This document discusses the concept of culture. It defines culture as the shared way of life of a group of people, including their ideas, values, knowledge, behaviors, and material objects. Culture is learned and passed down between generations, shaping people's perceptions of reality. The document outlines various components of culture, including material and non-material aspects, characteristics, how culture varies globally, and the concept of cultural universals. It provides examples to illustrate cultural concepts like values, norms, folkways, mores, taboos, and sanctions.

1. Ordinary
Consumption &
Culture
25th September 2019
AMERTA CLASS, FISIP UNAIR
Prof. Rachmah Ida
Rachmah@gmail.com
Muhammad Saud
Muhhammad.saud@gmail.com

2. What is Culture?
 Culture is the entire way of life for a group of
people including all of their ideas, values,
knowledge, behaviors, and material objects that
they share.
 It is a lens through which one views the world
and is passed from one generation to the next.
 It is what makes us human.
 It is what shapes and guides people’s
perceptions of reality.

3. What is culture?
 The word culture,
from the Latin colo,
-ere, with its root
meaning "to
cultivate“.
 Culture refers to
the universal
human capacity to
classify, and
communicate their
experiences
symbolically.

4. Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is shared.
2. Culture is learned.
3. Culture is taken for granted.
4. Culture is symbolic.
5. Culture varies across time and place.

5. 5
Culture
varies around the world
Buddhist Monks in Myanmar
English Punk Rocker

6. Malaysian Culture

7. Taiwan Culture

8. Philippine culture

9. Dutch Culture

10. French Culture

11. Indonesian Culture

12. Kalash Festival-Pakistan

13. How Many Cultures?
• One indication of culture is language
• Global estimates document 7,000 languages
• In the USA, there are about 200 languages
• Upcoming decades will show the
disappearance of hundreds of languages

14. Material and
Symbolic/Non-
Material Culture

15. Material and Nonmaterial Culture
 Material Culture includes all those things that
humans make or adapt from the raw stuff of
nature: houses, computers, jewelry, oil paintings,
etc (Stick from the forest might be a part of
material culture)
 Nonmaterial culture is a group's way of thinking
(including its beliefs, values) and doing (its
common pattern of behavior, including language
and other forms of interaction) (Poem about
stick)

16. Material Culture
 Material culture includes the objects
associated with a cultural group, such as
tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and
artwork.
Introduction to Sociology: Culture 16

17. Material Culture
Physical objects people create and give
meaning
 Examples:
 Homes
 School buildings
 Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques
 Cell phones
 Clothes
 Cars
 Computers
 Books

18. Non-Material/Symbolic Culture
 Symbolic culture includes ways of thinking
(beliefs, values, and assumptions) and
ways of behaving (norms, interactions,
and communication).
18

19. Non Material Culture
The products of collective human activity that have
no physical reality
 Beliefs
 Customs
 language
 Symbols
 Music
 Government.
19
What does a handshake symbolize?

20. Non-Material Culture
 Rules of Etiquette for Eating: Japan

21. Non-Material Culture
Rules of etiquette for eating U.S.

22. Non-material / Symbolic
Culture
We communicate through:
 Signs
 Gestures
 Language

24. Cultural Universals

25. Cultural Universals
 Customs and practices that occur across
all societies

26. 12 Aspects of Culture or Ethnicity
1. History-time period and conditions under which a group migrated or
immigrated.
2. Social Status Factors – education, occupation, income
3. Social Group Interaction Patterns: Intra-group (within group
relations) and Inter-group (between-group relations)
4. Value Orientation – standards by which members of a culture judge
their personal actions and those of others.
5. Language and Communication: Verbal and Nonverbal
6. Family Life Processes – gender roles, family dynamics
7. Healing Beliefs and Practices – attitudes and beliefs about health.
8. Religion – spiritual beliefs and practices
9. Art and Expressive Forms – art, music, stories, dance, etc.
10. Diet/Foods – preferred food eaten by groups.
11. Recreation – activities, sports for leisure, etc.
12. Clothing – types, styles, and extent of body coverings.

27. Examples of the
Roles of Cultural
Universals
Religion, Education and
Language

28. Religion Culture
 Religion: system of shared beliefs about the
sacred

29. Education and Culture
 Education
Medium through which people are
acculturated
Language, “myths,” values, norms taught
Teaches personal achievement and
competition
Critical to national competitive advantage
 Education system may be a cultural
outcome

30. Language and
Culture
 One of the most important functions of symbolic
culture is it allows us to communicate through signs,
gestures, and language.
 Signs (or symbols), such as a traffic signal or
product logo, are used to meaningfully represent
something else.
 Gestures are the signs that we make with our
body, such as hand gestures and facial expressions;
it is important that these gestures also carry
meaning.
30

31. Non-Verbal Gestures: Let’s Look At The
Different Meanings For One Gesture

35. Humorous
Examples of
Language
Differences
Between Cultures

36. Cultural Diversity
Dairy Association’s huge success with the
campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to
expand advertising to Mexico
It was brought to their attention the Spanish
translation read, “Are you lactating?”

37. Cultural Diversity
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa,
they used US packaging with the smiling baby on
the label.
In Africa, companies routinely put pictures on
labels of what’s inside, since many people can’t
read.

38. Cultural Diversity
Coca-Cola’s name in China was first read as “Kekoukela”,
meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed
with wax”, depending on the dialect.
Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic
equivalent “kokou kole”, translating into “happiness in the
mouth.”

39. Components of
Culture

41. Components of Culture
 Culture: a society’s (group’s) system of shared, learned
values and norms; these are the society’s (group’s)
design for living
 Values: abstract ideas about the good, the right, the
desirable
 Norms: social rules and guidelines; guide
appropriate behavior for specific situations
 Folkways: norms of little moral significance
dress code; table manners; timeliness
 Mores: norms central to functioning of social life
 bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery,
alcohol

42. Beliefs
 Shared ideas people hold
collectively within a culture.
 Specific statements that
people hold to be true or
false.
 Beliefs are the basis for many
of a culture’s norms and
values.
 Beliefs orient people to the
world by providing answers to
otherwise imponderable
questions about the meaning
of life.

43. Values

45. Values
 Culturally defined standards by which people
assess desirability, goodness, and beauty and
that serve as broad guidelines for social living.
 Values determine what is considered right and
wrong, beautiful and ugly, good and bad.
 Values can provide rules for behavior, but can
also be the source of conflict.

46. Values
 Values determine for us what is desirable
in our life;
 If we learn other people’s values we learn
about other people;
 Values underlie our preferences, our
choices, indicate what we deem as
worthwhile in our society.

47. Norms

48. Norms
 Specific cultural expectations for how to
behave in a given situation.
 Norms are expectations for behavior
 A society without norms would be in
chaos; with established norms, people
know how to act, and social interactions
are consistent, predictable, and learnable.
 Social sanctions are mechanisms of
social control that enforce norms.

49. According to the informal norms of culture of the
mountainous Asian kingdom of Bhutan, people greet
each other by extending their tongues and hands

51. Folkways

52. Folkways
 Less important rules of society
 Violation of rules hurts nobody except the
person breaking the rule
 Usually a violation of etiquette or habits
not acceptable to society
 Violators are usually ridiculed/made fun of
or people avoid them
 Manners not followed

53. Mores

54. Mores
 Mores: Means “manners” in French.
 Mores are norms that are essential to any
country Values, close to legalistic.
 Attitudes from the past, habituated, very
little deviation allowed
 Duties, obligations, common to cultural
morality

55. Taboos

56. Taboo
 A taboo is a norm so strongly ingrained
that to violate it creates disgust, revulsion,
horror - the thought of it makes people
sick:
 Eating human flesh - cannibalism
 Incest - having sex with relatives
 Pedophilia - adults having sex with
children

57. Taboo
 a very extreme more in a society
 proscription
 almost unthinkable it is so unacceptable to
people
 people do not like to acknowledge that it
can occur in their society
 people are usually executed or given long
prison sentences for violations

58. Laws

59. LAWS
 Norms which have been formalized
written down by legislature or courts
punishment told before hand
can be based on folkway or more
can be code of law not based on folkway or more
folkways tough to enforce of all laws

60. Sanctions

61. 61
Social Control and Sanctions
 Sanctions are positive or negative reactions to the
ways that people follow or disobey norms, including
rewards for conformity and punishments for norm
violators.
 Sanctions help to establish social control, the
formal and informal mechanisms used to increase
conformity to values and norms and thus increase
social cohesion.

62. Sanctions
 Sanctions are penalties and rewards for
conduct concerning a social norm
 Conformity to a norm can lead to positive
sanctions such as pay raise, a medal, a
word of gratitude, or a pat on a back

63. Iceberg Metaphor

64. HOW IS CULTUE EMBEDDED
IN PEOPLE AND
ORGANIZATIONS?
THINK OF CULTURE AS AN ICEBERG:
you see it, but perhaps not the important
parts
Symbols; language
Behaviors
Practices
Customs
Normsbeliefs, traditions,
priorities,
assumptions, values