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The Pop Culture Self Robert Wonser SOC 86 Fall 2013 Lesson Overview • The link between music, identity, self, and the life course • The concept of self • The concept of identity • Music as a symbolic resource for biographical work Music as a tool for reciprocal socialization • Socialization is not one-way, but instead reciprocal • Family members socialize one another into multiple roles. This is a form of role-making. • A role is a part an individual plays within a social setting. • Music is a powerful tool for role-making and an important component of youth culture. Music as a tool for reciprocal socialization - continued • Children experience popular music also as a way of learning about their parents’ culture. • Similarly, adolescents experience music to extend childhood. • Adults often experience rock ‘n’ roll to relive childhood. • Music aids in parenting, especially in bonding with children. • Music also serves a leisure space and as a tool for religious, moral, and historical socialization. Music is a Socializing Force • Music is not a direct cause of social problems, but a socialization agent. • In what ways has music served, and is music playing a factor in your socialization? • Has music ever served as a tool for bonding in your family? • In what social contexts do you see popular music as a potential source of social problems? Conspicuous consumption: the case of Hot Topic • Music-related merchandise has grown massively in volume and choice. • The chain store Hot Topic has a vast catalogue: a system of commodities available for the presentation of the musical self. • In purchasing these commodities many customers are arguably more interested in impression management than authenticity. Displaying or Presenting the Self • Presentation of self in everyday life. • Impression management - a goal-directed conscious or unconscious process in which people attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event; they do so by regulating and controlling information in social interaction (Piwinger & Ebert 2001, pp. 1–2). • It is usually used synonymously with self-presentation, in which a person tries to influence the perception of their image. • How does something like popular culture help us to accomplish our self presentations? Music as a commercial technology • Music is used in a variety of contexts, for a great variety of functions. • When we understand music as a means to an end we can conceptualize it as a form of technology. • In this sense, music is often used for the commercialization of human feelings. • Emotion work Hochschild’s term for the work required to manage one’s emotions as part of their job • How is music related to emotions? Music as a commercial technology: the case of holiday music • Music serves well the purpose of creating a holiday ambiance. • This contributes at least in part to the maintenance of public order and the growth of the world’s economy. • Yet Christmas music is not the only type of commercial “functional” music. • Consider wedding music, workout music, store muzaak, etc. Community • Music is a form of communication: a creation of community. • The formation of polity—another word for political community—is grounded in discourse. • Discourse is a term referring to the whole of communicative exchanges taking place amongst people. • Discourse is not only made of talk and words, but also musical sounds. • Music is effective in producing both a sense of self and identity as well as a sense of communal inclusion—though participation—to community. • What does wearing your favorite bands t-shirt allow for? Community: Dora and children • Dora’s audience is composed primarily of infants, toddlers, and other pre-schoolaged children and young elementary school-aged children; girls and boys. • The key ingredient of Dora’s recipe for success is repetition: the core of ritual. • By partaking in Dora’s rituals children participate to the creation of a mediated form of fellowship. • Singing with Dora is a “sacred ceremony that draws [children] together in fellowship and commonality” (Carey 1992:18). Reflection • Community is made by people in interaction. • As John Dewey (1916:5) explained “society exists not only by transmission, by communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication.” • What role do ideologies of technological reproduction and performance play in different musical genres? • In what other ways is American Idol truly American? • What other musical rituals are at the center of community-formation? Music and the Self • Genetic factors play only a minimal role in the psychosocial development of a person • Our socialization takes place instead through various interactions throughout the life course • Music plays an important factor throughout the life course for self and identity development, as well as an anchor for telling the story of one’s self The self • The self is an important factor in cultural sociology because it highlights human agency • Agency can be understood as human will and the meaningfulness of being • The self comes into being through reflection • The self is a process of being a subject and an object of human action • The subject, or knower, is referred to as the “I” • The object, or known, is referred to as the “me” Identity • The self is a process, and identities are shapes the process takes throughout the life course. • Identities are therefore typifications of the self • A social identity is assigned to an individual by other people • A personal identity is constructed by an individual in relation to how he/she views him/herself in relation to others • A situational identity is a momentary identity which changes from social setting to setting The life course • A life course is a temporal trajectory of individual experiences. • It is rather difficult to identify fixed life stages. • Interactionists examine how individuals assign meanings to their progression through life: • Holstein and Gubrium (2003: 836) write that: “(1) age and life stages, like any temporal categories, can carry multiple meanings; (2) those meanings emerge from social interaction; and (3) the meanings of age and the course of life are refined and reinterpreted in light of the prevailing social definitions of situations that bear on experience through time.” • The life course is therefore about the becoming of self. The becoming of self • Music provides a set or symbolic resources for the definition and reinterpretation of identities. • In other words through music we continuously self ourselves into being. • For existential sociologists the self can be seen “as a unique experience of being within the context of contemporary social conditions, an experience…marked by an incessant sense of becoming and an active participation in social change” (Kotarba 1984, p. 223). • Middle-aged North Americans work with a self built to some degree on the meanings provided by rock’n’roll Experiences of self • Experience of self, in relation to music, common in the lives of baby boomers show that; • Musical resources for self-construction are increasingly available through electronic media • Music serves to shape and convey feelings of love and intimacy • Music facilitates parenting • Music serves as tool for the moral development and political involvement of self Discussion / Exercise • Music serves an important function in biographic work and the development of self and identity • How important is music in the lives of adult figures you know? • How do musical tastes change throughout the life course? • Write down your favorite 5 artists/songs and why you like them.