This paper examines the musical boundaries that emerge from the distinct consumption patterns of rap audiences. Using the actual listening histories of around 1000 French users of the music streaming platform Deezer, we apply dimensionality reduction and clustering methods to explore the musical boundaries that emerge from distinctive audience consumption patterns, with a particular focus on rap music

In this paper we reimagine linear regression modeling as a relational method for cultural analysis. Drawing on the dual-to-regression analytic approach (Schoon, Melamed & Breiger, 2024), we argue that the fundamental building blocks in a regression equation are not single variables, but configurations of variables manifested by clusters of cases. In a study of peer effects and achievement in an academic

This Research Notes piece explores how journalists use digital platforms to shift conversations about a single event into broader critiques about their industry. In this paper, we document this shift in the case of Audie Cornish’s departure from National Public Radio. We analyze a corpus of 7886 tweets related to her 2022 move from public radio to CNN. How did journalists respond to the event via digital

Culture is a relational concept, and the empirical manifestations of culture are worth being analysed in a structural vein to unveil the patterns of relations constituting them. Critical to exploring the intersections of culture and structure are relational methodologies, especially geometric data analysis (GDA) and social network analysis (SNA). Over the years, these two perspectives – as distinct

Classical music orchestras are vital to the cultural scenes of both Germany and USA. Despite ongoing discussions on musical canon, gender equality, and repertoire innovation, empirical studies on the actual frequency of performances of individual classical music works in both countries are scarce. In this study, concert programs of professional orchestras from the 2019/20 and 2023/24 seasons were collected

Classical Western thought presupposes a value realism, in which values and meanings are part of the “furniture of things.” Ushering in a radical change in the locus of thought, a modern dualistic metaphysics generally rejects external sources of value in favor of understanding meaning and value as a subjective projection of the individual. Because the subject's interiority is the exclusive source of

Sociological research on culture has long conceptualized categorical differentiation in terms of relational “distances” and relied on network imagery to describe the structural properties of fields of cultural production and consumption. Partly constrained by research design, extant research on relational similarity often focuses on either one-mode social networks, or two-mode cultural affiliation

The cross-use of network and geometric data analyses helps understand how the circulation of symbolic goods is structured. It follows specific logic, intersecting economic and symbolic planes in shaping spaces that do not entirely align with political borders. Both help map circulation spaces and understand their operational logic, aiming to visualize the proximities and/or distances between different

Even though participation in the arts (a.k.a. hobbies) of employed persons has risen steadily since the early twentieth century, research has not systematically explored the relationship between occupations and hobbies. We address this gap by investigating the intersection and cultural co-constitution of these two forms of engagement by drawing on Breiger's influential work on duality. We introduce

Cultural objects possess varying degrees of cultural power, defined as their capacity to directly or indirectly shape beliefs and behavior. Research on cultural objects has identified various ways cultural objects possess cultural power, such as by evoking meanings and emotions and stabilizing and disrupting collective practices. This paper extends research on cultural power by investigating how the

How do status orders emerge in cultural fields? Our study sheds new light on this question by investigating the interplay of networks and status among Hollywood filmmakers from 1920 to 2000. Information on artistic references and collaborations of more than 9,500 filmmakers retrieved from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) allows us to examine long-term changes in the social organization of this cultural

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of practices and activities that involve artists and designers as change agents in cross-sector partnerships. These practices are often considered separate from artists’ core activities and remain underexplored in research. This paper aims to classify these practices into a typology, beginning with a conceptual framework informed by initial perceptions of

Sociologists have persuasively argued that cultural meaning can be interpreted by analyzing the systems of relations that measure the so-called ‘going together’ of cultural materials. Research investigating cultural tastes and preferences has used this approach to interpret consumption patterns as relational systems using a variety of techniques including multidimensional scaling, two-mode network

This paper examines how festivals organize the abundance of their offerings. We argue that festivals organize this abundance differently depending on the interplay between organizers, artists, and festivalgoers as they negotiate their respective autonomy. The concept of ‘shuffling,’ inspired by digital music listening, serves as a framework to empirically explore this dynamic within the context of

Numerous studies have shown a positive relationship between reading fiction and Theory of Mind (ToM) in children and young adults. However, there is little evidence to evaluate how reading habits relate to ToM in older adults. Also, nearly all studies exploring this topic have focused only on Western participants. In the current study of 229 participants, we tested whether age groups (young vs older

The South Korean film industry is known for its prevalence of social problem films (SPFs), a genre that focuses on societal issues and injustices as its main themes. This study examines which structural characteristics of directors make them play the role of social critics by choosing SPFs, contributing to its prevalence in Korea. Specifically, we focus on the stability difference between status and

This study takes the well-established finding that sociology departments are ordered by a stable status hierarchy and investigates the relation of this hierarchy to the discipline's subfields. Using data drawn from the 2001 and 2020 editions of the American Sociological Association's Guide to Graduate Departments, we show that subfields are not uniformly distributed across departments, but that certain

Analyses of writers’ political orientations have typically focused on individual authors’ works and trajectories. Inspired by Bourdieu's field theory and by Sapiro's works on the French literary field, this article demonstrates how the Norwegian writers’ position-takings during WW II were related to their locations in two other sets of structures: the structures in the Norwegian field of literary practices

Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and surveys, this study of a makerspace investigates social closure—processes by which groups maintain exclusive control over resources and opportunities—in an organization rejecting hierarchy and cultural conformity. This question is pertinent to organizations promoting collectivist and pluralist ideals. I found that despite espousing creativity

This study addresses the limitations of survey-based research in explaining patterns of cultural consumption in the social space. By utilizing digital trace data from Audience Insights on Danish Facebook users, this research employs social network analysis (SNA) to investigate online taste across cultural genres and social strata. To account for social structures and enhance the analysis, a multiple

This paper investigates the interplay between fields, markets, and movements in the emergence and development of new cultural categories. While some scholars argue that the rise of new genres is driven by internal resource mobilization, others contend that external market and field environments can both constrain and enable their emergence and growth. Through a cross-national comparative study of electronic/dance

Arts and cultural consumption have been shown to be determined by people´s sociodemographic background. Diversity is embedded in such a context and shapes individual choice. It includes a myriad of factors: gender, sexual orientation, functional diversity, ethnic or religious background. However, it has been unevenly analyzed in the literature. This paper brings these topics to the forefront by conducting

Many artistic expressions call for cultural, social and political change. Though the policy environments in which they emerge remain predominantly wedded to a consumption-driven creative economy. In doing so, they tacitly endorse a methodologically nationalist perspective on artistic expression, trade in creative goods and services, and cultural identity. By using the United Nations resolution on the

Socially constructed categories are central to sociological investigation, but their use in empirical research on culture is often limited to a role as explanatory variables in regression designs comparing differences in groups means. We argue that categories can and do structure cultural space on multiple dimensions simultaneously, and that the cohesiveness of culture within categories is under-explored

Culture is often conceptualized as a landscape, where the peaks represent popular beliefs, institutions or practices, while the valleys represent those that receive infrequent attention. In this article, we build on this metaphor, and explore how individuals navigate these cultural landscapes. Using longitudinal data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, we follow participants' survey response

Critical Race Theory has become the latest signifier in the American culture wars, polarizing people across the political spectrum. In this paper, using the Virginia Governor's race as a case study, we ask how a political campaign helped transform Critical Race Theory from an academic theory to an emotionally charged political acronym – “CRT” – thus becoming a symbol evoking, crystalizing, and politicizing

In our contemporary art field global institutional networks offer novel strategies for peripheral artists in their struggle for global recognition, bypassing the necessity of maximizing presence in the territorial core. We address the puzzle of how such novel artistic strategies bypassing core gatekeepers can succeed. In this article we analyze the way artists from Central-Eastern Europe strive for

This paper presents an iterative procedure for reconstructing a scientific field by relating two relational methods. The procedure involves using geometric data analysis and network analysis in several steps. Blocks from block model analysis are projected into a space constructed by MCA, considered as subspaces using CSA, and subsequently inspected with regard to their manifest interaction structures

The development of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has caused concern about its potential risks, including how its ability to generate human-like texts could affect our shared perception of the social world. Yet, it remains unclear how best to assess and understand genAI's influence on our understanding of social reality. Building on insights into the representation of social worlds within

This article examines how cultural policy frames embody and shape inequalities in cultural participation within urban settings. It explores both historical and contemporary policy frames, scrutinizing various approaches to cultural democratization and intersectional equity. From this perspective, we study how the cultural policies advanced by the Barcelona City Council framed inequalities in urban

There is a growing consensus that climate fiction might be an effective communication strategy to move the public on climate. However, empirical evidence documenting such an effect is limited, especially when it comes to climate fiction's potential to induce emotions of hope and fear, which are of key importance to the ongoing debate about the social effects of climate messages. To address this gap

Craft and design are art forms that teeter on the boundary of being considered art. Because of this, these mediums are an ideal case to examine how the Danish Art Foundation funds these arts and what this says about the distinction of the arts in a Danish context. This article analyses 1898 full-text applications for funding - both the ones that have been awarded funding and the ones that have been

When investigating relational structures in culture, research in Europe has often either mapped the relationship between cultural tastes in a particular context, or mapped differences in cultural tastes (measured consistently) in different countries, without assessing how these differences can vary across them. Indeed, the idea of national homology (namely that the structures of cultural capital would

The study presents a new approach for constructing an epistemological coordinate system that locates individual researchers within the disciplinary landscape of science. Drawing on a comprehensive national dataset of scientific outputs, we build a topic model based on a semantic network of publications and terms derived from textual content comprising titles, abstracts, and keywords. Compositional

The use that agents do of cultural knowledge to navigate institutions is a major explanation of inequalities. Nevertheless, the difficulties accessing culture knowledge have led sociologists of education to often rely on declarative forms of culture to gauge explanations on inequalities. Based on the case of Chile, this study contributes to educational inequality research by using factorial survey

This research note studies how cultural participation impacts affective well-being in everyday life by taking a novel methodological approach via Experience Sampling Methodology (ESM). The potential for culture to improve the well-being of citizens has been a long-running subject of study. Through participation in cultural activities, individuals would gain experiences that foster feelings of liberation

Haiku, the world's shortest form of poetry, has usually been deemed ambiguous owing to its length. However, studies have shown that ambiguity lowers the aesthetic evaluation of a haiku, which contradicts the belief that ambiguity is a characteristic of both the haiku and art in general. One reason for this contradiction may be the interaction with the readers’ attributes, in particular, their expertise—a

This article suggests a comparative field analytical approach to fields of cultural production. Combining concepts from field analysis and focusing on homology with topic modeling and multiple correspondence analysis, we compare four scientific disciplines and show homological structures along both internal and external principles of differentiation. The empirical analysis suggests that despite major

The death of an artist can act as a costly signal of their authenticity, and cause enduring changes in audience valuations of their work. Drawing on novel digital trace data of audience evaluations from a major online music community, we show how the death of an hip-hop artist induces improvements to the valuations of their antemortem work. Such death-induced changes to audience valuations are mediated

This article presents an analysis of discourses performed in communities that share and disseminate knowledge refused by institutional science. The study focuses on an online community concerned with alkaline water, food, and lifestyle, aiming at understanding how promoters of refused knowledge in this community enrol other forms of knowledge, including science. Theoretically, this work is framed in

Very few studies have deployed a historical focus in investigating how changes in the media environment in the twenty-first century have altered the connection between cross-media consumption, political (dis)interest, and dimensions of social stratification. This paper contributes to the literature on the nexus between democracy, citizens, and media through a historical study of media use among Danish

When sociology deals with differences within groups of similar socioeconomic status, research and theorizing tend to focus on the heterogeneity among the socioeconomically advantaged thus representing the socioeconomically disadvantaged as homogeneous. This study is a case of the opposite. For at set of high-stake cultural practices, parental strategies for social reproduction, I find most heterogeneity

In recent years, there has been a rise in career development programs for artists, including various types of mentoring programs. However, research on mentoring is scarce within the field of cultural policy. In this paper, we analyse mentoring as a tool for developing creative careers by investigating three different programs implemented in the Norwegian art field. The analysis is based on qualitative

The rooted dichotomy between art and economy tends to simplify our understanding of the conditions under which makers of cultural products operate. The contingencies of the last decades, leading to a greater plurality of artists’ practices, urge us to create new conceptual tools to seize the effective cultural production structures. This paper aims to open this dichotomy - anchored in institutional

In the last decades a new organizational population of private museums has seen substantial proliferation. While multiple hypotheses for the spread of this new form have been raised, systematic analyses of these have been lacking. In particular, the rise of private museums has been hypothesized to stem from tax incentives, reductions in government spending, increasing inequality and increasing elite

Cultural-creative crowdfunding (CCCF) intersects the culture sector production chain and alternative finance technology as a global web-enabled phenomenon for funding cultural-creative activities. Yet, busking or aspects of patronage are not new to artists and cultural-creative agents; the novelty is doing so through a virtual intermediator space, a crowdfunding platform (CFP). CFPs have proliferated

When personal meaning and knowing emerge for a space, that space moves beyond a labeled locale to become a such that one develops an idiosyncratic knowing or Sense of Place (SoP). Decades of scholarship have animated understandings of SoP for locales, however that work is inconsistent in operationalizing the construct and largely limited to positively valenced, physical spaces. To begin addressing

In US K-12 education, the Spanish language is subject to practices and policies that limit its expression, especially among racialized Latinx students. However, higher education claims to view Spanish as a positive form of diversity. We therefore examine college admissions essays to analyze how students strategically deploy Spanish in light of these contradictions. We use two years of undergraduate

Hip-Hop as a music genre is a popular music genre both in commercial success and global impact and there is a variety of academic studies on the origins, creation, effects, and uses of hip-hop. What remains understudied, yet fundamentally important, is a perspective that takes hip-hop consumers and the way they give meaning to hip-hop as a musical genre. The current in-depth interview study (N = 20)

This article advances understanding about book reading as a sociocultural phenomenon in the 2020s. We make a contribution to the cultural sociology of reading by investigating Finnish self-identified book readers by analysing the significance of sociodemographic variables (gender, education, age, and place of residence) in terms of reading activity and access to books. Our study is placed in the context

Sociologists usually conceptualize events as unexpected occurrences bringing about long-lasting transformations of social structures. Following this definition, most empirical studies of events focus on pre/post-measurement strategies. Yet not all events are unexpected (e.g., Eurovision, Oscar nominations, the Olympics). Moreover, pre/post-measurements cannot capture the temporality in which meaning-making

This article reports the findings of an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) of ten interviews with participants aged 13 to 23 from international contexts on youths’ experiences of literary socialisation. Guided by affect theory and cultural geographies, the research examines the affective intensities arising from those experiences that render possible digital participation around books,

Much of the research on cultural and creative industries has been ‘Western-centric’, but recent interest into cultural and creative industries in the Global South confirms that this conceptual frame is not always directly transferable. This first comprehensive analysis of the last three decades of cultural and creative industries in Santiago de Chile is based on detailed participant observations and

In Trentino and the Pyrenees, the population of bears has grown since the 1990s, when new specimens were released into the wild to recover this endangered species. The reintroduction generated a conflictive cohabitation with village dwellers, the shepherding sector, and rural initiatives in both areas. The aim of this research is to evaluate how local media and two audiovisual documentaries covered

This article analyses classificatory encounters in a unique library with integrated academic and public book collections. Employing Walter Benjamin's image of the organised bookshelf as a ‘magic circle’ of independently relating items, I follow the choreography of classification in library spaces: from the formality of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) through which books are organised, to their

A world in movement is visible in the arena of the performing arts. Since the “long summer of migration” (also known as the 2015 “refugee crisis”), the field of performing arts for a young audience in Sweden has shown a growing interest in staging migration while elaborating new artistic strategies and modes of participation. Migrant/non-white youth share the stage-audience encounter with a white audience