Sociologically Speaking

Careers 2: Minor League Baseball with Nick Bavin

katemcfbruce — Mon, 11 May 2015 03:35:47 +0000

We’re talking sports again on the podcast! This time, building community through minor league baseball. Where major league sports focus on winning and making money, minor league teams play a greater role in bringing together different aspects of the local community for a fun, affordable day at the park. For the second in our series on sociological careers, I talk with Nick Bavin, a senior account executive for the Durham Bulls.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2016.mp3

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Further Reading

Learn about careers in sports marketing.

Watch a clip from the movie the made the Bulls famous.

Go to a Minor League Baseball game, especially to a Bulls game where you might just see Nick in action.

Conspicuous Consumption

katemcfbruce — Sun, 05 Apr 2015 23:56:45 +0000

BMW, Louis Vuitton, Vineyard Vines – what makes these products so expensive, and why do people pay so much for them? Part of it may be their quality, but more importantly there is a certain cache to the labels themselves. They say that the owner has enough money she can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on luxury items. This is conspicuous consumption, a theory developed by Thorstein Veblen in 1889. In this episode I’m joined by regular guest Ian Conlon to discuss conspicuous consumption. We apply it to the new Apple Watch, fine works of art, and even underwear.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2015.mp3

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Further Reading

In his own words: Read an excerpt from Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class.

Read a New York Times opinion piece arguing that conspicuous consumption is not all that crazy.

Do your own conspicuous consuming – pick out a 18k gold Apple Watch

Careers 1: Transportation Planning with Michael Ousdahl

katemcfbruce — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 23:18:07 +0000

Sociology is interesting, but how do you make a career out of it? One way, of course, is to get a PhD and become a professor, but that doesn’t suit everyone. There are a lot of careers out there that tackle sociological issues like building community, reducing inequality, and creating infrastructure that allows us to all live together in peace. In a new series on the podcast, I will be talking to folks about their sociological careers. First up is my friend Michael Ousdahl, a transportation planner for North Carolina State University.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2014.mp3

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Further Reading

Learn more about becoming a transportation planner.

Explore the website for North Carolina State University’s Transportation Department.

Interaction Ritual Chains

katemcfbruce — Sun, 22 Feb 2015 22:46:12 +0000

Classical theorist Emile Durkheim (my personal favorite!) came up with the concept of collective effervescence to describe the way we feed of each others’ emotions when in a group. But how exactly does that happen in practice? And how does one great experience carry through to bind us together in a lasting way? In this episode, I explain Randall Collins’ theory of interaction ritual chains, in which he draws on another favorite theorist, Erving Goffman, tell us how collective effervescence works on the ground.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2013.mp3

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Further Reading

In his own words. Read a sample chapter from Interaction Ritual Chains.

In his own words bonus! Get Collins’s take on whether smartphones and other technology are changing interaction ritual chains.

Listen to the Freakonomics podcast about tipping behavior – they’re economists but we’ll treat them like real people :)

Super Bowl Special!

katemcfbruce — Fri, 30 Jan 2015 03:46:40 +0000

The long football season (okay, not as long as baseball) is coming to a close with the Super Bowl. The best players of America’s game square off in a grand show of strength, athleticism, hyper-masculinity, and commercialism. In this episode I’ll tackle these features and more as I apply some of the theories we’ve covered to better understand the big game.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2012.mp3

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Further Reading

Learn the truth about those bicep bands that football players wear.

Read about brain injury and football as New Yorker writer Ben McGrath considers whether the sport has a future.

Read why $4 million Super Bowl ads may be worth the money.

The Self, George Herbert Mead

katemcfbruce — Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:39:49 +0000

Why does following social norms so often feel natural? And how is it that so many different people stay in line even without authoritarian controls? In this episode we’re going micro with George Herbert Mead’s concept of the self. I look at how we internalize the ideas, norms, and values of society so that who we are is inseparable from our social world. I apply Mead’s concept of the self to mechanisms of social control and talk about how it may help us make decisions in our personal life.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2011.mp3

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Further Reading

In his own words. Read Mead’s article laying out his theory of the self.

Read about Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner, from Wikipedia. For a more in-depth review of Stroessner’s regime, see this article in Foreign Affairs.

Social Construction

katemcfbruce — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 21:03:24 +0000

Are snails slimy critters or a gourmet food item? The answer depends on where you live, a factor which shapes your perception of reality. In this episode I tackle the social construction of reality, which is what we consider real or true has more of a social than scientific basis. I apply the concept to food, diamonds, gender, and race, asking listeners to question the everyday reality that they take for granted to see society’s hand in what we consider real and not real.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%2010.mp3

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Further Reading

In their own words. Read an excerpt from Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality.

Read an explanation of why diamonds are so expensive even though they are not all that rare.

Check out some examples of pointlessly gendered products – men’s chapstick? women’s earplugs?

Panopticism, with Guest Ian Conlon

katemcfbruce — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 18:42:55 +0000

Between GPS-enabled smartphones, ubiquitous surveillance cameras, and the NSA’s monitoring of phone and internet traffic, we are constantly being watched. In many ways, this can make for a safer society, but it also raises grave questions of what give up in individual creative expression in the name of such security. In this episode guest Ian Conlon joins me again to discuss Foucault’s concept of the panopticism. Based on an innovation in prison design, Foucault proposes that surveillance is increasingly a method of control used by the government, institutions, and private corporations. We apply the concept to those security tags used by clothing stores, Jane Jacobs’ “eyes on the street” approach to city planning, and NSA domestic spying programs.

An Example of a Panopticon: Kilmainham Gaol

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%209.mp3%20target=_blankhttps://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%209.mp3

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Further Reading

In His Own Words. Part 3 of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish.

Learn more about the city planning concept of “Eyes on the Street”

Read an article about how one NSA program has been built into a panopticon.

Rationalization, with Guest Ian Conlon

katemcfbruce — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 14:19:47 +0000

How do you make decisions in your life? Do you write an exhaustive pro/con list and ask friends to weigh in, or do you go with your gut? In this episode guest Ian Conlon and I discuss Weber’s concept of rationalization. Starting with simple decisions like choosing a cereal, Weber proposed that the world is increasingly ruled by rational, objective logic to the point that faith and individuality get lost. We talk about applications to McDonald’s and standardized testing.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%208.mp3

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Further Reading

In His Own Words. Buckle up, its a long one! Theorists aren’t known for their brevity. Check out chapters 2 and 4 especially.

Learn about McDonaldization, an application of rationalized processes in the post-industrial world.

Read an article about the history and current debate over standardized testing.

The Public Sphere, with Guest Dr. Andrew Perrin

katemcfbruce — Mon, 30 Jun 2014 22:39:30 +0000

Does all that chatter on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook serve a useful purpose? I certainly hope so, since I’m on all of them (well, except Pinterest)! In another first for the podcast, this week I interview Dr. Andrew Perrin, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina and my mentor, about Habermas’s idea of the public sphere. Dr. Perrin explains the concept and talks about how he has applied it in his research on American Democracy, public opinion polling, and more.

Listen: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/271472177/Episode%207.mp3

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For Further Reading

Check out Dr. Perrin’s new book, American Democracy. He summarizes the book’s central thesis here.

Read an academic paper by Dr. Perrin and I about public opinion polling (Note: you’ll need access to the journal, Annual Review of Sociology, to read this one. If you’re on a college campus you can get it electronically through your library.)

Follow Dr. Perrin on Twitter

Read an editorial about social media and the public sphere.