
b) false

Discussion Questions
1. Have you traveled to another country?
a) yes
b) no

Discussion Questions
2. In your opinion, how does the media impact
culture?
a) The media creates culture (we do what we see on
TV).
b) The media simply shows us culture (we don’t
mimic TV – TV mimics us).
c) Both of the above: TV shows us our culture, and
then we mimic what we see.
d) None of the above: the media has no impact on
culture.

You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist, 3rd Edition Copyright ©2013 W.W. Norton, Inc. 29
Chapter opener

Jill and Kevin head down the aisle to Chris Brown’s “Forever.”

A sixteenth-century Aztec’s drawing of the conquistador Hernán Cortés. Why did Western
definitions of culture change during the age of exploration?

U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C.

Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.

Toltec columns, Tula, Mexico

Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque (1814)

Table 3.1 Emotions

There are no inherent meanings behind a red light; its symbolism varies depending on context.

A page from the satirical newspaper The Onion that appeared after Jonathan Franzen criticized
Oprah Winfrey’s book club as middlebrow.

Margaret Mead with two Samoan women, 1926.

A cockfight in Bali, Indonesia. How are roosters central to Bali’s symbolic culture?

Kim Novak and James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.

Figure 3.1 Popularity of the Name Kim

Cary Grant

Goths in Germany (left) and Japan. What characteristics of Goth culture make it a subculture?

Why might performers like Lil’ Wayne use reflection theory to defend their lyrics? What are some
of the limitations to this theory?

How has the cultural significance of Shakespeare’s plays changed over the last 400 years?
Compare the poster for an 1884 performance of Macbeth (left) with a 1944 photo of
Laurence Olivier as Henry V.

Innovations in mass media include the invention of the printing press and movable type in the
fifteenth century, the creation of moving pictures at the turn of the twentieth century, and the
adoption of the scrolling ticker by today’s 24-hour news channels.

In 1963, for the first time televisions beamed images such as this photo of police officers attacking
a student in Birmingham, Alabama. How did television influence the reaction to events
such as the civil rights movement?

In studying newsrooms, Herbert Gans found that many players influenced news production and
analyzed how journalists internalized those unspoken rules.

“When I’m good, I’m very good, but when I’m bad, I’m better.” —ACTRESS MAE WEST

Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the 1950s hit television comedy I Love Lucy. Even though their
characters were married, they still did not share a bed.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet play gay parents Mitchell and Cameron on ABC’s
Modern Family.

Figure 3.2 Media Effects

The controversial O.J. Simpson arrest photo. Time magazine was accused of darkening his
features for their cover.

The photo above, published by the Associated Press, showed a young African American wading
through chest-high water toting groceries; the caption proclaimed that the man had just been
“looting a grocery store.” The second, which pictured a Caucasian couple doing the same thing
stated that the two were photographed “after finding bread and soda at a local grocery store.”

How did studying lottery winners help sociologists understand the relationship between
wealth and health?

A 2005 billboard from Dove soap’s advertising campaign featuring women who are not
professional models.

Two satirical ads from Adbusters magazine. How do these ads critique or subvert the tobacco
and fashion industries?

As anti-American sentiments increase in the Middle East, new regional brands such as
Mecca-Cola are replacing American commercial products like Coca-Cola or Pepsi.

This concludes the
Lecture PowerPoint
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You
May Ask
Yourself
Core Third Edition
Dalton Conley
You
May Ask
Yourself
Third Edition
Dalton Conley
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Culture and Media
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