Transcript Cultural Network Theory - Structural Communication

CULTURAL NETWORK
THEORY
Robert N. St. Clair
University of Louisville
The Stratification of Culture
• Each generation differs from others by being socialized in
a slightly different way. Each generation has its own
heroes and villains. It has its own visual icons and music
idols.
Foucault and the Lamination of Culture
• These generations form what Foucault (1969) has called
the l’archeologie du savoir (archeology of knowledge).
• Each layer of culture differs from those of the previous
generation.
• There is no monolithic concept of culture, but more of a
lamination of cultural expressions separated by separate
generations and their practices.
• Foucault compared this to geological strata.
Popular and traditional Culture
• One of the problems in the field of intercultural communication has been the
relationship between popular culture and traditional culture.
• Popular cultures are the most recent forms of mass culture.
• There are scholars who make a distinction between high culture and low
culture.
• This distinction is unnecessary in a laminated theory of culture. A more
significant distinction would be between popular culture and profound (deep)
culture.
Popular Culture
This is the culture that one was
born into. It contains the music,
art, and technology of that period
of time.
Deep Culture
This is the culture that it taught by
means of formal education. It is the
culture that one achieves through
work and study.
The Mediation of Culture
• A popular culture is mass mediated.
• Profound culture represents the specialization of
knowledge and social practices through advanced
training. Academic knowledge and apprenticeship training
are constituents within this category of culture.
Old Popular Cultures never die; they just
fade away.
The Distribution of Popular Culture
• The 1950s Beginning of the Baby Boom Generation
Categories Performers
Commentary
Crooner
Frank Sinatra, Tony
Bennett, Perry Como, Bing
Crosby, Rosemary Clooney,
Eddie Fisher, Arthur
Godfrey, Nat King Cole, ..
These were the popular singers
of the previous decade. These
artists were favored by the
parents of the Baby Boomers.
Many of these appeared in film
and on television
Country
Western
Frankie Laine, Patti Page,
Kay Starr,
Teresa Brewer, Kitty Kallen,
Peggy Lee, Doris Day,
Tennessee Ernie Ford etc.
Country Western had its own
niche
and was regionally favored.
The Baby Boomers
• The 1950s
Categories
Performers
Commentary
Rock-n-Roll
Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Fats
Domino, Little Richard, James Brown,
Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin,
Ritchie Valens,
Connie Frances, Johnny Mathis, Neil
Sedaka, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, Bill
Haley, …
These performers dominated the air
waves and television (American Band
Stand). It was a highly creative era for
popular music. Elvis Presley dominated
the charts. Top Rock-n- Roll songs were
Johnny be good (Chuck Berry), Jailhouse
Rock (Elvis Presley) and Rock Around the
Clock (Bill Haley and the Comets).
Jazz Singers
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie,
Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious
Monk, Dave Brubeck,
the Miles Davis Quintet, the Modern
Jazz Quartet, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray
Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday,
...
This group had its own niche and
was regional before the advent of
television. With television, the genre
spread and ranged over a wider audience.
American
Folk Music
The Weavers, Kingston Trio, Christy
Minstrels, The Four Freshmen, The
Four Preps, The Highwaymen, ...
The Weavers popularized this genre.
Many of these groups appeared regularly
on television shows.
THE BUSINESS OF CULTURE
• Big business has been the driving force behind American
culture for the last century
Popular Culture Periods Rationale
Consumer Society
In 1915 the economic elite created the model
of the consumer society to overcome a crisis
in overproduction
Suburbia
After the Second World War, the economic
elite created suburbia to foster automobile
and gasoline consumption
The Inner City Culture
In the 1970s, they created the mystic of the
inner city because of high revenue from
music and alcohol sales.
Exportation of America
The American MBA was used as the model
for international business and English was
deemed to be the language of English.
America was marketed overseas.
Cultures of Theoria and Praxis
• Bourdieu did not see the conflict of theoria and praxis in
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Marxian terms as class differences. He saw it as a struggle
within deep culture in which those at the top of the hierarchy
are invested with cultural capital and those at the bottom are
controlled by a dominant ideology and a system of values that
are imposed on those who do not possess cultural capital.
Those who create theory have an abstract logic that is different
from the practical logic of those who live in the social world.
Those who have social capital are the producers of their own
destiny and that the other participants in that discipline are
comparable to their followers.
The producers of the consumer society have produced
symbols of economic taste as social capital. It serves their
economic interests.
They created a culture of conspicuous consumption in order to
expand their market base.
The Two Cultures of Modernity
• How are popular cultures and deep cultures connected to
each other in a theory of culture?
• The problem is that they are treated as separate kinds of
culture (Bourdieu’s Theoria and Praxis).
• However, they are not independent of each other. The
power elite of the business world who own the
instruments of cultural mediation how used popular
culture as an instrument to foster the creation of a
consumer society.
• This is the concern that Bourdieu discussed under his
concepts of Field and Habitus
Bourdieu on Field and Habitus
• Pierre Bourdieu also discussed popular culture and deep culture in
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terms of Field and Habitus.
Field has to do with the social hegemony associated with deep
culture.
Bourdieu argues that what people do constitutes practical knowledge.
Scientists do not talk theory; they practice it. However, the theory that
the talk about is not the same one that they are practicing. Hence, he
turned his attention to practical knowledge or the theory of practice.
Scientists are observers and they develop a theory of what
participants in society are doing in the sociology of everyday life. They
claim to have practical knowledge of the social world of practical
action. They do not. They operate from a theoretical logic which
differs from the logic of the participants in the social world.
Bourdieu wants theory to emerge from Habitus (Practical Knowledge).
One must not develop theory as an entity that is separate from
practice.
Cultural Fields and Cultural Capital
• There are two kinds of culture. One is theoretical and
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abstract (deep culture) and the other is based on social
experience (popular culture).
The problem is that popular culture is a business. It is a
business model developed to enhance commercial gain.
The discussion of popular culture occurs within
communication theory; it is part of a Field.
The practice of popular culture occurs within the sociology
of everyday life: it is part of a Habitus.
How does one make this theory more reflexive? How can
both kinds of cultures be studied and combined into an
integrated theory of culture?
Classical Music as theoretical logic
JAZZ AS PRACTICAL LOGIC
JAZZ AS HABITUS
Classical Music
Jazz Music
Logic
Theoretical logic
Practical Logic
Cultured of Modernity
Deep Culture
Popular Culture
Theoria
Classical music theory based
on I-III-V Progression
Jazz music theory based on IIV-I progression
Innovation
Discouraged after a
composition is written
Encouraged after a
composition is written
Conductor
Required
No required
Chord Structures
Maintained
Root played with the left hand
and ii-V-I played with the right
hand
Cultural Capital
Formal training – Theoria Apprenticeship training,
and Field
learning by copying others –
Praxis and Habitus.
Reflexivity: Metacognition of Practice
• Metacognition is thinking about thinking. It is a form of
reflexivity.
• Bourdieu argues in favor of the metacognition of practice.
This is necessary because theorists use a different kind of
logic from those who are participants in the sociology of
everyday life.
• Theoria produces structures that are abstract. Scientists
do not work through Habitus; they work within a Field and
they are interested in creating boundaries between Fields.
• Praxis produces structures that are concrete. One is born
with habitus. It is acquired through repetition. Habitus is a
learned experience that is shared with a group.
Social and Cultural Networks
• Society is studied from a network perspective. This means
that it studies individuals who are embedded in a network
of relations. It seeks explanations for social behavior
based on the structure of these networks rather than in
the individuals alone. Manuel Castells refers to this as the
network society.
• Social network analysis (SNA) has a long history in the
social sciences. It is part of small group theory, sociogram
analysis, and the social web.
• It is used in computer science, transportation systems,
neurological analysis, finite mathematics, and
organizational communication.
Graph Theory
• The study of graphs is made up of vertices (or nodes) and
lines (or edges) that connect them. Graphs are one of the
prime objects of study in the field of discrete mathematics.
• G=(V(g), E(G))
• Where
• V (G) = {v1. V2. v3 … vN} and
• E (G) = {e1. e2. e3 …e8}.
• The set of edges is:
• E = {{v1,v4}, {v1,v2}, {v4,v5}, {v2.v3}, {v3,v5},
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{v5,v6}, {v8,v7},{v7,v9}, {v3,v6}.
• The set of vertices is: V={v1,v2,v3,v4,v5,v6,v7,v8}.
Graphs may demonstrate certain
common patterns:
We can display graphs as a NxN matrix
The matrix shows that there is one tie between node A, B, and E and
none between C and D. Node B occupies a central position in this
network and nodes A,B,E form a tightly formed clique in which every
node is connected to every other node. The same can be said of
nodes B, C, and E. Furthermore, node B forms a bridge between
these two cliques.
The Commercialization of Popular Culture
• The typical cultural icon is controlled by an agent
Some artists are sponsored by wealth
• Pollock had his benefactor
Some artists became entrepreneurs
• Andy Warhol became his own agent and sponsor
Network Analysis of Culture
Functional Analysis
Commentary
Degree of Separation
The number of ties to others in the network
Betweenness
Degree an individual lies between others
Closeness
Degree an individual is near all others (being in
the grapevine)
Eigenvector Centrality
Measure of the importance of a node in a
network
Clustering
High clustering is identified with cliques
Structural Holes
If there is just one link between two people,
that individual can control their communication
information flow
Radiality
The degree an individual reaches out into
society
How do Popular Cultures change?
• Popular cultures never die; they just fade away.
• Popular cultures create ego networks that are
administered by agents. They increase the size of the
network.
• Over time, the practice of popular culture subsides. This is
because markets shift, audiences disappear, and new
trends take over the public domain.
• Networks may diminish greatly or they may be enriched.
Some cultural phenomenon may be rediscovered and
renewed. Others may remain in oblivion. One thing
remains constant: cultures change.
Cultural Change
• In order to explain cultural change, one needs to discuss
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the relationship of the present to the past.
The present is embedded in the past. One understands
the present through an understanding of the past.
Since on lives in the present, one also reinterprets the
past to fit into the context of the
present.
This interface is called the
co-present.
The reinterpretation of the past
is called the new-past.
Concluding Remarks
• Culture is not an object. It is a network of relationships
that evolves. Each generation is re-socialized. They are
born into a culture. They do not adhere to all that has
been given to them. The modify the social practices
around them and create new ones in the process.
• Each cultural generation has its own cultural torus in
which cultural practices are regenerated from the
perspective of its own popular culture milieu. From a two
dimensional perspective, each culture has its own strata.
From a three dimensional perspective, each culture has
its own toroidal geometry.
The Regenerating Power of a Torus
• The energy begins in the center and it is regenerated and
recycled into a self-generating pattern.
• Other generations of culture interact with this toroidal form
but they do not alter its central force. Instead, they are
incorporated into layers of different later generations that
accompany this central torus.
The Ring Torus and Modules
• The torus represents modular cycles. If one were to
represent a clock in mathematical terms, it would be a
ring torus. The hour hand makes a repeating cycle from
zero to twelve and this repetition can be seen as a
cylinder.
Figure 12 Rotating Cylinder
Figure 11 rotating circle
The module begins at 0,
The rotating cylinder has 12 segments
12 and moves clockwise.
that represent the clockwise motion of
There are 12 segments in
the hour hand of a clock.
this module.
Representing Modules in 2D
• The second hand also rotates clockwise and it can also
be represented as a rotating cylinder. When this
information is portrayed in a two dimensional graph, it can
be displayed as a Cartesian graph.
Figure 11 Graphic Representation of Clock Rotation
The x axis represents the hour hand and the y
axis represents the minute hand of a clock.
There are 12 segments in each. When they
overlap, they create a straight line.
Modules as Tori
• However, when represents the movement of the clock in
three dimensional terms, it turns out to be a ring torus.
One end of the rotating cylinder folds into the other end of
the cylinder to form a ring torus.
Toroidal changes within a culture
• When the environment outside of a torus changes, it
impacts on the nature of its central core and that center
will eventually move or be modified. The cultural past
represents the center. The cultural present represents
this environmental changes. In other words, the
surrounding environments changes the toroidal intensity.
Cultures of Modernity
• Due to the process of modernization, cultural knowledge
is instantaneously transmitted across nations states and
this means that they are linked together by means of a
larger network, the culture of modernity.
• Will these regional cultures be changed over time into a
global monoculture?
• The new generation is born into this culture of modernity.
Will they retain any of the cultural past? Will the culture of
modernity become their new culture?
• The deterrent to a monoculture is the resistance by local
popular cultures. It has a life of its own.
References
• Bourdieu, Pierre. (1977). Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
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Bourdieu, Pierre. (1984). The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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