Culture as Meaning
This approach to culture emphasizes meanings embedded in interactions. It gained popularity among scholars, especially in sociology, in the last decades of the 20th century and continues to be a common perspective for social scientists studying culture today. Cultural sociologists tend to approach culture in this way, as being created by shared meaning-making processes and embedded in and used during interactions. As such, this approach does not envision one coherent Culture in a society but a diversity of cultures ensuing from a diversity of meaning-making processes. Culture is regarded as a “social construction” rather than an objective reality (Crane 1994). Although scholars in this vein regard culture as a construction, they are simultaneously aware of the power of culture to influence individual and institutional behavior. From this perspective, culture is a product of meaning-making processes but itself “possesses a relative autonomy in shaping actions and institutions” (Alexander 2003:12).
Many contemporary sociologists and social psychologists examining culture tend to invoke this approach. DiMaggio and Markus (2010) characterize culture as "comprising social representations, mental models, and ordering schemata (Ridgeway 2006) and the environmental conditions...that sustain or challenge them" (p. 349).
The Power of Cultural Meanings to Influence Health and Well-Being
There are many ways to theorize mechanisms of culture's power. For example, the sheer ubiquity of media images feeds into beliefs that "others" must be influenced by media content. Milkie has argued that the perception that media influence others has effects on individuals, whether they "buy into" to the media portrayals or not. For instance, in her study of the effects of images in magazines on adolescent girls, Milkie (1999) found that even when girls criticized the images as unrealistic, they nonetheless negatively affected the teenagers who believed their peers would still compare them to the magazine ideals (in this case, whites but not African-Americans). Thus, although they themselves identified the images as inauthentic, thinking that others might be less discerning or less critical, the teenagers still held the images as a point of reference to judge themselves negatively. Hartley and colleagues (2014) suggest that Milkie's Presumed Media Influence theory can help reconcile the view of the media a powerful influence, without undermining the agency of the audiences.
References
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003.The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Crane, Diana. 1994. "Introduction: The Challenge of the Sociology of Culture to Sociology as a Discipline." Pp. 1-20 in The Sociology of Culture, edited by Diana Crane. Oxford: Blackwell.
DiMaggio, Paul and Hazel Rose Markus. 2010. "Culture and Social Psychology: Converging Perspectives." Social Psychology Quarterly 73:347-52.
Hartley, Jane, Daniel Wight and Kate Hunt. 2014. "Are Some Media Influences More Presumed than Others?: Teenagers' Construction of Gender Identity Through their Sexual/romantic Relationships and Alcohol Consumption." Sociology of Health and Illness.
Milkie, Melissa A. 1999. "Social Comparisons, Reflected Appraisals, and Mass Media: The Impact of Pervasive Beauty Images on Black and White Girls' Self-Concepts." Social Psychology Quarterly 62:190-210.
Ridgeway, Cecilia. 2006. "Social Structure and Interpersonal Behavior: A Theoretical Perspective on Cultural Schemas and Social Relations." Social Psychology Quarterly 69:5-16.
Many contemporary sociologists and social psychologists examining culture tend to invoke this approach. DiMaggio and Markus (2010) characterize culture as "comprising social representations, mental models, and ordering schemata (Ridgeway 2006) and the environmental conditions...that sustain or challenge them" (p. 349).
The Power of Cultural Meanings to Influence Health and Well-Being
There are many ways to theorize mechanisms of culture's power. For example, the sheer ubiquity of media images feeds into beliefs that "others" must be influenced by media content. Milkie has argued that the perception that media influence others has effects on individuals, whether they "buy into" to the media portrayals or not. For instance, in her study of the effects of images in magazines on adolescent girls, Milkie (1999) found that even when girls criticized the images as unrealistic, they nonetheless negatively affected the teenagers who believed their peers would still compare them to the magazine ideals (in this case, whites but not African-Americans). Thus, although they themselves identified the images as inauthentic, thinking that others might be less discerning or less critical, the teenagers still held the images as a point of reference to judge themselves negatively. Hartley and colleagues (2014) suggest that Milkie's Presumed Media Influence theory can help reconcile the view of the media a powerful influence, without undermining the agency of the audiences.
References
Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003.The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Crane, Diana. 1994. "Introduction: The Challenge of the Sociology of Culture to Sociology as a Discipline." Pp. 1-20 in The Sociology of Culture, edited by Diana Crane. Oxford: Blackwell.
DiMaggio, Paul and Hazel Rose Markus. 2010. "Culture and Social Psychology: Converging Perspectives." Social Psychology Quarterly 73:347-52.
Hartley, Jane, Daniel Wight and Kate Hunt. 2014. "Are Some Media Influences More Presumed than Others?: Teenagers' Construction of Gender Identity Through their Sexual/romantic Relationships and Alcohol Consumption." Sociology of Health and Illness.
Milkie, Melissa A. 1999. "Social Comparisons, Reflected Appraisals, and Mass Media: The Impact of Pervasive Beauty Images on Black and White Girls' Self-Concepts." Social Psychology Quarterly 62:190-210.
Ridgeway, Cecilia. 2006. "Social Structure and Interpersonal Behavior: A Theoretical Perspective on Cultural Schemas and Social Relations." Social Psychology Quarterly 69:5-16.
