SOCCUL5

Culture and Connection Jennifer L. Adams, M.A.

Introduction

Introduction  People have become linked together at an accelerating rate – economically,

politically, socially, and culturally – since the industrial revolution first prompted major globalization.  Even the most isolated groups are impacted by connections they may not even

be aware exist. (Details are on p. 141.)  In light of this, are we moving towards a single homogenous culture (a

so-called “global village”) or does greater connection magnify our differences?  What role does mass media play in this? How about, specifically, social

media?

Paradoxically, BOTH!

BOTH!  Globalization is exerting simultaneous pressures toward unity and

fragmentation.  Examples?

 We will be exploring the impact of a post-industrial, ever- globalizing world on culture and cultural meanings.

 We will examine the relationship between culture, technology, and community.

 And we will consider the future of meaning in a global culture.

Media Revolutions and Cultural Communities

Media Revolutions and Cultural Communities

 The word community has a number of meanings for sociologists, including both a territorial concept and a relational concept.  Territorial – a community is something we can locate on a map

 They have borders, a center, and outskirts and have a name and their own set of symbols.

 Examples?  Chicago

 Relational – people who are tied together by webs of communication, friendship, association, or mutual support  May be scattered geographically, may not even know one another, but constitute a

meaningful, self-aware collectivity  Examples?

 the LGBTQ+ community

Media Revolutions and Cultural Communities

 Historically there has been much overlap between the territorial and relational types of communities, but that is not necessarily the case in an increasingly mobile, highly differentiated, information-based, post- industrial, rapidly globalizing society.

 But whether territorial or relational, members of communities are united by a common culture.  This is not the same as having one identical collective conscious, but

community members have a considerable number of shared meanings, shared experiences, shared beliefs, shared cultural objects, and shared ways of thinking and acting.

 There is a sense of belonging among community members as a result that can withstand the scattering or suppression of members. (Ex: Jewish people – other examples?)

Media Revolutions and Cultural Communities

 This Durkheimian argument that culture is the tie that binds communities together begs the question: what happens to communities in times of cultural revolution?

 One way to trace this is to look at the three major media revolutions that have taken place, the creation of: (Details about 1 and 2 can be found on p. 143-146.)  1. Phonetic Alphabet  2. Printing Press  3. Global Electronic Information and Communication Technologies

(ICTs)

ICT Cultures  Information and communication technologies (ICTs), including

broadcasting, mark the third great revolution in human communications and move us from the modern into the postmodern era.

 ICTs Include:  Two-Way Transmissions (telegraph, phone, fax, the internet,

texting, Zoom, etc.)  One-Way Transmission (broadcasting such as radio, TV, CDs,

podcasts, etc.)  Participatory New Media (social media like Facebook, YouTube,

Yelp, TikTok, etc. as well as older forms like talk shows and chat rooms)

ICT Cultures  ICTs share common attributes:

 Immediacy and Reach:  They connect people in separate locations, often in real-time.  They can reach far greater numbers of people than was feasible with print.

 Intimacy: They allow the raw expression of ideas and emotions, making a facsimile of face-to-face intimacy possible and sometimes even exceeding face-to-face intimacy. Examples?

 Democratization:  They democratize cultural access in spatial and temporal terms. (Recorded events can

be shared across space and time.)  They democratize cultural access based on education/experience. (In other words,

literacy or other skills are not required for consumption.)  Language: They have a strong impact on language. (Ex: honey badger, text

speak – other examples?)

ICT Cultures  The social consequences of ICTs flow from these attributes,

often in rather unexpected ways.  Immediacy + Intimacy  Breaks Down Social Barriers -

Examples?  Formerly hidden experiences and reactions and even whole lifestyles

are now on view, often for millions of total strangers. (Ex: weeping parents of a murdered child)

 This has led to an increasing informality of human relations. (Ex: consider interactions among people in the late 19th century vs. now, see The Gilded Age on HBO)

 Many hoped it would lead to increased tolerance but instead we may have become desensitized to suffering. (Ex: photos of starving children in Africa, exploitative and explosive reality TV)

ICT Cultures  The democratizing aspect of ICTs has also had profound social effects.

 Previously, when print ruled, audiences tended to be segmented:  the literate vs. the illiterate  Different groups of people read different books.

 And there tended to be physical cultural centers where universities, theaters, libraries, museums, and so on were concentrated spatially.

 Now, huge and widespread undifferentiated audiences all consume the same ICTs.

 But – again – is this leading us towards one big global community/culture or not?  It seems that e-media, and especially the internet, is leading us to communities

rather than community.

The Cultural Impact of the Internet Bo Burnham’s “Welcome to the Internet” (Warning: R Rated)

The Cultural Impact of the Internet  The Internet In Everyday Life (2002) findings: (p. 150)

 Increasing Access – more and more people are online  Increasing Commitment – people are spending more time online and doing more

things while they’re there  Domestication – it’s not just for work anymore!  Longer Work Hours – as such we work more hours because we can work from

anywhere  Schoolwork – schools are having students use the internet more and more  Keeping Up – non-internet users are a vanishing breed bc we need it to “keep up”  Networked Society – networks rather than bounded groups are the most socially

meaningful formations now  Has remarkably stood the test of time and technological change.

The Cultural Impact of the Internet  ICTs have not so much changed cultural practices as reproduced and facilitated them.

 Existing groups and nations become networks via ICTs and in doing so they reiterate their cultures and re-forge their connections. Examples? (Example on p. 149.)

 And sometimes ICTs help to forge new communities where one did not exist before by helping to link a pre-existing core of like-minded people. Examples?

 Many people feared ICTs would be the death of reading and other leisure activities, but research has not shown that to be true.  However, our book was published in 2013. Do you think this is still true today? Why

or why not?  Research has also shown that ICTs:

 can be used to polarize people (think Fox News vs. CNN).  have not had any significant impact on deeply rooted norms (ex: religion or gender)  essentially just enable people to do what they did before, but more efficiently (ex: child

predators)

Old Diamonds, New Media  New media’s most important aspect is not its immediacy or reach or intimacy

or democracy nor is it some kind of enhanced quality – it is its participatory nature.  Ex: Printed Encyclopedia vs. Wikipedia – other examples?

 In the study of new media as important and meaningful cultural objects, agency and interactions become primary.  Instead of people producing and consuming culture, it is better to conceptualize

the situation as people using cultural objects to communicate, network, learn, persuade, influence, and celebrate their sociability.

 In this view, culture moves from being viewed as objects to being viewed as practices.

 Ex: Regional Cuisine in Turin, Italy (p. 154-155)

Communities of Meaning in a Global Culture

Communities of Meaning in a Global Culture

 As Durkheim taught us:  In the pre-industrial world everyone was connected via mechanical solidarity because

everyone in the community was exactly the same and lived exactly the same life and believed exactly the same things. Territorial communities were homogenous (similar).

 In the industrial world everyone became connected via organic solidarity because we all became interdependent on one another due to our differences, particularly in terms of the labor we did. Territorial communities were heterogenous (different/diverse).

 Today’s post-industrial world, in some ways, sees communities returning to their homogenous roots.  People can choose to live in “lifestyle enclaves” (e.g. only people over 65 who like golf) or

people are forced into various enclaves due to inequality/stratification (e.g. housing projects).  ICTs have further intensified this by connecting geographically dispersed people with similar

views or interests or experiences such that they form a rather homogenous group (e.g. incels).  Paradox: As electronic globalization seems to unite people across geographic locations

(e.g. the “global village”), it also seems to separate them out relationally (e.g. silos) and both types of community seem to lack depth.

Postmodernity and Community  Postmodern culture is a culture of surfaces, a play of images denying depth,

history, or meaning.  Attributes of postmodern culture: (p. 157-158)

 Depthlessness - a self-aware superficiality  Rejection of Metanarratives - focus instead on specific local contexts as well

as the diversity of human experience  Fragmentation - the breakdown of connections

 Interesting Concepts Related to the Postmodern World/Experience  Simulacrum - images that have little or no original in reality but that can be

produced to create a more satisfying result than reality itself (ex: Second Life, Disney World)

 Derealization (Bo Burnham’s “That Funny Feeling”) - a feeling that one's surroundings are not real (ex: feeling like you’re living in a movie or a dream)

Postmodernity and Community  Our postmodern culture that denies depth and history, that rejects any

larger story of its past and future, wherein anything can be combined with anything else doesn’t sound too promising for the building of communities.

 But concern about community through major changes and shifts has always concerned sociologists. A century ago early sociologists were critiquing 20th century modernity for many reasons.  Weber: rationality (as opposed to tradition)

 Solution: systems of ideas  Marx: capitalist economic model

 Solution: class consciousness  Durkheim: anomic conditions

 Solution: collective conscious

Postmodernity and Community  We now face the 21st century’s postmodernity with similar concerns.

 Optimistic View: Community and a sense of solidarity come from interactions though which we build shared meaning systems (and e-media has aided in community building).  Could result in a sense that we’re all “in this together.”

 Pessimistic View: Community is dwindling because the only thing we have in common, paradoxically, is our individualism (and e- media has aided in individualization).  Cultural forms are increasingly specialized and we end up siloed in many

ways.

Which view most resonates with you? Why?

Postmodernity and Community  Side Note on Postmodernism and Communities

 Davies’ (1982) research has shown that the need to erect and emphasize cultural boundaries is a response to pressure on other boundaries.  In other words, external pressure on a society will bring about greater emphasis

on internal hierarchies and a defense of distinctions perceived to be threatened.  Examples?  Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Why?

 Or when institutions and meaning systems are threatened or disrupted, one response is a greater emphasis preexisting cultural traits and distinctions (including old hatreds assumed to have vanished).

 Ex: Gender Norms in the Western World and Resurgent Ethnicity in Eastern Europe (p.159) and Race in the US

Postmodernity and Community  But is it possible that postmodernity may see a

proliferation of both surfaces (pessimistic) and depths (optimistic) in communities?  Human beings will learn to operate simultaneously in global,

relational communities and in local, spatial ones.  And each community will have its own unique culture.  Has this happened? What are some examples?

Mediated Transnationals

Mediated Transnationals  Levitt (2007)

 Argues that the term globalization emphasizes integration too much and downplays the diversity and contradictions of the contemporary world.

 Posits that we use the term transnational instead, indicating complex layers and the new boundaries and borders that get created in a borderless world.

 Focused specifically on migrants and how they can be anchored in multiple places.  For example, Turks living in Denmark but still participating – in part via ICTs

– in Turkish sports, politics, culture, and so on and easily traveling to Turkey.  This means they participate quite intensively in two different worlds.

Mediated Transnationals  This work, though, may be more broadly applicable in the sense that:

 All people have a hitherto unheard of flexibility in picking and choosing their cultural affinities and commitments.

 New media and ICTs make it easy to find new communities, stay in touch with old ones, confirm old identities, and shape new ones.

 In a way we are all cultural transnationals, occupying multiple communities and living in multiple worlds, even if we have never left our spatial communities.

 As such existing sociological terms – groups, communities, networks – are inadequate and thus present a major conceptual challenge for new sociological thinking.  Again, this book was published in 2013… have we taken on this challenge?

Have we met it?

Conclusion

Conclusion  Globalization is exerting simultaneous pressures toward unity and fragmentation.  There are several meanings of the word community including territorial and relational.

 Members of communities are united by a common culture.  But what happens to communities during major cultural revolutions?

 The newest revolution, the proliferation of ICTs, has changed communities due to ICTs’ immediacy, reach, intimacy, and democratization.  ICTs have not so much changed cultural practices as reproduced and facilitated them.

 Today’s post-industrial/postmodern world sees communities returning to their homogenous roots in some ways (“cultural enclaves” or other fragmentation).

 Human beings will learn to operate simultaneously in global, relational communities and in local, spatial ones and will all be cultural transnationals.

 Sociology will need new terminology to study and address this new world of communities and cultures in the postmodern era and beyond.

Any questions?