The social positions of taste between and within music genres: From omnivore to snob

Nault, Jean-François; Baumann, Shyon; Childress, Clayton; Rawlings, Craig M.

doi:10.1177/13675494211006090

Cited by 21 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…The question of how cultural interests and preferences are socially stratified and differentiated is at the heart of the sociology of culture. There is a voluminous literature, which includes both the very recent (Nault et al, 2021) and the historically canonical (Bourdieu, 1984). This article adds to this literature by examining the tastes of a specific social fraction, those working in cultural and creative occupations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New forms of distinction: How contemporary cultural elites understand ‘good’ taste

O’Brien

Ianni

2022

The Sociological Review

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Taste is a subject of longstanding academic interest. The question of how cultural interests and preferences are socially stratified is at the heart of the sociology of culture. This article adds to this literature by examining the tastes of a specific social fraction, those working in cultural and creative occupations ( N = 203). The analysis finds that, in keeping with existing quantitative research on changing cultural hierarchies, cultural workers are open and eclectic in their expressions of taste. They are reflexive, able to play with, and question, ideas of taste alongside conceptions of artistic or cultural legitimacy, connecting their understandings to broader questions of social division and distinction. At the same time, this ‘emerging’ form of cultural capital is a new dividing line, substantiated by modes of consumption, depth of appreciation, and willingness to articulate commitments to engagement with culture. These distinctive tastes of cultural workers matter because, as creators, commissioners and curators of what ends up on stage, page and screen, cultural workers’ tastes shape the cultural hierarchies of which they are a part. In the context of cultural and creative industries, we can expect that these new forms of distinction will serve to create group identities, providing yet another way that cultural elites are socially closed, in addition to well-known exclusions based on demographics such as race, class, gender, age or disability.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New forms of distinction: How contemporary cultural elites understand ‘good’ taste

O’Brien

Ianni

2022

The Sociological Review

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“…The original claim of 'rising omnivorousness' has received mild support but also ample criticism, especially regarding the possibility that omnivorousness may be a methodological artefact (Brisson 2019; see also . Recent research has suggested that the most omnivorous cultural practices could actually be found among middle-status groups rather than among highstatus groups (Nault et al 2021).…”

Section: The Design Of This Bookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Cultural Non-Participation in an Egalitarian Context

Heikkilä

2022

Palgrave Studies in Cultural Participation

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This series will provide a platform for contributions to a newly defined field of 'participation studies' (Miles and Gibson, forthcoming 2021). Participation in cultural activities is a research subject within a number of disciplines and fields, ranging from sociology to cultural studies, incorporating tourism, leisure heritage, museum, media, theatre, and cultural policy, to business and management studies. This series will bring together debates across these disciplines to consider the subject of cultural participation in all its dimensions.The series brings together research on traditional cultural tastes and practices with research on informal 'everyday' activities. In doing so it broadens our understanding of cultural participation, focusing on participation as a pluralistic concern, exploring the links between the cultural, civic and social dimensions of participation, and reconsidering its framing in time and space by political economy, material resource and cultural governance.

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“…This resonates with the latest debates on the artifactuality of the thesis of omnivorousness (cf. Brisson, 2019); like recent research suggests (Nault et al, 2021), it could even be that omnivorous cultural practices are located in the middle positions of the social structure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…This reflects the findings on the important role of age for structuring cultural participation: for instance, Leguina and Miles (2017) demonstrate the important difference between young people's digital pursuits and older groups' more traditional practices. On the other hand, young peoples' cultural practices can be expected to mature with time (Nault et al, 2021; see also Ma, 2020). Still, the dynamics of the different age groups show that the polarization between different groups dissipates to some extent in the highbrow component between 2007 and 2018, and for the latter year, age loses its significance in the mainstream component.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Overlaps and accumulations: The anatomy of cultural non-participation in Finland, 2007 to 2018

Heikkilä

Lindblom

2022

Journal of Consumer Culture

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There is a fervent belief that culture is, among other desirable ideals, “good for you.” This has been the baseline of the cultural policies in many countries. Through cultural policies, some forms of cultural participation over others are subvented through public funding, which makes it yet more important to ask which groups intentionally withdraw—or are left out—from which forms of it. We address the debate on cultural non-participation by scrutinizing nationally representative and longitudinal survey data from Finland, a Nordic welfare country with allegedly low social and cultural hierarchies, for years 2007 and 2018. We explore the changes in cultural non-participation by asking whether the main frequencies of cultural non-participation have changed between 2007 and 2018, what forms of different cultural non-participation patterns can be distinguished, and which socioeconomic factors best predict which form of cultural non-participation most in both years. Finally, we ask whether certain everyday forms of participation would compensate or complement non-existing cultural participation. We find three main cultural non-participation patterns: highbrow avoidance, mainstream avoidance, and nightlife avoidance. While the changes in non-participation look small from the macro level, their internal dynamics face a steep change between 2007 and 2018. Especially higher education becomes a continuously more significant factor for any kind of cultural activity. We also show that cultural participation is not compensated by everyday activities as often claimed in the literature, but that cultural and everyday non-participation overlap. Our results indicate that the alleged egalitarianism in Finland does not reach cultural participation: avoiding most forms of participation is more and more related to socio-economic differences reflecting social and cultural hierarchies.

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The social positions of taste between and within music genres: From omnivore to snob

Cited by 21 publications

References 53 publications

New forms of distinction: How contemporary cultural elites understand ‘good’ taste

New forms of distinction: How contemporary cultural elites understand ‘good’ taste

Understanding Cultural Non-Participation in an Egalitarian Context

Overlaps and accumulations: The anatomy of cultural non-participation in Finland, 2007 to 2018

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