Category: Culture and Identity

  • Dominic Strinati – A Critique of Mass Culture Theory

    mass culture is not homogenous, its consumers are not passive and there are no distinct high or folk cultures.

  • Postmodernisation

    Postmodernisation is the process of modern culture transforming into Postmodern culture/ postculture.

  • Herber J. Gans: The Plurality of Taste Cultures

    Herbert Gans criticised mass culture theorists by suggesting there was a plurality of cultures in America, each of equal value.

  • Mass Culture

    Mass culture refers to standardised, simplified cultural products produced for profit. According to Dwight Macdonald mass culture was harmful to society.

  • Lucien Goldmann – Class and Literature

    Lucien Goldmann is a marxist theorist of the arts who argued that social class shapes the worldview of authors.

  • Marxism and Culture

    Culture is what distinguishes humans from animals, but under Capitalism culture becomes a tool of the elite used to repress the masses. However, there is capacity for individuals to rise above false consciousness and usher in communism which is where the spontaneous production of culture can happen under free conditions.

  • Socialisation

    Socialisation is the process whereby an individual learns the norms and values of a culture. Giddens and Sutton (2017) provide a lengthier definition: For sociologists socialization is the process whereby the helpless human infant becomes a self-aware, knowledgeable person, skilled in the ways of the culture into which he or she was born. Socialization of…

  • What is Culture?

    A simplified sociological definition of culture is ‘the whole way of life of a group of people’, which is abbreviated from Ralph Linton’s (1945) more extensive definition of the term: ‘The culture of a society is the way of life of its members; the collection of ideas and habits which they learn, share and transmit…

  • Four Types of Culture

    Folk culture, mass or popular culture, high culture and low culture

  • An Introduction to Culture, Socialisation, and Social Norms

    In sociology, it is essential to understand the social context in which human behaviour takes place – and this involves understanding the culture in which social action occurs. Culture is a very broad concept which encompasses the norms, values, customs, traditions, habits, skills, knowledge, beliefs and the whole way of life of a group of…