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Scholars and critics have praised the video game, Papers, Please (PP), for raising critical awareness of sociopolitical issues, including immigration. To begin to determine whether PP stimulated public discussions of pertinent social issues, I adopt insights and techniques from cultural sociology to study how posters in an online forum engage with PP. I use computational topic modeling to reveal the topics forum members discuss and qualitative content analysis to gain a deeper sense of how posters explore these issues. I find the forum does discuss social issues, including immigration. Sociopolitical topics, however, are far from the forum's primary focus. Moreover, posts primarily rely on the same limited set of immigration frames that major U.S. media outlets use. These findings demonstrate how a game's social meanings will be shaped not only by the game's design but also by social factors internal to the public under analysis and broader social dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of concepts in the policing literature denote a so‐called “sixth sense” that police officers claim to possess. “Intuition,” “suspicion,” or “common sense” all specify a tacit knowledge said to heighten an officer's sensitivity to danger and potential suspects. This paper argues this type of knowledge exemplifies the application of “cultural schema” (DiMaggio, 1997): a shared knowledge structure that allows people to respond to environmental stimuli in ways that render their lives more predictable. We combine two case studies—one in Canada, the other in the Netherlands—which include ethnographic field notes and 199 interviews with police officers, to reconsider the police sixth sense in light of theoretical and empirical advances in cultural sociology and cognition research. This paper further discusses the benefit of studying this sixth sense itself as a form of cultural knowledge—that is, as “police culture”—to improve our understanding of cultural resources most or least compatible with emerging police reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates on musical taste have centred on the collapse of cultural boundaries between high art and popular culture. This paper examines Chinese hip‐hop as a unique case study to explore taste preferences in a relatively new popular cultural phenomenon in the understudied context of Eastern popular culture. Drawing from 42 interviews with Chinese young hip‐hop followers, the article examines musical taste preferences within Chinese hip‐hop and different modes of appreciation deployed by listeners. The findings reveal that young Chinese hip‐hop fans display cultural openness to foreign influences and genre mobility. The openness is employed as a marker of cultural capital for the Chinese middle class that values hybridity and innovation. However, even the most open‐minded individuals draw thematic hierarchies within hip‐hop through the unanimous rejection of vulgar and violent themes in favour of more serious and wholesome music. This rejection is framed as a strategy to authenticate hip‐hop within the broader popular culture arena while cultivating personal qualities of civility and wholesomeness that are highly valued in contemporary Chinese society. The paper contributes to the literature on musical taste preferences in cultural consumption by shedding light on the social relevance of cultural openness and music in contemporary Chinese popular culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being one of the most influential forms of media, cinema has yet to be theorized as a communicative institution of the civil sphere. Contrary to commonsense understandings of cinema as a medium for purifying representations of civil sphere ideals, this paper proposes a theoretical framework that opens up the black box of cinematic performance and theorizes processes of civil interpretation and evaluation: the cinematic gap. The cinematic gap describes an experiential space afforded by the medium's fictional nature. Because cinema is 'just fiction', viewers are distanced from the 'real civil sphere' and permitted a space for thoughtful rumination on a cinematic performance's presentation of civil sphere matters that is less reductive, more thoughtful, and more empathetic. As viewers can then apply these insights on the real civil sphere, the cinematic gap provides a space for thoughtful civil engagement and pathways to civil repair. This paper also identifies components of the cinematic gap which determine its 'size' – i.e., degree of distancing from the real civil sphere – as genre treatment and grounding in social reality. This theory is generated from responses to the 2019 Korean film Parasite, a highly successful black comedy-thriller that deploys and subverts commentary on class inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This investigation is centered on two objectives: one is to determine whether in Tomelloso, which from 1950 onwards was characterised as being a city linked to literature, this activity is still relevant in the distribution of its spare time. The second objective is to verify whether this city is still a place from which new writers regularly emerge. In addition, this paper aims to provide a sociological explanation of this social phenomenon. Methodological triangulation was used, with qualitative exploratory interviews, surveys, and the management of the bibliography and documentary archives. It is confirmed that there is still a major link to literature in Tomelloso and that writers are still continuously emerging. The phenomenon is explained by relating it to the theories of symbolic interactionism and Robert K. Merton's concept of self-fulfilling prophecies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the extent to which the meanings given to home and neighborhood are associated with the perceived psycho-social well-being of inhabitants and households, based on a review of the literature and a conceptualization of the meanings of home and neighborhood in various dimensions. The paper analyzes data from a survey conducted in the neighborhood of Barkmolenstraat (Groningen, The Netherlands). Using the factor analysis, two factors indicating meanings of home are distinguished: the home as a "Predictable Environment", and the home as a "Status". Four factors indicate neighborhood attachment: sense of belonging, safety, sociability and the feeling of being controlled. The findings from OLS regression analyses show the importance of the home as a "predictable environment" in perceived psycho-social well-being. The sense of belonging to the neighborhood and safety are positively associated with psycho-social well-being, whereas the feeling of being controlled is negatively associated with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the NGOs in the immigration field as a counterculture working simultaneously with and against the establishment. Design/methodology/approach – Case study approach using interviews and documents analysis. Findings – This paper studies the cultural features of three civil associations, interested in promoting social welfare for immigrants. These NGOs challenge the Israeli government when it violates human rights. This conflict takes place in the courts, the Knesset (parliament), governmental agencies, the media, and sometimes in the streets. The three NGOs use a variety of political strategies: both collaborating with governmental agencies, while simultaneously fighting against the government authorities. The cultural features of the immigrant NGOs are primarily left-wing, with socialist principles. The organizational culture of this association can be identified as a counterculture, opposing the dominant Israeli right-wing capitalist culture. Practical implications – This research can demonstrate how NGOs can use tactics to achieve a high level of success for the underprivileged population. Originality/value – This case study is unusual in that it suggests the NGOs are a sophisticated counterculture, with activists knowing how to operate concurrently with and against official authorities. The duality of the political cultural behavior of the NGOs’ social movement is a notable phenomenon of counterculture in the political arena and expands the definition of counterculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on interviews with thirty-two black British professionals, and ethnographic work in middle-class cultural spaces across London, this paper asks 'How do the black middle-class use cultural consumption for anti-racism?' I argue that the black middle-class contest the racial hierarchy at three levels through their cultural consumption: the material, the ideological, and the symbolic. At the material level, black middle-class people consume cultural forms they decode as 'white' in order to establish an equity with whites in levels of cultural capital. At the ideological level, black middle-class people consume cultural forms that uplift meanings and representations of blackness, thus challenging controlling images of blackness. Lastly, at the symbolic level, black middle-class folks create and sustain cultural spaces where black people's cultural and symbolic knowledge is given proper recognition and authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to advancing research on a central problem in the sociology of celebrity: the sociopolitical impact of celebrity change. The paper argues for the need for more open‐ended analyses of the sociopolitical impact of contemporary celebrity change. These analyses utilize non‐Western data, avoid techno‐determinism, prioritize questions of why and how celebrity becomes progressive over monolithic assessments, and emphasize the investigation of celebrity's institutional and political contexts. It also supplies a partial solution to operationalize such analyses: focusing on whether and how a given celebrity system is becoming more (or less) democratized. Then it tests this solution by using it to examine Hong Kong celebrity change in the 2000s. My data sources include in‐depth interviews of 32 celebrities and industry insiders, participant observation, informal interviews, audiences' online discourses, and documentary materials. I find that Hong Kong celebrity became less democratized and that it was de‐democratized by six institutional changes: corporate suppression of media‐assisted paths of celebrity‐making, corporate corruption of fame reward systems, 'new ascribed celebrities,' corporate appropriation of celebrity news media, and the state's interference of celebrity. My findings demonstrate the utility of open‐ended analyses and my partial solution for operationalizing them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – In contrast to the dominant accounts in post-Soviet studies that see public and private as two spheres existing in parallel, the purpose of this paper is to argue that in Armenia the public-private dichotomy can be better understood as a spectrum of different kinds of interactions between the state and private actors/social groups representing different sets of socio-cultural values, which are mirrored in Yerevan’s city planning and housing. Design/methodology/approach – The data derives from long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Yerevan. To analyse the data set the author used methods common in social and cultural anthropology. The theoretical background derives from urban anthropology (Liu), theories on housing (Carsten and Hugh-Jones), the anthropology of values (Dumont), and the anthropology of states (Herzfeld) linked to the debate on modernity. Findings – The author demonstrates that basic cultural concepts, norms, expectations, rules, beliefs, and values currently take effect on both sides (public and private/state and people), and that personal networks in Armenia are no longer used to trick an alien state, but also used by the state elites to gain advantage. The degree of intimacy of social relations thereby structures urban space and behaviour. Originality/value – The paper looks at the public-private dichotomy in post-Soviet states from a new perspective, which is inspired by the anthropology of (socio-cultural) values, and argues that cultural intimacy (Herzfeld) is – simultaneously – a unifying and a separating fact in the relationship of states and people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to investigate fake news through the tools of cultural sociology. The paper deals with the topic of fake news focusing on their narratives and hermeneutically possibilities which arise from the meanings of alternative facts. This perspective is investigated in relation to digital practices, shared belief and the polarizations of cultural meanings, amplified and offered by the Web in an increasingly accelerated way. In order to describe it I will take as a case study the wider narrative of Pizzagate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have long argued that institutions like religion or the economy can become relatively distinct spheres that facilitate and constrain action, goal setting, and decision-making. But few empirical studies have looked closely at how institutions become relatively distinct cultural and structural domains. This paper examines how institutional entrepreneurs—in this case, Major League Baseball (MLB) sportswriters—build and sustain institutional boundaries by considering how they create a distinct cultural discourse that infuses baseball places, times, and events with culturally distinct meanings. Drawing from sportswriters’ columns, documentaries, and monographs written on baseball I show that MLB entrepreneurs have developed and disseminated a discourse oriented around the generalized medium of sport exchange, interaction, and communication: competitiveness. Using these data, this article examines how baseball writing becomes quantified and embodied in tangible and intangible forms. Additionally, the paper draws on sport columns that illustrate how MLB entrepreneurs protect the autonomy of a sacred core (the Hall of Fame) from internal threats (gambling and performance-enhancing drugs) and external corruption (the influence of money). The paper ends with a discussion of implications for the applicability of the findings to other sports and institutional domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comedy that challenges race ideology is transformative, widely available, and has the potential to affect processes of identity formation and weaken hegemonic continuity and dominance. Outside of the rules and constraints of serious discourse and cultural production, these comedic corrections thrive on discursive and semiotic ambiguity and temporality. Comedic corrections offer alternate interpretations overlooked or silenced by hegemonic structures and operating modes of cultural common sense. The view that their effects are ephemeral and insignificant is an incomplete and misguided evaluation. Since this paper adopts Hegel's understanding of comedy as the spirit (Geist) made material, its very constitution, and thus its power, resides in exposing the internal thought processes often left unexamined, bringing them into the foreground, dissecting them, and exposing them for ridicule and transformation. In essence, the work of comedy is to consider all points of human processing and related structuration as fair game. The phenomenological nature of comedy calls for a micro-level examination. Select examples from The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1968), The Richard Pryor Show (1977), Saturday Night Live (1990), and Chappelle's Show (2003) will demonstrate representative ways that comedy attacks and transforms racial hegemony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper offers an account of Bourdieu’s rise to sociological ‘stardom’ in the last 30 years, giving special attention to the transnational dimensions of this process. It discusses the scope and relevance of his work to the field (in the making) of cultural sociology, showing how he contributed to its current form. It also presents the articles which constitute the contents of the journal special issue. The paper insists on the importance of assessing both the virtues and limits of Bourdieu’s intellectual legacy through the means of historicization and sociological self-understanding, these being preconditions that allow the furthering of the ‘progress of reason’ which Bourdieu himself located as at the core of scientific endeavours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Starting from the material turn of cultural sociology, this paper focuses on the constructivist value of Cultural Heritage. The concept of iconic power is reinforced through a new interpretation of the artworks, within a theoretical framework that sees communication as the basic unit for the social system construction. In particular, in this study Cultural Heritage is considered not merely as artistic and historical objects, or as a tourist attraction, or a simple symbolic icon, but as a mass medium. In the short term, artworks can become a means of communication for political goals, whereas in the long term they may serve as a means of communication of social identity. To demonstrate this thesis, this article deals with a significant case study: the gilt bronzes from Cartoceto di Pergola. Their vicissitudes cover two thousand years but can be summarized as production, destruction by invaders, discovery, restoration, and the current administrative dispute. Each of these events, through comparative analysis and inductive demonstration, allows us to generalize our reflections to all of Cultural Heritage, to provide a synthesis between the traditional structuralist focus on discursive codes and the material turn of the cultural sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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What constitutes the field of 'cultural sociology' today? Where has it come from, and where is it going? And how has the journal Cultural Sociology played a role in the field over the journal's 15 years of existence? This article comprises a dialogue between one of the current editors, Christopher Thorpe, and one of the founding editors, David Inglis. Reflecting on these questions, the dialogue also touches on major issues in cultural sociology today; these include the continuing legacy of Bourdieu, the presence of Actor Network Theory, differences between critical-theoretical and Yale School conceptions of cultural autonomy, neo-liberalization processes, the status of postcolonial sociological ideas in the field, attempts to decolonize sociological accounts of culture, and the interplay between mainstream and 'productively weird' kinds of cultural sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Moral reasoning research in Western cultures is grounded primarily in Kohlbergian cognitive moral theory. Enumerable investigations about the psychological determinants and cultural dimensions of moral reasoning have provided significant insights about Western decision making and contributed to Western organizational behavioral theory. However, inquiry about these same constructs and how they may interact with moral reasoning in non-Western Southeast Asian trading partner countries has not provided comparable insights. The purpose of this paper is to remedy that by comparing predominant cultural dimensions to levels of moral reasoning in student and graduate populations in Thailand and the USA. Design/methodology/approach – The Defining Issues Test (DIT) measurement of moral reasoning (Rest et al., 1999) and the Values Survey Module (VSM) 2013 (Hofstede and Minkov, 2013) were translated for the first time into Thai, pilot tested, and used to gather cultural and moral reasoning data in Thailand. The same English version instruments were used to gather comparable data among similarly matched US samples. Comparisons are presented in this paper, and differences in approaches to moral decision making are discussed. Findings – Findings indicate that there are both significant psychological and cultural differences between the two nations that affect moral reasoning. Predominant status quo moral reasoning predominates in Thailand, while a polarity between self-interest moral reasoning and higher level abstract idealistic moral reasoning predominates in the USA. Potential cultural influences on these moral reasoning tendencies are discussed. Research limitations/implications – While findings can be generalized to the sample populations of Thai and US undergraduate students and graduate students who are in the workplace, the considerable time required to complete the two survey instruments precluded inclusion of higher level, veteran managers and public policy administrators in the study. Alternative survey methods need to be developed for investigating these subjects in order to make the combined findings more robust and widely generalizable. Practical implications – Careful attention to cultural and linguistic variables provided for thorough and effective first-time translations of the DIT and the VSM 2013 from English into the Thai language. These two instruments are now available to other researchers who wish to investigate cultural dimensions and moral reasoning through other research designs. The Thai-version DIT can be obtained from the copyright holder, Center for the Study of Ethical Development (http://ethicaldevelopment.ua.edu/). The Thai-version of the VSM can be obtained through the Geert Hofstede website (www.geerthofstede.nl/). Social implications – These findings can help researchers in Western and non-Western countries to better understand the foundations upon which moral reasoning in the two countries is grounded, and can provide insights about how individuals in quite different cultures perceive ethical dilemmas in the workplace and public arena and attempt to solve them. The findings also serve as another entry point for business managers and public policy administrators to not only better understand organizational behavior as regards ethical decision making, but general decision making as well. Originality/value – This is the first research study comparing cultural dimensions identified by Geert Hofstede and Michael Minkov as measured by the VSM 2013 to moral reasoning as measured by the DIT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Highlights • Understandings of success among artists in emerging scenes are highly contextual. • Disavowal of economy is not a universal organizing principle of artistic fields. • Institutional composition of artistic fields affects career strategies. • Dominance of noncommercial art institutions can hinder art market development. • Lack of noncommercial art institutions promotes market development at early stages. Abstract This paper examines early career strategies and understandings of success among artists in the two emerging art scenes of Russia and India. It argues that differences in these understandings and strategies are shaped by the institutional composition of the artistic fields in the two countries. The paper is based on in-depth interviews with early career professional artists conducted in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, New Delhi, and Mumbai. It argues that the Bourdieusian disavowal of economic interests is no universal organizing principle of cultural fields but should instead be seen as highly contextual. In particular, it is less prominent in art scenes where few noncommercial contemporary art institutions exist. Thus, in India, where art dealers are the most powerful gatekeepers, artists' career strategies are informed by market logic. Meanwhile, early career professional artists in the Russian art scene do not see the market as a potential driver of their careers. They engage in close relationships with noncommercial art institutions that provide artistic recognition and promote an anti-market orientation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the concern North Americans express about the impact their relatively higher incomes are having on lower income workers in Cuenca, Ecuador. North Americans who retire to Cuenca often perceive their impact to be minimal or benign, yet a large amount of discussion within the community of "expat" migrants is about different ways North Americans are affecting the local economy, and how to minimise these impacts. Of particular concern is the racialised price system that migrants perceive to be in effect. North Americans racialise their economic impact, seeing "gringo pricing," rather than their higher incomes, as a threat to the receiving community. Participants evoked moral codes to discuss price levels, and sought to diminish their impact – not merely out of concern for Ecuadorians who might be displaced by higher prices, but out of a sense of ruining the authenticity of Cuenca, a UNESCO World Heritage site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to facilitate more adequate critical engagement with current affairs events by journalists, and with current affairs texts by audiences. It draws on social theory to provide the intellectual resources to enable this. The academic ambition is for the framework to be adopted and developed by social thinkers in producing exemplary critical readings of news and current affairs texts. To this end it is offered as a research paradigm. The paper situates its argument in relation to the wider literature in media and cultural studies, acknowledging the subtle skills required to appreciate the relative autonomy of texts. However, it draws attention to the lack of an adequate perspective with which to assess the frames, representations, and judgments within news and current affairs texts. To address this lacuna it proposes the conception of a social-theoretical frame, based on a number of meta-theoretical approaches, designed to provide audiences with a systematic means of addressing the status and adequacy of individual texts. Social theoretical frames can reveal the shortcomings of media framing of the contextual fields within which news and current affairs events take place. Two illustrative case studies are used to indicate the value and potential of the approach: the analysis of a short newspaper report of the return of protesters to Cairo's Tahrir Square in 2011, and a critique of four current affairs reports from various genres on the political turmoil in Thailand leading up to the clashes of May 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper integrates the US civil sphere, European media as practice, and social psychological literatures to demonstrate how people construct their own civil purity and become pure. It uses in-depth interview data to uncover a language of civil purity that people draw on to construct their own belonging in civil society. It argues that some people create an imagined public-at-large that they infuse with polluting qualities associated with the binary cultural codes of civil society. This image functions as a mental heuristic, against which people compare themselves and see themselves as ‘better than’ on a number of moral values associated with civil society. This process of constructing civil purity is linked to one of the civil sphere’s two fundamental social institutions, namely communication. As a form of nonfiction media with record lows in trust and credibility, the mainstream news serves as a social topic through which we can witness the construction of civil purity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a great deal of literature has looked at how individuals respond to stigma, far less has been written about how professional groups address challenges to their self-perception as abiding by clear moral standards. In this paper, we ask how professional group members maintain a positive self-perception in the face of moral stigma. Drawing on pragmatic and cultural sociology, we claim that professional communities hold narratives that link various aspects of the work their members perform with specific understanding of the common good. These narratives allow professionals to maintain a shared view of their work as benefitting society and to perceive themselves as moral individuals. As a case study, we focus on the advertising industry, which has long been stigmatized as complicit in exploitative capitalist mechanisms and cultural degradation. We draw on nine total months of fieldwork and seventy-four interviews across three US advertising agencies. We find that advertising practitioners use narratives to present their work as contributing to the common good, depicting themselves as moral individuals who care about others in the process. We analyze three prevalent narratives: the account-driven narrative, which links moral virtue to caring for clients; the creative-driven narrative, which ties caring to the production of meaningful advertisements; and the strategic-driven narrative, which sees caring in finding meaningful relationships for consumers and brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its enduring insights, Durkheim’s theory of suicide fails to account for a significant set of cases because of its overreliance on structural forces to the detriment of other possible factors. In this paper, we develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the role of culture in vulnerability to suicide. We argue that by focusing on the cultural dynamics of excessive regulation, particularly at the meso level, a more robust sociological model for suicide could be offered that supplements structure-heavy Durkheimian theory. In essence, we argue that the relevance of cultural regulation to suicide rests on the (1) degree to which culture is coherent in sociocultural places, (2) existence of directives related to prescribing or proscribing suicide, (3) degree to which these directives translate into internalized meanings affecting social psychological processes, and (4) degree to which the social space is bounded. We then illustrate how our new theory provides useful insights into three cases of suicide largely neglected within sociology: specifically, suicide clusters in high schools, suicide in the military, and suicides of “despair” among middle-aged white men. We conclude with implications for future sociological research on suicide and suicide prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This article studies how an artwork's referencing of creative content affects its peer recognition in Hollywood filmmaking. • It asks whether and to what extent a film's referencing of artistic content from earlier films conditions its chances of being referenced. • The author analyzes reference styles of 5555 U.S. American movies released between 1930 and 1995 and shows how artistic standards emerged during the new Hollywood movement in the 1960s. • The findings of this article offer new insights for sociologists of culture and organizations who ask how an artwork's embeddedness into the cultural space affects its recognition by contemporary peer audiences. How does an artwork's referencing of creative content affect its peer recognition? Artists constantly seek to balance the tension between originality and conformity. Previous research argues that peers tend to reward socially well-embedded artists that signal community involvement and literacy of established conventions. Another stream of sociological research argues that the criteria for peer recognition are not fixed but depend on a cultural field's legitimacy. This paper examines the emerging and shifting standards of peer recognition throughout 70 years in U.S. American filmmaking. I ask whether and to what extent a film's referencing of artistic content from earlier films, such as snippets of dialog or camera shots, conditions its chances of being referenced. I analyze reference styles of 5,555 U.S. American movies released between 1930 and 1995 and show how artistic standards emerged during the New Hollywood movement in the 1960s. While films of the New Hollywood (1960–1979) and Blockbuster Era (1980–1995) were rewarded for signaling cultural literacy and openness in their reference styles, these standards did not apply yet to Golden Age filmmakers (1930–1959). These findings offer new insights for sociologists of culture and organizations who ask how an artwork's embeddedness into the cultural space affects its recognition by contemporary peer audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ICT adoption is predominantly considered as a process conditioned by social structures, social situations of adopters, and attributes and features of technologies. What is often overlooked are the cultural forces that shape adoption experiences and processes. This paper focuses on events and event narratives as vehicles through which the efficacy of culture unfolds in technological change processes. Cultural sociology has shown how influential events can be for forming public opinions and facilitating collective action. This article considers the power of one event on a much smaller scale: the passage of same-sex marriage (SSM) law in New York in June 2011 was not only significant for marriage equality in the US but also for the operating logic of the news ecosystem in which the political decision was made ‒ the state house in Albany. For the journalists who covered this event on the ground, the SSM decision was the catalyst to fully embrace Twitter. Years later, the event still served as an exemplar for the potentials of Twitter and as a basis of legitimacy of associated tweeting practices reporters incorporated. This contribution is based on ethnographic research at the state house in Albany, analysis of tweets and legacy news coverage published during that period, and in-depth interviews with reporters. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses the potential of bringing biographical and cultural sociology together in the analysis of the political lives of refugee non-citizens. Our analysis is based on empirical research conducted in two regions outside the capital areas of Austria and Czechia. The conceptual focus is on modes of political participation and if and how they shift during the migration experience. To explore the political lives of refugee non-citizens, we call upon complementary theories, on alternative forms of (non)citizenship and on the autonomy of migration and asylum as regards agency in the everyday practices of people who cross borders. The findings show that our research participants' political lives tend to remain rather untouched by the migration experience itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a social phenomenon, artificial intelligence (AI) is not just technically but also culturally constructed. This article investigates the meaning-making of AI in the case of AlphaGo by employing and refining cultural sociological narrative analysis. Building on Smith's structural model of genre, whose horizontal axis reflects varying degrees of (dis-)enchantment, I propose an extended model of narrative genre, adding a vertical axis on the theoretical basis of Durkheim's distinction between pure and impure sacred, to account for the empirical bifurcation between utopian and dystopian AI narratives. While critical approaches to AI, prevalent in sociology, tend to offer disenchanted narratives, my cultural sociological approach allows for the construction of a meta-narrative, which is able to capture not only enchantment as well as disenchantment but also purification and impurification as empirical processes that accompany the emergence and consolidation of new technologies. This approach is exemplified by a case study of AlphaGo, a Go-playing program utilizing machine learning and neural networks, which gained global prominence and cultural significance after beating a human grandmaster in 2016. Drawing on publicly available online data, this article investigates the discourses surrounding AlphaGo, focusing on its cultural construction through storytelling and genre. I not only show how characters and events were emplotted in different stories, which were in turn embedded in broader narratives about technological progress and AI, but also explain how the development of the main storyline was driven by in-game performances, audience expectations and collective representations. The article demonstrates the feasibility of a cultural sociology of AI and the usefulness of my extended model of narrative genre, which is not only applicable to AI discourses but other domains as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the cultural prerequisites for the creation of social cohesion, with particular reference to Denmark, a nation that has been found to exhibit strong social cohesion. Design/methodology/approach – The different cultural elements that characterize a society with strong cohesion are investigated and an argument is presented as to how cohesion can be conserved. Findings – Culture is understood as a social order based on mainly informal norms. Of these, trust is vital in creating social cohesion. However, trust occurs only under specific conditions, and in this regard the Danish nation, understood as a cultural community, is of interest. There is in Denmark a strong civil society characterized by honesty, reliability, and mutuality, which historically is due to the existence of several civil movements. In contrast to the idea that society can be integrated through policy initiatives, it is proposed that social cohesion occurs precisely because of the existence of a certain culture. Originality/value – The cultural and national aspect of trust is often underestimated in scientific research. The paper shows the value of culture and national community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to re-read Marx's oeuvre through the cultural narrative of the Golem. It suggests that this narrative reappeared in the writings of Karl Marx throughout his career. There are three typical parts in this narrative: (a) the will of men to be empowered; (b) the use of a non-human material instrument to garner this power; culminating in (c) the instrument developing an autonomous spirit, which fatefully makes it turn against its master, leading to personal alienation and social destruction. This paper shows that the three-part composition of the Golem reappears in Marx's writings while focusing on four major topics: the dialectical analysis of history; the historical development of capitalism and its expected eventual demise; the theory of alienation; and his conception of the fetishism of machines, money, and commodities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following Reed (2010, 2011), we can think of ethnography as the encounter between two sets of meanings: those of the ethnographer on those of the subjects whose lives are being studied. If we are able to recognize the contested, unfinished, reflexive and complex character of how people think about themselves, we should be able to imagine ourselves in the same terms and go into the field armed with a theoretical helmet with interchangeable lenses, imagining which theoretical concepts would best fit the case. In this paper, I develop how this approach finds a fruitful analogue in psychoanalysis as a practical endeavor that produces a particular kind of truth; what we can learn from that equivalency; how this epistemological approach works in parallel to Reed’s plea for theoretical pluralism; and what are then the consequences of this book for practitioners of cultural ethnography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]