Cultural Objects as Prisms

Abstract

A key premise in sociological studies of culture and taste is that patterns of acceptance, rejection, and engagement with cultural goods are not exclusively driven by their intrinsic features but also by collectively shared perceptions of the association between cultural goods and the groups that are perceived to be their primary consumers (Bourdieu 1984; Bryson 1996, 1997; Tampubolon 2008). This allows analysts to link seemingly individual acts of aesthetic judgment to collective patterns of symbolic inclusion and exclusion (Bourdieu 1984). The basic idea is that there is a duality between the category labels used to classify cultural genres and the categories labels used to classify social groups (DiMaggio 1987), such that heavy metal might be to "male" as blues/rhythm and blues (R&B) is to "black" (Bryson 1996). These shared categorical linkages help to partially constitute the cultural and social meaning of the genre in question (DiMaggio 1997; Goldberg 2011). This is especially likely if persons come to modulate their patterns of engagement with goods classified by given labels in a manner that makes the linkage into a self-fulfilling prophecy. This results in (self) selection into or out of engagement with cultural goods that are perceived as consistent or inconsistent (respectively) with salient social identities. Studies of the production of culture show that as the meanings of shared links between genre labels and social labels undergo historical change, audiences modify their patterns of engagement with cultural offerings. For instance, the consumption of art forms traditionally classified as "high culture," such as classical music, the fine arts, and literature, has undergone a dramatic feminization in the United States since the middle of the twentieth century, such that women outnumber men in the consumption of these types of cultural goods in every recent arts participation survey fielded (Christin 2012; DiMaggio and Mohr 1985; DiMaggio and Mukhtar 2004; Katz-Gerro and Sullivan 2004). In the same way, while in the early 20th century jazz music was thought of primarily as a "black" genre, the gradual incorporation of jazz into the "high culture" canon has been accompanied by a perceived (and actual) whitening of its audience (Lopes 2002). Similar stories can be told for rockabilly and early rock and roll (Peterson 1990), or for the ethnoracial and class-based transformation experienced by the hip hop and rap audience from its beginning as an African American urban music in the late 1970s and early 641695S RDXXX10.

Scents and Sensibility: Olfaction, Sense-Making, and Meaning Attribution

“…Several studies link elements of sociocultural location (e.g., age, class, education, gender, race) to evaluations of cultural and sensory data. Empirical studies on the evaluation of music (e.g., Bryson 1996;Lizardo and Skiles 2016), auditory sounds (e.g., Maslen 2015; Schwarz 2015), gastronomical taste (e.g., Bourdieu 1984; Cappeliez and Johnston 2013; Johnston and Baumann 2014; Oleschuk 2017), and political, religious, and popular media images (e.g., Cerulo 1995aCerulo , 1995bCerulo , 2000Cerulo and Barra 2008;Hunt 1997;Press 1991), for example, show that sociocultural location can be pivotal to understanding the messages people draw from such information. Moreover, several studies show that people use their interpretations to rank people or distinguish and define "them" and "us."…”

Visualization strategies for regression estimates with randomization inference

“…The traditional "population model" (Ernst 2004;Ludbrook and Dudley 1998) of statistical inference with which most social scientists are accustomed is not always appropriate when the sample is constructed using nonprobabilistic procedures or when the sample suffers from nonrandom systematic error that cannot be mitigated with bias-correcting statistical adjustments. When such "prestatistical" methodological constraints are present, a different model must be adopted if the analyst wishes to use the language of inferential statistics.…”

“…When such "prestatistical" methodological constraints are present, a different model must be adopted if the analyst wishes to use the language of inferential statistics. One option is the "randomization" (Ernst 2004;Ludbrook and Dudley 1998;Manly 2007, 1-4) or "process inference" (Darlington and Hayes 2017, 513-514) model-a strategy that has, unfortunately, been slow to gain ground in sociological research using observational data, 1 save for work in social network analysis. 2 1.…”

“…Randomization inference is often (if not usually) discussed within the context of randomized experiments (for example, Aronow [2012]; Edgington and Onghena [2007]; Ludbrook and Dudley [1998]), where random assignment of participants into treatment and control groups is assumed but not necessarily random sampling. Nonetheless, as Manly (2007, 180) notes, justification for using permutation tests for establishing statistical inference in multivariate cases can come in three forms: 1) in the case of random sampling, when the H 0 is that Y ⊥ X; 2) in the case of random assignment to treatment and control conditions (but not necessarily in conjunction with random sampling); and 3) when, with observational data that are neither from a random sample nor after an experimental design, "the mechanism generating the data makes any of the Y values equally likely to occur with any of the sets of X values."…”

“…However, analysts using nonprobability samples must adopt a different inference model. Such an alternative-the "randomization model" (Ernst 2004;Ludbrook and Dudley 1998) or what might be termed the "process inference" model (Darlington and Hayes 2017, 513-514)-allows for sample-specific inferences by using Monte Carlo permutation tests to derive empirical p-values. These p-values indicate the proportion of test statistics-say, a specific coefficient-from the models computed from the randomly permuted samples that are greater than or equal to the observed test statistic (in the case of a right-tailed test).…”