Cormack investigates the broad cultural significance and relevance of academic sociology by examining its on-going relationship with modernity and mass culture.

Cormack investigates the broad cultural significance and relevance of academic sociology by examining its on-going relationship with modernity and mass culture.

In Sociology of Culture and of Cultural Practices, Laurent Fleury presents a synthesis of research and debate from France and the United States. He traces the development of the sociology of culture from its origins (Weber and Simmel) and examines the major trends that have emerged in this branch of sociology. Fleury also raises issues of cultural hierarchy, distinction, and legitimate culture and mass culture and focuses on new areas of research, including the role of institutions, the reception of works of art, aesthetic experience, and emancipation through art.

This first volume of the collected writings of sociologist Leo Lowenthal contains his classic theoretical and historical writings on the relationship of art to mass culture. This book series presents Lowenthal's contributions to a theory of the role of communication in modern society. This volume lays out the basis for a theory of mass culture. Lowenthal demonstrates that the juxtaposition of a "low"mass culture and a "high"esoteric culture did not originate in contemporary industrial, bourgeois society but can be traced back to the Middle Ages and antiquity.

"More than ever before, this book makes sociology relevant by applying sociological concepts and theories in a fun, hip way, using pop culture as the vehicle for relating to students. The new title, SOCIOLOGY: POP CULTURE TO SOCIAL STRUCTURE, underscores this approach by reflecting the book's stronger trio of themes, which 1) use pop culture to apply sociological concepts to everyday phenomena, 2) illustrate how technological change drives social change through examples that are familiar to students, and 3) engage students in thinking critically by asking them where they fit in to the larger context of social patterns in the world, and challenging them to apply sociological ideas when thinking about governmental or institutional policies. Streamlined by 15 percent in this edition, the text teaches students "how" to think sociologically, not just "what" to think, and emphasizes the importance of diversity and a global perspective. Movie reviews in the popular "Sociology at the Movies" boxes explore the sociological messages in recent movies such as The Social Network, Avatar, Milk, and many others. Up-to-date discussions of topics such as race, poverty, and religious practices are accompanied by exploration of contemporary issues related to our increasingly digital world, including examinations of how technological change shortens attention span, the Internet as an atomizing and a community-building force, and electronic surveillance and social control."--Pub.desc.

In this study, a group of young Japanese sociologists scrutinizes the sociological foundations of the ways in which the Japanese people produce and consume cultural commodities and live their everyday lives surrounded by these products.

The papers in this collection have a common theme in the question of modernity and mass culture. Two papers, those by Chaney and Featherstone respectively, discuss aspects of this theme in a general, global context, all the others are concerned more specifically with the regional context of the Middle East. All the articles in this collection were

Combining global, media, and cultural studies, this book analyzes the success of Hallyu, or the "Korean Wave” in the West, both at a macro and micro level, as an alternative pop culture globalization. This research investigates the capitalist ecosystem (formed by producers, institutions and the state), the soft power of Hallyu, and the reception among young people, using France as a case study, and placing it within the broader framework of the 'consumption of difference.' Seen by French fans as a challenge to Western pop culture, Hallyu constitutes a material of choice for understanding the cosmopolitan apprenticeships linked to the consumption of cultural goods, and the use of these resources to build youth’s biographical trajectories. The book will be relevant to researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, global studies, consumption and youth studies.

Sociologist and "Seinfield" fan Delaney explores the sociological implications of the famous comedy show using excerpts from many of the now-classic episodes to illustrate key facets of sociology.