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Full-Text Articles in Sociology of Culture

Avoidance In Negative Ties: Inhibiting Closure, Reciprocity, And Homophily, Nicholas Harrigan, Janice Yap Jan 2017

Avoidance In Negative Ties: Inhibiting Closure, Reciprocity, And Homophily, Nicholas Harrigan, Janice Yap

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Theorising of negative ties has focused on simplex negative tie networks or multiplex signed tie networks. We examine the fundamental differences between positive and negative tie networks measured on the same set of actors. We test six mechanisms of tie formation on face-to-face positive (affect/esteem) and negative (dislike/disesteem) networks of 282 university students. While popularity, activity, and entrainment are present in both networks, closure, reciprocity, and homophily are largely absent from negative tie networks. We argue this arises because avoidance is inherent to negative sentiments. Avoidance reduces information transfer through negative ties and short-circuits cumulative causation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. …


The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito Dec 2016

The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In recent decades, research on ‘political apology’, wherein the state apologizes to victims of its past wrongs, has multiplied, as redress movements based on human rights have proliferated around the world. Since most of this research has been conducted by political philosophers, however, analyses of political apologies tend to adopt formal and normative perspectives. To propose an alternative, empirically-grounded approach, in this paper, I develop the ‘cultural pragmatics’ of political apology. To this end, I first conceptualize political apology as a social performance aimed to ‘re-fuse’ an impaired relationship between the perpetrator state and the victim individual. This conceptual move …


Inventing The ‘Authentic’ Self: American Television And Chinese Audiences In Global Beijing, Yang Gao Nov 2016

Inventing The ‘Authentic’ Self: American Television And Chinese Audiences In Global Beijing, Yang Gao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article examines the ways educated urban Chinese youths engage American television fiction as part of their identity work. Drawing on theories of modern reflexive identity, and based on 29 interviews with US TV fans among university students in Beijing, I found these youths are drawn to this television primarily because they perceive the American way of life portrayed on it as more ‘authentic’. This perception of authenticity must be examined within the socio-cultural milieu these students inhabit. Specifically, torn between China’s ingrained collectivist culture and its recent neoliberal emphasis on the individual self, my respondents glean from US TV …


Cultural Variability In The Link Between Environmental Concern And Support For Environmental Action, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, Keiko Ishii Oct 2016

Cultural Variability In The Link Between Environmental Concern And Support For Environmental Action, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, Keiko Ishii

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Research on sustainability behaviors has been based on the assumption that increasing personal concerns about the environment will increase proenvironmental action. We tested whether this assumption is more applicable to individualistic cultures than to collectivistic cultures. In Study 1, we compared 47 countries (N = 57,268) and found that they varied considerably in the degree to which environmental concern predicted support for proenvironmental action. National-level individualism explained the between-nation variability above and beyond the effects of other cultural values and independently of person-level individualism. In Study 2, we compared individualistic and collectivistic nations (United States vs. Japan; N = 251) …


Mimicking Religion As Coping Strategy: The Emergence Of The Bell-Curve God In Singapore, Lily Kong Oct 2016

Mimicking Religion As Coping Strategy: The Emergence Of The Bell-Curve God In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The importance placed on education and, relatedly, examinations, in many Asian societies is well known. The means adopted to cope with the stresses that come along with such intensity are myriad. It is in such contexts that the emergence of a “Bell Curve God” in Singapore must be understood.


Gangs, Clubs, And Alcohol: The Effect Of Organizational Membership On Adolescent Drinking Behavior, Chan S. Suh, Matthew E. Brashears, Michael Genkin Jul 2016

Gangs, Clubs, And Alcohol: The Effect Of Organizational Membership On Adolescent Drinking Behavior, Chan S. Suh, Matthew E. Brashears, Michael Genkin

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

How does adolescent organizational membership in general, and simultaneous membership in distinct types of organizations in particular, impact drinking behavior? While past studies have focused either on the learning effect of involvement with gangs or on the constraining influence of conventional organizations on adolescent problem behavior, we explore the possibility that conventional school clubs can serve as socializing opportunities for existing gang members to engage in drinking behavior with non-gang club members. Using the Add Health data, we show that gang members drink more often, and engage in more binge drinking, than non-members. More importantly, individuals who are members of …


Fiction As Reality: Chinese Youths Watching American Television, Yang Gao Feb 2016

Fiction As Reality: Chinese Youths Watching American Television, Yang Gao

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

American television fiction is gaining traction among educated urban Chinese youths. Drawing on 29 interviews with fans among college students in Beijing, this article examines a shared perception among these youths that American television is ‘‘real.’’ This perceived realism, which is essential to their viewing pleasure, has two sources: American programming’s textual quality and the Chinese context in which it is consumed. First, US television appeals to Chinese youths because they perceive its topical content and complex characterization as true to life. This perception can be explained by the higher transnational cultural capital of these youths, which renders US programming …


Intersubjective Norms: Cultural And Interpersonal Perspective, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim Nov 2015

Intersubjective Norms: Cultural And Interpersonal Perspective, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Normative perspectives in cultural psychology provide a fresh view to understand the processes of cultural influence on human behavior. Although much of the existing research focuses on individuals’ internalized personal values and beliefs to explain cultural tendencies, the new perspective proposes perceived intersubjective norms as an alternative key component in cultural influence (Chiu, Gelfand, Yamagishi, Shteynberg, & Wan, 2010; Zou et al., 2009). Extending this newly emerging approach, the lead articles in this special issue address some of the important questions and issues of normative perspectives in cultural psychology. The articles provide useful explanations for why individuals vary in the …


Shining The Spotlight On Cultural Policy, Tarn How Tan, Su Fern Hoe May 2015

Shining The Spotlight On Cultural Policy, Tarn How Tan, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore has come a long way since its days of being described as a “cultural desert". The credit goes to an aggressive arts and culture development policy backed by significant funding. To fulfil its vision of Singapore as “a global city for the arts" and a “Creative City”, the government rolled out masterplans such as those for the Renaissance City and creative industries. Most recently it called for accessible community arts for every Singaporean through the Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR) of 2012.


Transnational Mobilities And The Making Of Creative Cities, Lily Kong Dec 2014

Transnational Mobilities And The Making Of Creative Cities, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This review essay on the literature on creative cities pays particular attention to the ways in which transnational mobilities contribute significantly to the making of such cities. The paper reviews critically both the literature and phenomena of creative cities and their transnational flows by framing the discussion around the mobility of ideas (creative economy/creative city discourse), the mobility of people (the migration of the creative class), the mobility of technology (the travel of the creative cluster and architectural iconism phenomena), the mobility of finances (capital and investment flows), and the mobility of images (transnational artistic collaborations and products).


From Cultural Industries To Creative Industries And Back? Towards Clarifying Theory And Rethinking Policy, Lily Kong Oct 2014

From Cultural Industries To Creative Industries And Back? Towards Clarifying Theory And Rethinking Policy, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, I draw attention to the complexities and confusions in the shift in discourse and praxis from "culture industry" to "cultural industries" and then "creative industries." I examine how this "creative turn" is fraught with challenges, highlighting seven issues in particular: (i) the difficulties in defining and scoping the creative industries; (ii) the challenges in measuring the economic benefits creative industries bring; (iii) the risk that creative industries neglect genuine creativity/culture; (iv) the utopianization of "creative labour"; (v) the risk of valorizing and promoting external expertise over local small- and medium-scale enterprises in the building of "creative industries"; …


Cosmopolitanism As Cultural Capital: Exploring The Intersection Of Globalization, Education, And Stratification, Hiroki Igarashi, Hiro Saito Sep 2014

Cosmopolitanism As Cultural Capital: Exploring The Intersection Of Globalization, Education, And Stratification, Hiroki Igarashi, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In recent years, sociological research on cosmopolitanism has begun to draw on Pierre Bourdieu to critically examine how cosmopolitanism is implicated in stratification on an increasingly global scale. In this paper, we examine the analytical potential of the Bourdieusian approach by exploring how education systems help to institutionalize cosmopolitanism as cultural capital whose access is rendered structurally unequal. To this end, we first probe how education systems legitimate cosmopolitanism as a desirable disposition at the global level, while simultaneously distributing it unequally among different groups of actors according to their geographical locations and volumes of economic, cultural, and social capital …


Competing Logics Of Commemoration: Cosmopolitanism And Nationalism In East Asia's History Problem, Hiro Saito, Yoko Wang Jun 2014

Competing Logics Of Commemoration: Cosmopolitanism And Nationalism In East Asia's History Problem, Hiro Saito, Yoko Wang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Recent studies in collective memory point to the emergence of cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity, rather than nationality, as a primary frame of reference. But these studies have yet to specify how cosmopolitan commemoration emerges and articulates with existing nationalist commemoration. To solve this problem, we examine the “history problem” between Japan and South Korea by focusing on how relevant political and civic actors negotiated cosmopolitanism and nationalism in commemorating Japan’s past colonial rule and wartime atrocities. In light of our historical analysis, we argue that a synthesis of theories of institutional logics and social movements is useful in illuminating …


Nurturing A Culture Of Conviction: Developing The Arts Is A Critical Means Of Building S’Pore’S Resilience, Su Fern Hoe Apr 2014

Nurturing A Culture Of Conviction: Developing The Arts Is A Critical Means Of Building S’Pore’S Resilience, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Singapore celebrates its 50th year of independence next year, but what it means to beSingaporean continues to be a topic of discussion and debate.Of late, there have been passionate reactions to criticism of Singapore from those in ourmidst, Singaporeans and foreigners alike. To counter British writer Charlotte Ashton’slabelling of Singapore as suffering from a “massive compassion deficit”, bloggers andletter writers to the media cited examples of people giving up their seats to those in needon the MRT or going the extra mile to help strangers.


Locating The Social Ladder Across Cultures And Identities, Michael W. Kraus, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Melanie B. Tannenbaum Jun 2013

Locating The Social Ladder Across Cultures And Identities, Michael W. Kraus, Jacinth J. X. Tan, Melanie B. Tannenbaum

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

It is rare to have the opportunity to write a theory paper on a topic that, we believe at least, will become a very important part of psychological research in the future. That this target article has sparked such a high level of sophistication in the commentaries is indicative of this possibility; psychologists have truly arrived at the forefront of the social class discussion, and we are very excited to be a part of it! In the spirit of moving forward this discussion, each of the commentaries raises a number of important points that intersect with our own theory. Engaging …


Singapore Food Seriously On My Mind, Margaret Chan Mar 2013

Singapore Food Seriously On My Mind, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

No abstract provided.


Ambitions Of A Global City: Arts, Culture And Creative Economy In 'Post-Crisis' Singapore, Lily Kong Jun 2012

Ambitions Of A Global City: Arts, Culture And Creative Economy In 'Post-Crisis' Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper chronicles some of the key policies pertaining to the arts and culture in post-independent Singapore. A brief summary is first provided of the early (1960s and 1970s) cultural policy focusing on the harnessing of arts and culture for nation-building purposes, followed by the subsequent (1980s) recognition that the arts and culture had tourist dollar potential. The paper then expands on the cultural/creative economy policy of the 2000s, in which arts, heritage, media and design are recognized for their economic value (beyond their role in tourism to include their export value and their importance in attracting global workers). The …


Delayed Marriage And Ultra Low Fertility - The Confounding Challenges To Social Stability, Paulin Tay Straughan May 2012

Delayed Marriage And Ultra Low Fertility - The Confounding Challenges To Social Stability, Paulin Tay Straughan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Much of Singapore’s recent problems with social acceptance and integration of foreigners is attributed to the city-state's sustained ultra-low fertility. To augment labour shortage, state policies on immigrant were eased to facilitate an inflow of guest workers. The backlash on rapid globalisation of the workforce was felt acutely when the non-resident segment rose to account for over 20% of the almost 5.2 million population. To ease social tension between locals and foreigners, the city-state has to curb reliance on foreign labour through ensuring a steady growth of the local population. This paper discusses the social, cultural and structural barriers to …


Improbable Art: The Creative Economy And Sustainable Cluster Development In A Hong Kong Industrial District, Lily Kong Mar 2012

Improbable Art: The Creative Economy And Sustainable Cluster Development In A Hong Kong Industrial District, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A noted Singapore-based cultural geographer and specialist on Asia analyzes the emergence and functioning of a unique artistic cluster in Hong Kong's Fotan light industrial district. The objective of the research is to understand how artistic work in the cluster, despite some challenges, has thus far proven sustainable in cultural, social, and economic terms. The findings of this case study permit further clarification of several dimensions of an emerging theory of cultural/creative clusters, which should be considered as distinct from business and industrial clusters. Selective comparisons between the Fotan cluster and the Moganshan Lu cluster in Shanghai demonstrate that cultural/creative …


Conceptualising Cultural And Creative Spaces, Lily Kong Feb 2012

Conceptualising Cultural And Creative Spaces, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper reviews the literature on cultural and creative spaces, and examines its merits and shortcomings in helping to explain how culture and creativity in the city are supported. Alternative ways of conceptualising cultural and creative spaces which emphasise the importance of networks and multi-scalar relationships and non-economic considerations will be examined.


Cultural Differences In The Subjective Experience Of Emotion: When And Why They Occur, Christie N. Scollon, Sharon Koh, Evelyn Wing Mun Au Nov 2011

Cultural Differences In The Subjective Experience Of Emotion: When And Why They Occur, Christie N. Scollon, Sharon Koh, Evelyn Wing Mun Au

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cross-cultural comparisons of subjective emotional experience are common, and virtually any comparison of nations or different ethnic groups is bound to yield some differences and some similarities. While nobody doubts the considerable intercultural variability in subjective or self-reports of emotion, more attention needs to be given to when and why and these differences occur. In this article, we explore factors that accentuate or attenuate cultural differences in the subjective experience of emotion. We propose that cultural norms shape emotional experiences to different degrees depending on the time frame of the emotional experience, the valence of the emotion, and even the …


Visiting 'Home': Contacts With The Homeland, Self-Reflexivity And Emergent Migrant Bilingual Identities, Alan Williams, Charlotte Setijadi Sep 2011

Visiting 'Home': Contacts With The Homeland, Self-Reflexivity And Emergent Migrant Bilingual Identities, Alan Williams, Charlotte Setijadi

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

There has been increasing interest recently in the way that additional language learners' identities are affected and changed by their experiences in developing proficiency in another language. In the case of migrants, this is also affected by familiarity with their new country and language, and their transition into life in a new social and cultural environment. National and linguistic elements of identity are only part of people's multifaceted identities. However, these are of particular significance for language teachers and central to identity shifts involved in language acquisition and settlement in a new country. We present data from two adult EAL …


From Collective Memory To Commemoration, Hiro Saito Jul 2010

From Collective Memory To Commemoration, Hiro Saito

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

To have “memory” of an event, humans have to experience it themselves. Learning of an event secondhand, humans acquire knowledge, but not memory. Yet, when sociologists speak of “collective memory,” they routinely include as agents of memory those who do not have firsthand experience of a past event. This inclusion has been taken for granted ever since Maurice Halbwachs (1992) formulated his Durkheimian theory of the relationship between collective memory and commemoration in terms of group solidarity and identity: collective memory emerges when those without firsthand experience of an event identify with those who have such experience, defining …


Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman Dec 2009

Culture, Psyche, And Body Make Each Other Up, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung, Hans Ijzerman

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The commentaries make important points, including ones about the purposeful uses of embodiment effects. Research examining such effects needs to look at how such effects play themselves out in people's everyday lives. Research might usefully integrate work on embodiment with work on attribution and work in other disciplines concerned with body–psyche connections (e.g., research on somaticizing versus “psychologizing” illnesses and hypercognizing versus hypocognizing emotions). Such work may help us understand the way positive and negative feedback loops operate as culture, psyche, and body make each other up.


The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung Dec 2009

The Hard Embodiment Of Culture, Dov Cohen, Angela K. Y. Leung

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The way humans move and comport their bodies is one way they (literally) carry their culture. In pre-wired embodiments, body comportment triggers basic, evolutionarily prepared affective and cognitive reactions that subsequently prime more complex representations. Culture suffuses this process, because (1) cultural artifacts, affordances, and practices make certain body comportments more likely, (2) cultural practices, rituals, schemas, and rules promote the learning of an otherwise underspecified connection between a given body comportment and a particular basic reaction, and (3) cultural meaning systems elaborate basic affective and cognitive reactions into more complex representations. These points are illustrated with three experiments that …


Making Sustainable Creative/Cultural Space In Shanghai And Singapore, Lily Kong Jan 2009

Making Sustainable Creative/Cultural Space In Shanghai And Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Shanghai and Singapore are two economically vibrant Asian cities that have recently adopted creative/cultural economy strategies. In this article I examine new spatial expressions of cultural and economic interests in the two cities: state-vaunted cultural edifices and organically evolved cultural spaces. I discuss the simultaneous precariousness and sustainability of these spaces, focusing on Shanghai's Grand Theatre and Moganshan Lu and on Singapore's Esplanade-Theatres by the Bay and Wessex Estate. Their cultural sustainability is understood as their ability to support the development of indigenous content and local idioms in artistic work. Their social sustainability is examined in terms of the social …


Interactive Effects Of Multicultural Experiences And Openness To Experience On Creativity, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu Nov 2008

Interactive Effects Of Multicultural Experiences And Openness To Experience On Creativity, Angela K.-Y. Leung, Chi-Yue Chiu

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Extensiveness of multicultural experiences and Openness to Experience were used to predict European American undergraduates' performance on two measures of creative potential: (a) generation of unusual uses of garbage bags and (b) retrieval of nonprototypical or normatively inaccessible exemplars in the conceptual domain of occupation. The results showed that having extensive multicultural experiences predicted better performance on both measures of creative potential only among participants who were open to experience. Among those who were not open, having more extensive multicultural experiences was associated with a lower level of creative potential. Implications of these findings for promoting creativity in schools are …


Perceived Cultural Importance And Actual Self-Importance Of Values In Cultural Identification, Ching Wan, Chi-Yue Chiu, Kim-Pong Tam, Sau-Lai Lee, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Siqing Peng Feb 2007

Perceived Cultural Importance And Actual Self-Importance Of Values In Cultural Identification, Ching Wan, Chi-Yue Chiu, Kim-Pong Tam, Sau-Lai Lee, Ivy Yee-Man Lau, Siqing Peng

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Cross-cultural psychologists assume that core cultural values define to a large extent what a culture is. Typically, core values are identified through an actual self-importance approach, in which core values are those that members of the culture as a group strongly endorse. In this article, the authors propose a perceived cultural importance approach to identifying core values, in which core values are values that members of the culture as a group generally believe to be important in the culture. In 5 studies, the authors examine the utility of the perceived cultural importance approach. Results consistently showed that, compared with values …


The Sociality Of Cultural Industries: Hong Kong's Cultural Policy And Film Industry, Lily Kong Aug 2006

The Sociality Of Cultural Industries: Hong Kong's Cultural Policy And Film Industry, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I explore the sociality of cultural industries by analyzing the film industry in Hong Kong. In particular, the social networks and relationships at multiple scales – across national boundaries, within local settings and on production sets – are examined, revealing their critical role in contributing to the health of the film industry. The risks faced at various steps of the production, marketing and distribution process are ameliorated by trust relations, built up through time between social actors in spontaneous ways. While Hong Kong cultural policy in part seeks to create the social and spatial contexts within which …


Knowledges Of The Creative Economy: Towards A Relational Geography Of Diffusion And Adaptation In Asia, Lily Kong, Chris Gibson, Louisa-May Khoo, Anne-Louise Semple Aug 2006

Knowledges Of The Creative Economy: Towards A Relational Geography Of Diffusion And Adaptation In Asia, Lily Kong, Chris Gibson, Louisa-May Khoo, Anne-Louise Semple

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Recent dialogues in geography and the social sciences have reminded researchers of the extent to which academic and policy knowledges are socially and spatially embedded-that is, they circulate through formal and informal systems of publishing, exchange, commodification and cultural influence. Academic and policy knowledges are, in short, very much a part of the creative economy. In light of this, our paper surveys knowledges of the creative economy itself, as reflected in a geography of industry reports and government policy statements in selected Asian countries. Using a post-positivist framework adapted from diffusion theory, we critically interpret the circulation, mutation and adaptation …