When existing cultural boundaries seem to blur, people will look for alternative ways to express their identities. Recent research has shown that aesthetic dispositions (how one consumes culture) may be more significant than taste preferences (what is consumed). Sociologists therefore wonder whether distinction might be going underground. Elaborating on this issue, we examine the role of irony in cultural consumption through nine in-depth interviews with karaoke participants contacted in two bars in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, as we suspect that the ironic attitude is ideally suited to crossing cultural boundaries and, at the same time, to upholding class boundaries by distancing oneself from cultural activities that are considered enjoyable yet incongruent with one's identity. We indeed found large differences in how people performed and appreciated karaoke, which aligned with their levels of cultural capital.
Inspired by French pragmatism and using Bourdieu's notion of “refraction” as an indication of a field's autonomy, we explore in‐depth what kinds of justifications visual artists deploy to legitimate their requests for government money. Based on 494 government grant proposals from visual artists between 1965 and 2015 in Belgium, we find six such justifications. The reputational, esthetic, and romantic justifications are grounded in autonomous criteria of worth, such as artistic CVs, the work of art itself, and a compulsive desire to make art. Since the 90s, social, academic, and entrepreneurial justifications bring in heteronomous criteria, or refractions of field‐external values. Artistic practices become increasingly legitimized through engagement with social/political issues, academic methods and terminology, and an entrepreneurial spirit. We empirically show how the refraction of governmental logics is multi‐faceted, yet always related to or combined with artistic concerns, which we interpret as characteristic for the artistic field's persisting autonomy in the face of heteronomous pressures.
Purpose -Celebrex became the first of a new class of drugs known as COX-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. It improves treatment for arthritis sufferers without compromising the protective lining of the stomach. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription medicines can be used to rebuild faith in the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) product category.Design/methodology/approach -The case is developed using published sources and no input is required from company representatives. The presentation style follows the classic comprehensive case format used in postgraduate teaching programmes.Findings -Business executives and strategic marketing students would benefit from a discussion on how external environmental factors can suddenly impose a review of marketing strategy. The reader learns how management addresses the business dilemma using DTCA.
Research limitations/implications -A blockbuster rival drugVioxx is withdrawn due to cardiovascular (CV) health safety concerns. A resulting dominant market situation soon becomes a business dilemma. The Federal Drug Administration calls for a "black box" warning label on Celebrex, the most serious type of warning.Practical implications -The implications are that having a product in a class of its own is not enough. It highlights the need to communicate to different audiences, to both the medical profession and the end-user. Getting doctors to recommend the medicine and pulling the product through the channel by stimulating patient demand after a health scare are paramount.Originality/value -This is the first pharmaceutical business case where the withdrawal of a rival product leaves the dominant competitor in a monopoly situation. Contrary to expectation, market share plummets despite the absence of competition.
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