SOCI1001: Introduction to Sociology

Lecture 5: Culture as a fundamental concept in sociology

Date: October 4, 2023

Instructor: Dr. HAN, Sinn Won

Ethics of social research (continued from the last week)

● Discussions on ethical issues are often marginalized from the process of social research

● However, the moral integrity of the research is a prime aspect of ensuring that the research
process is trustworthy and valid

● In the United States, there was no codified research ethics until the National Research Act of
1974 was passed
● This act identified the basic ethical principles that should underlie the conduct of research involving human subjects

● Unfortunately, the adoption of the Act of 1974 had been built on disastrous breaches of ethical
values
● Stanley Milgram Experiment (1961): Obedience to authority
● Stanford Prison Experiment (1971): The power of the social situation 2
Ethics of social research

● The Milgram Experiment (1961): Obedience to authority

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Ethics of social research

● The Stanford Prison Experiment (1971): The power of the social situation

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 Ethics of social research

● Rules we should keep in mind when doing research involving human subjects
1) Do no harm to your human subject, whether it is physical, emotional, or psychological
2) Get informed consent – your subjects have a right to enter research with full information about
what it means for them to participate in the research
3)
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Ensure voluntary participation – your subjects have a right to enter and leave the research freely

● Major research misconducts (aka “deadly sins” of research conduct)

1) 源造 Falsification: The changing or omission of research results (data) to support a particular claim
2) Fabrication: The construction and/or addition of data or observations that never occurred the
gathering of the data 鳩整⾃製
3) 奶襲unintentionally
Plagiarism: Using the work of others as your own work constitutes plagiarism, even if committed
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 Today’s agenda:
Culture in sociology (Textbook Chapters 3-4)

• What is culture?
• Media, culture, and society
• Socialization and social interaction
• The construction of reality (next week)

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Culture in sociology

● The sociological study of culture and society began with Durkheim and Weber in the 19th
century
● For instance, Weber allowed for culture (i.e., religious ideas) to have an independent effect on the economy
● Durkheim argued that culture (e.g., norms, customs) helps link individuals in social solidarity
● The work of early sociologists reflected the values of highly educated Europeans
● They often assumed that “primitive” cultures lagged behind modern European “civilization”

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Culture in sociology

● The sociological study of culture and society began with Durkheim and Weber in the 19th
century
● For instance, Weber allowed for culture (i.e., religious ideas) to have an independent effect on the economy
● Durkheim argued that culture (e.g., norms, customs) helps link individuals in social solidarity
● The work of early sociologists reflected the values of highly educated Europeans
● They often assumed that “primitive” cultures lagged behind modern European “civilization”

● However, two destructive world wars helped discredit this Western-centrism

● How could the barbaric, anti-humanistic wars be possible among civilized European countries?
野
● Sociologists now recognize that there are many cultures, each with distinctive characteristics
● The task of sociology is to understand the diversity, which is done by avoiding value judgments (cultural relativism)
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What is culture?

● Non-sociologists’ notions of culture = Popular culture, high culture, media, art, …

● When sociologists say about culture, they usually mean much more comprehensive,
complicated, and vague things …

● Culture in its broadest sense = “Everything but nature”

● Basically, culture refers to the ways of life of individual members within a society

● Culture consists of both non-material culture and material culture. Non-material culture includes the
values the members of a group hold, the norms they follow, and the languages and symbols they

⑲
use to construct their understanding of the world. Material culture includes our constructed and
physical environment, including technology. 9
What is culture?

● Elements of culture
● Material culture: The physical objects that a society creates, including technology
● Nonmaterial culture: Values & Norms
● Values = Abstract ideals or moral beliefs that members of a society hold in high regard
e.g., “We value hygiene in our society.”

● Norms = Principles or rules of social life that everyone is expected to observe in their behaviors
e.g., “We value hygiene in our society, so it is a norm that you wash your hands after going to bathroom”

● Material culture & non-material culture are mutually constitutive 本構性的

● Non-material culture (values, norms) can affect the development of material culture
● Material culture may, in turn, affect culture 10
How do values and norms affect us?

● HSBC Headquarters Building (Central, HK)

● Designed by British architect Norman Foster in 1985

● At that time, the most expensive building in the world

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● Considered as an exemplar of “high-tech architecture”

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How do values and norms affect us?

Foster: Feng Shui (風⽔): An ancient Chinese traditional practice that use energy
forces to harmonize individuals with their surrounding environments
“I’m going to build a
magnificent building at
the center location of Feng Shui Master:
HK!” “Positive qi (氣,energy) flows on
that ground. If you erect a building
there and block the flow of qi, Hong
Kong will go bankrupt.”

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How do values and norms affect us?

Foster:
“Okay, I understand that Feng Shui Master:
Hongkongers VALUE Feng “Yes. In Hong Kong, it is a
Shui so much. I will try to NORM for architects and
design one that city planners to abide by
incorporates Feng Shui Feng Shui practices.
principles.”

As a result,
the entire HSBC building was
designed in heavy
collaboration with trained
Feng Shui geomancers.

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How do values and norms affect us?
Foster:
“Instead of ground floor, the
building has a high, hollow
atrium that invites positive
qi (energy) inside.”
Foster:
“In order for the office floors to
be raised off the ground, we
invent an innovative structural
design that is called an open
suspended steel structure.”
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How do our material/physical environments, in turn, affect culture?

● HSBC Headquarters Building on Sunday

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How do our material/physical environments, in turn, affect culture?

● HSBC Headquarters Building on Sunday

● Thousands of foreign domestic workers spend their Sundays day-off with friends at HSBC where they can take
shelter from the rain, eat together, dance, relax, exchange information, provide emotional support, …
● The massive atrium serves as a locus to create immigrants’ subculture in Hong Kong

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A supplementary story: Feng Shui and Bank of China Tower

● Bank of China Tower (Central, HK)

● Designed by Chinese-born American architect Ieoh
Ming Pei in 1990

● Feng Shui masters urged to Pei to cancel/modify the

design of the building, but Pei stick to his original plan

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Media, culture & society

● Media are any formats that carry, present, or communicate information

● Media has a powerful impact on our lives, shaping our beliefs, behaviors, and social interactions
● The Vietnam War (1955-75) was the first time the images of war were broadcast into most people’s living rooms
These images helped Americans turn against the Vietnam War
● Mass media, especially TV and radio, played fundamental role in assisting the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s
● Instagram and Twitter (#JusticeforGeorgyFloyd) facilitated the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S.

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Media, culture & society

● The combination of the media and political power often exerted a disastrous impact on society
● The Nazis consolidated their political power from the mass media
● Political propaganda was one of the most important tools the Nazis used to shape the values and
beliefs of the German public. Through the media such as posters, magazines, films, cartoons, and
radio news, they spread the Nazi ideas to German public to gain acceptance of their vision for the
future of Germany

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Media, culture & society

● The concept “hegemony” is very important for understanding the impact of the media
● Hegemony (a concept proposed by an Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, 1891-1937) is a process in which a
dominant group exercises moral and intellectual leadership throughout society by obtaining the voluntary consent of
the masses
● The media hegemony theory, derived from Gramsci, argues that the leading elite group controls the mass media
● And the mass media serves as a crucial shaper of culture and values of society by promoting the ideology of
the elite group (“History is written by the winners”, see textbook)

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Media, culture & society

● The concept “hegemony” is very important for understanding the impact of the media
● Hegemony (a concept proposed by an Italian communist Antonio Gramsci, 1891-1937) is a process in which a
dominant group exercises moral and intellectual leadership throughout society by obtaining the voluntary consent of
the masses
● The media hegemony theory, derived from Gramsci, argues that the leading elite group controls the mass media
● And the mass media serves as a crucial shaper of culture and values of society by promoting the ideology of
the elite group (“History is written by the winners”, see textbook)
● In the 1970s, Herbert Gans (American sociologist at Columbia University) argued that the social order carried in the
news reflects the order of the upper and upper-middle class
News decisionmakers at the mainstream news media (e.g., NBC, CBS, the Post) are overwhelmingly white,
upper-middle class, conservative males, so TV and print journalism can be seen as a form of elite discourse that
promotes and maintains political, ideological, and economic hierarchies enacted by elite journalists
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班新聞使全部⾼級 → 講的野播新聞未必涉及顧應到低層想法
How the internet media affect our mind

● Young generations now are no longer watching TV news, no longer reading print newspapers, …

● Does this mean that the mass media has lost their grip on people?

● How do the Internet-based new media affect our beliefs, values, cognitions, and eventually our culture?

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How the internet media affect our mind

● Young generations now are no longer watching TV news, no longer reading print newspapers, …

● Does this mean that the mass media has lost their grip on people?

● How do the Internet-based new media affect our beliefs, values, cognitions, and eventually our culture?

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How the internet media affect our mind

● Young generations now are no longer watching TV news, no longer reading print newspapers, …

● Does this mean that the mass media has lost their grip on people?

● How do the Internet-based new media affect our beliefs, values, cognitions, and eventually our culture?

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How the internet media affect our mind

● Filter bubbles
o Algorithm-based bias that skews or limits information an individual sees on the internet

o Since what we see in our newsfeed is entirely determined by what we clicked through before (or what
our friends liked), we risk never seeing new information that conflicts with our preexisting views and
perceptions
⼀單新聞 你第完就已短停⼀唯個立場
,

o “It is not a healthy algorithm for a democratic society” (see Textbook)

o Implications of filter bubbles on political polarization: Exposure to like-minded political content can
potentially polarize people or strengthen the attitudes of people with existing partisan attitudes

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Socialization

● Socialization is the process by which individuals internalize the values, beliefs, and norms of a
given society and learn to function as members of that society 被社富化
● Sociologists considers that socialization occurs in two broad phases, involving various agents of
socialization
● Primary socialization occurs in infancy and childhood and is the most intense period of cultural learning
● Secondary socialization occurs later in childhood and in maturity by schools, peer groups, the media, the workplace

➢ Remember that we shouldn’t be deterministic regarding the role of socialization

● Human beings have “agency”
● We make choices about how to interact with our environment
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Socialization

● Agents of socialization:
● Families are the primary location of socialization
● But remember! It’s a “two-way” process: “Parents Children” & “Children Parents”
● The socialization that occurs in families is contingent on social class (Annette Lareau’s research – Tutorial 6)

● When children enter school, school becomes the primary locus of socialization
● Peer groups and teachers become the reference groups
● The socialization process in school is inequality-prone (private boarding school vs. public school)

● Adult socialization (or re-socialization) is the process by which one’s sense of values, beliefs, and
social norms are reengineered through a life-long socialization 27
Socialization

● Total institutions: A unique type of re-socialization agents

● Total institution is an institution in which one is totally immersed and that controls all the basics of day-to-day life
● Total institutions serve the purpose of resocialization and/or rehabilitation

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Social interaction and socialization

● Social interaction provides us the means by which we become able to see ourselves through the
eyes of others, and how we fit into the larger world
● All social interaction takes place within an organized social structure (which we will learn next week!)

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● Robert Merton’s role theory is the key framework for understanding social interaction
● Status: A social position that an individual occupies (ascribed & achieved statuses status set)
● Master status: One status within a set that stands out or overrides all others
● Roles: The duties & behaviors expected of someone who holds a particular status
如果⼀個⼈不能把⾃⼰的⾓⾊扮演好，他就會
● Role strain: The incompatibility among roles corresponding to a single status 有 ⾓⾊緊張

● Role conflict: The tension caused by competing demands between two or more roles 29
Social interaction and socialization

● Gender roles (the most popular sociological concept evolved from the role theory)
● Individuals are socialized differently by gender
● Dressing baby boys in blue and baby girls in pink is one small way we convey messages about differences in
gender roles
● Gender roles are not a static concept (e.g., changing concepts of masculinity and femininity)

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See you next week!

Slides templates:
Ma, G. Y. K., Choi, C., & Yeung, P. P. S. (2023) PowerPoint template.
#IDEALeaders Self-learning Series: Co-creation of virtual learning
accessibility. HKU Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.25442/hku.22683433

4/10/2023

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