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• Recent work has begun to use relational approaches to study taste. • However, this work relies on vague genre labels. • These labels hide macrogenres, overstating boundaries. • I propose a link-clustering approach. • The proposed approach uncovers valid microgenres. Recent work in the sociology of taste has begun to grapple with the relational properties of traditional survey-based data using techniques inspired by network analysis. Despite productive results from this endeavor, critics rightly question the face and ecological validity of the vague macrogenre labels included in standard arts participation surveys (e.g., Classical, Rock, Rap) which feed into these novel methods. In this paper, I propose a link-clustering approach for discovering focused microgenres from standard survey-based information on cultural tastes, exploiting the underlying relational patterns realized by the indirect connectivity structure of genres (via people) in a two-mode network. The link-clustering approach partially answers two of the challenges of macrogenre critics: The fact that actual genres are overlapping and not crisply bounded and that there is hidden heterogeneity within the broad labels we usually focus on. To showcase the fruitfulness of the proposed approach, I engage in two "case studies" featuring the vague macro genres of "Heavy Metal" and "Latin/Salsa" music and show the focused microgenres produced by the link clustering procedure are segmented in ways that help resolve puzzles that have emerged in previous work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent developments at the intersection of cultural sociology and network theory suggest that the relations between persons and the cultural forms they consume can be productively analyzed using conceptual resources and methods adapted from network analysis. In this paper, I seek to contribute to this developing line of thinking on the culture-networks link as it pertains to the sociology of taste. I present a general analytic and measurement framework useful for rethinking traditional survey (or population) based data on individuals and their cultural choices as a two mode persons × genres network. The proposed methodological tools allow me to develop a set of “reflective” metrics useful for ranking both persons and genres in terms of the pattern of choices and audience composition embedded in the cultural network. The empirical analysis shows that these metrics have both face and criterion validity, allowing us to extract useful information that would remain out of reach of standard quantitative strategies. I close by outlining the analytic and substantive implications of the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I provide evidence for the substantive relevance of a phenomenon that has been argued to be crucial in connecting cultural inequalities to stratification outcomes: “ culture talk, ” or the use of popular culture and the arts as conversation subjects with friends and acquaintances. In spite of its theoretical importance, this outcome has not received much empirical attention. To address this gap, I document the socio-demographic correlates of culture talk using survey data from a probability sample of Americans. I report three main findings. First, culture talk frequency across five culture consumption domains is stratified by socioeconomic status, primarily be education and secondarily by income, net of self-reported culture-consumption frequency. Second, the socioeconomic status effect on culture talk is strongest for those who are most culturally active. Finally, engagement in traditionally high status cultural pursuits (e.g. the fine arts) is a better predictor of culture talk across all domains than consumption in less class stratified domains (e.g. movies). I close by elaborating the theoretical and substantive implication of these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research in the sociology of taste has focused primarily on the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in modulating patterns of cultural choice. This has led to a general neglect of the role of age as a structuring factor in its own right. In this paper, we turn our attention to cross-sectional and over-time differences in expressions of cultural taste across age groups. We concentrate on the phenomenon that Bryson (1996) has referred to as “symbolic exclusion”: namely, the (differential) propensity of persons to express dislike for certain cultural styles. Comparing musical dislikes from the 1993 General Social Survey data to a replication of the same instrument in 2012, we find that, overall, Americans are less likely to express dislikes across most musical categories, with the most substantial declines observed for Rap and Heavy Metal, especially among college-educated young adults. The exceptions to this pattern are the Country, Folk, and Religious styles, all of which are more likely to be disliked in 2012 than they were in 1993, and Rock and Classical music, both of which are increasingly rejected by high-status young people at the same time that they are less likely to be rejected by their same-status older counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we attempt to characterize the key differences and points of convergence between two contemporary approaches to the relationship between culture and cognition in sociology which we label the toolkit and strong practice theory perspectives. We follow recent work at the intersection of culture and cognition in attempting to explicitly formulate the cognitive underpinnings of these two approaches in terms of the assumptions that they make about cultural acquisition, transmission and externalization. Our analysis suggests that in spite of very important differences in emphasis and explanatory range, toolkit and strong practice-theoretical approaches are complementary, although the specific types of modal situation for which each of them is best suited need to be more clearly specified. We develop a framework that shows how the two approaches can be deployed in conjunction as well as specifying the modal settings and situations that each will be more likely to handle best as well as those in which they will run into trouble. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: To date, “highbrow omnivorousness” hypothesis has been examined mainly for the case of musical taste. In this paper we attempt to extend this framework to a relatively unexplored cultural domain, that of television consumption. Using data from the 2001 Eurobarometer we hypothesize that highbrows will be more likely to consume a wide variety of other forms of popular culture, namely television programming. The results fail to unambiguously confirm the highbrow omnivorousness hypothesis: in some EU countries, highbrows consume a wider variety of television programming than non-highbrows, in other countries, highbrows are indistinguishable from non-highbrows, while in a third group of countries, highbrows are snobbier than non-highbrows in their television consumption choices. We attempt to explain this cross-national heterogeneity in the highbrow/non-highbrow difference in television consumption using organizational theory of culture production. In our “contingent highbrow omnivorousness” framework, we propose that in commercialized, profit-oriented cultural industry systems, highbrow snobbery rather than omnivorousness will be the norm. In relatively less commercialized, profit-oriented contexts, highbrow the snobbery effect will be weaker. Classifying countries by the degree of market orientation of the television production field yields results that are consistent with this hypothesis. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The fact that women are more likely than men to participate in traditional high status leisure activities constitutes one of the most consistent findings in the empirical study of cultural choice. Most explanations of this phenomenon point to the role of early socialization and society-wide cultural norms, but surprisingly, the more proximate influence of labor force participation and embeddedness in gendered occupational cultures has not been empirically explored. In this paper I fill this gap in the cultural participation and gender literature by asking whether extent of involvement in the labor force mediates the gender gap in highbrow consumption. I follow [Erickson, Bonnie H., 1996. Culture, class, and connections. American Journal of Sociology 102, 217–252] in considering the relative usefulness of arts-related culture at work as an important determinant of individual taste patterns. Further, I show how Bourdieu''s own theory of class fractions is compatible with Erickson''s emphasis on highbrow devaluation as a byproduct of the pragmatism of workplace “business culture”. In tandem with an eye toward gender dynamics, this modified Erickson–Bourdieu perspective can then be used to solve the puzzle of the gender difference in highbrow consumption. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: According to world polity institutionalism, an emerging world culture, centered on the value of the individual as a “citizen of the world” has taken hold in most advanced industrial polities. To date, there has been no systematic study of the relationship between broader forms of subjective citizenship such as those of interest to institutional theorists, and the patterns of cultural taste and consumption of concern to sociologists of culture. In order to fill this gap, I analyze the relationship between three different forms of subjective citizenship, national (Spain), international (European community) and postnational (world community), and the propensity to display omnivorous patterns of cultural choice and to draw symbolic boundaries through the expression of cultural dislikes. If both world citizenship and the turn toward inclusive forms of cultural taste and consumption emanate from the same global cultural logic, there should be a positive relationship between patterns of geographic identification most closely connected to the world polity and cultural omnivorousness, and a negative association between world polity identification and taste exclusiveness. Regression results support this view: in relation to subnational forms of subjective citizenship, only postnational identification is positively related to both broad consumption and less exclusive taste. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]