Pub Date : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2023.2166180
Jerrod H. Yarosh
ABSTRACT This research analyzes 57 Time magazine covers focusing on the construction of various environmental issues throughout its 97-year publication history and the discourse they represent. Through qualitative content analysis techniques, the research ascertains that Time symbolically annihilates environmental issues in three ways: negativity as the norm, absence of specifics, and the lack of connection to humans. These themes result in a discourse and overall presentation of environmental issues as shallow and non-ameliorative. The implication of these findings, following cultivation theory, have significance for society as the content can reflect the current state of discourse as well as shape public understanding. Given the ubiquity of mass media, the way they present environmental issues provides a substantial source of information to describe the current discourse and the status of environmental issues in the public domain.
{"title":"The Removal of the Environment: Time’s Symbolic Annihilation of Environmental Issues as Cover Stories","authors":"Jerrod H. Yarosh","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2023.2166180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2023.2166180","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This research analyzes 57 Time magazine covers focusing on the construction of various environmental issues throughout its 97-year publication history and the discourse they represent. Through qualitative content analysis techniques, the research ascertains that Time symbolically annihilates environmental issues in three ways: negativity as the norm, absence of specifics, and the lack of connection to humans. These themes result in a discourse and overall presentation of environmental issues as shallow and non-ameliorative. The implication of these findings, following cultivation theory, have significance for society as the content can reflect the current state of discourse as well as shape public understanding. Given the ubiquity of mass media, the way they present environmental issues provides a substantial source of information to describe the current discourse and the status of environmental issues in the public domain.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44974393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-08DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2154295
Giang Tran
ABSTRACT This paper explores how the Vietnamese language has been maintained across generations in Vietnamese families in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and in-depth interviews with 20 first-generation Vietnamese migrant parents and 18 second-generation Vietnamese Australian children, this study reveals that parents and children attempt to preserve the language because of its benefits in communicating and strengthening the relationships among family members, as well as in supporting study and work in Australia. It also highlights that parents and children act as active agents in the process of developing their resources into cultural capital in a multicultural society.
{"title":"The Cultural Capital of Migrants and Language Maintenance across Generations: Vietnamese Families in Australia","authors":"Giang Tran","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2154295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2154295","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper explores how the Vietnamese language has been maintained across generations in Vietnamese families in Melbourne, Australia. Drawing on Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital and in-depth interviews with 20 first-generation Vietnamese migrant parents and 18 second-generation Vietnamese Australian children, this study reveals that parents and children attempt to preserve the language because of its benefits in communicating and strengthening the relationships among family members, as well as in supporting study and work in Australia. It also highlights that parents and children act as active agents in the process of developing their resources into cultural capital in a multicultural society.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48029911","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2134238
Jessica L. Schachle
ABSTRACT In 2018, teacher walkouts were erupting across the United States due to a lack of funding and teacher pay. While the success of these walkouts varied by state, the Oklahoma teacher walkout did not achieve all its goals, as state lawmakers were not willing to establish a consistent means of funding for education. Despite this defeat, participants reported that they found their participation meaningful. Why? This article utilizes 20 in-depth interviews to show that movement participants sometimes view collective identity and social ties as important movement outcomes. Previous studies focused on movement wins and losses have highlighted that identity and social ties can be framed as key movement outcomes. However, literature has not considered how, despite notable losses, movement participants still acknowledge that they are happy to have participated in the movement as long as they gain a personal or biographical outcome. Furthermore, literature has yet to address how these outcomes manifest in teacher movements. By including considerations for biographical and personal outcomes for movements that fail to achieve notable legislative changes, future research will be able to highlight the importance of participant-identified satisfaction. Additionally, these outcomes may be particularly important to consider in the context of teacher walkouts because fringe benefits can contribute to enhanced feelings of solidarity that may lay the groundwork for future movements.
{"title":"“I Think That’s the Norma Rae in Me”: Teachers’ Perceptions of Outcomes for the 2018 Oklahoma Teacher Walkout","authors":"Jessica L. Schachle","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2134238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2134238","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In 2018, teacher walkouts were erupting across the United States due to a lack of funding and teacher pay. While the success of these walkouts varied by state, the Oklahoma teacher walkout did not achieve all its goals, as state lawmakers were not willing to establish a consistent means of funding for education. Despite this defeat, participants reported that they found their participation meaningful. Why? This article utilizes 20 in-depth interviews to show that movement participants sometimes view collective identity and social ties as important movement outcomes. Previous studies focused on movement wins and losses have highlighted that identity and social ties can be framed as key movement outcomes. However, literature has not considered how, despite notable losses, movement participants still acknowledge that they are happy to have participated in the movement as long as they gain a personal or biographical outcome. Furthermore, literature has yet to address how these outcomes manifest in teacher movements. By including considerations for biographical and personal outcomes for movements that fail to achieve notable legislative changes, future research will be able to highlight the importance of participant-identified satisfaction. Additionally, these outcomes may be particularly important to consider in the context of teacher walkouts because fringe benefits can contribute to enhanced feelings of solidarity that may lay the groundwork for future movements.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43471660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2127562
M. S. Senter
ABSTRACT The pandemic has exacerbated the dilemmas facing college students and their institutions of higher education, and the pressures on institutions to be accountable to multiple stakeholders have, if anything, increased. No one is opposed to accountability in principle. The issue, rather, is who determines what constitutes academic quality and the key dimensions of student success. A substantial literature now exists highlighting the problems that accrue when neoliberal thinking gains ascendancy in higher education. What is not stressed enough in these discussions are the implications of the neoliberal audit mentality on pedagogy itself – on how we teach. I will discuss the negative impact on teaching of three accountability systems that are widely institutionalized on college campuses – the student evaluation of teaching at the end of the semester, the assessment of student learning in the major, and program review of the major or academic program. Further, I will outline ways that we as sociologists might act as individual faculty members, as members of departments, or as members of larger professional organizations to resist or mitigate those pressures. As sociologists, we should be well positioned to see beyond the individual course or career and to argue for the collective with a reality sui generis.
{"title":"NCSA 2022 John F. Schnable Teaching Address: Teaching in the Age of Accountability: What’s a Sociologist to Do?","authors":"M. S. Senter","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2127562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2127562","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The pandemic has exacerbated the dilemmas facing college students and their institutions of higher education, and the pressures on institutions to be accountable to multiple stakeholders have, if anything, increased. No one is opposed to accountability in principle. The issue, rather, is who determines what constitutes academic quality and the key dimensions of student success. A substantial literature now exists highlighting the problems that accrue when neoliberal thinking gains ascendancy in higher education. What is not stressed enough in these discussions are the implications of the neoliberal audit mentality on pedagogy itself – on how we teach. I will discuss the negative impact on teaching of three accountability systems that are widely institutionalized on college campuses – the student evaluation of teaching at the end of the semester, the assessment of student learning in the major, and program review of the major or academic program. Further, I will outline ways that we as sociologists might act as individual faculty members, as members of departments, or as members of larger professional organizations to resist or mitigate those pressures. As sociologists, we should be well positioned to see beyond the individual course or career and to argue for the collective with a reality sui generis.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44816717","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2134239
Jonathan S. Coley, Q. Mai
ABSTRACT What factors affect the size of advocacy organizations? Some theories suggest that the existence of political opportunities, resources, and grievances in a locality influences advocacy organization size. In this article, we advance an ecological approach to the study of advocacy organizations, arguing that the presence of other collective actors in a locality may also impact the size of advocacy organizations. Analyzing cross-sectional, time-series data on membership in the Sierra Club from 1984 to 2016, we find evidence for the positive role of environmental organization density, but the deleterious effects of competition from labor unions and a state’s Republican Party, on the number of Sierra Club members in a state. Furthermore, we report mixed evidence that a state’s economic resources and environmental grievances affect membership in the Sierra Club. The findings hold significant implications for the study of advocacy organizations, social movements, and contentious politics more generally.
{"title":"The Ecology of Environmental Association: Density, Spillover, Competition, and Membership in Sierra Club, 1984-2016","authors":"Jonathan S. Coley, Q. Mai","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2134239","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2134239","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT What factors affect the size of advocacy organizations? Some theories suggest that the existence of political opportunities, resources, and grievances in a locality influences advocacy organization size. In this article, we advance an ecological approach to the study of advocacy organizations, arguing that the presence of other collective actors in a locality may also impact the size of advocacy organizations. Analyzing cross-sectional, time-series data on membership in the Sierra Club from 1984 to 2016, we find evidence for the positive role of environmental organization density, but the deleterious effects of competition from labor unions and a state’s Republican Party, on the number of Sierra Club members in a state. Furthermore, we report mixed evidence that a state’s economic resources and environmental grievances affect membership in the Sierra Club. The findings hold significant implications for the study of advocacy organizations, social movements, and contentious politics more generally.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43607716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2131019
Joseph D. Johnson, David W. Everson
ABSTRACT Deploying former gang members and ex-offenders as street-level “interrupters” remains a foundational strategy of the Cure Violence model of violence mitigation. Amidst program evaluations yielding mixed evidence for the model’s effectiveness in reducing violence, we still know relatively little about the individuals engaging in the high-risk work of interruption. This paper draws on a multiyear ethnography of interrupters to better understand the factors that motivate individuals to adopt and, in some cases, maintain a commitment to community-based violence prevention. Based on ethnographic data which involved street-level shadowing and 40 in-depth interviews with violence interrupters, we develop an original theoretical typology of commitment to violence prevention based on three categories: 1) Loyalists, 2) Straddlers, and 3) Exiters. We then utilize our in-depth interviews to account for the varying impacts of violence prevention work on the lives of the individual interrupters. Drawing from the scholarship on desistance and social activism in criminology and sociology, we argue that the organizational dynamics surrounding violence prevention work precluded the pathway to sustained personal transformation for the majority of interrupters in our sample. Yet for some interrupters, strong intra-organizational ties with leadership, coupled with personal agency over the implementation of violence interruption tactics, facilitated a transformed activist identity and a durable commitment to individual, and community, rehabilitation.
{"title":"Committing to the Streets: Activism among Former Gang Members as a Pathway to Personal and Community Change","authors":"Joseph D. Johnson, David W. Everson","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2131019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2131019","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Deploying former gang members and ex-offenders as street-level “interrupters” remains a foundational strategy of the Cure Violence model of violence mitigation. Amidst program evaluations yielding mixed evidence for the model’s effectiveness in reducing violence, we still know relatively little about the individuals engaging in the high-risk work of interruption. This paper draws on a multiyear ethnography of interrupters to better understand the factors that motivate individuals to adopt and, in some cases, maintain a commitment to community-based violence prevention. Based on ethnographic data which involved street-level shadowing and 40 in-depth interviews with violence interrupters, we develop an original theoretical typology of commitment to violence prevention based on three categories: 1) Loyalists, 2) Straddlers, and 3) Exiters. We then utilize our in-depth interviews to account for the varying impacts of violence prevention work on the lives of the individual interrupters. Drawing from the scholarship on desistance and social activism in criminology and sociology, we argue that the organizational dynamics surrounding violence prevention work precluded the pathway to sustained personal transformation for the majority of interrupters in our sample. Yet for some interrupters, strong intra-organizational ties with leadership, coupled with personal agency over the implementation of violence interruption tactics, facilitated a transformed activist identity and a durable commitment to individual, and community, rehabilitation.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41385547","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2133032
Matthew D. Moore
ABSTRACT Suicide causes more than 800,000 deaths a year worldwide. Finding factors that may reduce or prevent suicide is of utmost concern. Social capital has been one of the factors examined for its role in reducing suicide; however, the exact relationship between social capital and suicide is not clear. Moreover, many of the studies examining social capital and suicide take place in high-income areas. There is a void in our knowledge of the relationship between social capital and suicide because of our lack of inclusion of different levels of development. The study – including 41 high-income and 77 middle and low-income countries – found that social capital was a significant predictor of suicide in high-income countries; social capital was not significantly associated with suicide in middle or low-income countries.
{"title":"What about Development? Social Capital and Suicide","authors":"Matthew D. Moore","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2133032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2133032","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Suicide causes more than 800,000 deaths a year worldwide. Finding factors that may reduce or prevent suicide is of utmost concern. Social capital has been one of the factors examined for its role in reducing suicide; however, the exact relationship between social capital and suicide is not clear. Moreover, many of the studies examining social capital and suicide take place in high-income areas. There is a void in our knowledge of the relationship between social capital and suicide because of our lack of inclusion of different levels of development. The study – including 41 high-income and 77 middle and low-income countries – found that social capital was a significant predictor of suicide in high-income countries; social capital was not significantly associated with suicide in middle or low-income countries.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44456278","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-02DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2134228
Fayyaz Hussain
ABSTRACT This paper – a version of the presidential address delivered at the North Central Sociological Association (NCSA) annual meeting in April 2022 – details research undertaken between 2020 and 2021 on violence against women in Pakistan. Three data sources are used to critically analyze the frequency and magnitude of violence against women in Pakistan: secondary data collected by Pakistan government and international organizations, social and print media in Pakistan, and in-depth interviews conducted with 337 women in Pakistan. Findings address the relationship of several variables highlighted in the literature and Hein’s model of violence against women, including type of marriage, background, education, income, occupation, drug use, experiences of childhood violence, the dowry system, and control tendencies of men.
{"title":"NCSA 2022 Presidential Address: Critical Analysis of Violence against Women in South Asia: Focus on Pakistan","authors":"Fayyaz Hussain","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2134228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2134228","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper – a version of the presidential address delivered at the North Central Sociological Association (NCSA) annual meeting in April 2022 – details research undertaken between 2020 and 2021 on violence against women in Pakistan. Three data sources are used to critically analyze the frequency and magnitude of violence against women in Pakistan: secondary data collected by Pakistan government and international organizations, social and print media in Pakistan, and in-depth interviews conducted with 337 women in Pakistan. Findings address the relationship of several variables highlighted in the literature and Hein’s model of violence against women, including type of marriage, background, education, income, occupation, drug use, experiences of childhood violence, the dowry system, and control tendencies of men.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46546582","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-21DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2123419
J. Berg
ABSTRACT This study extends the labor market competition perspective of immigration attitudes by examining the influence of occupational stress and employer-sponsored stress management programs on native-born, full-time workers’ opinions toward immigration levels. Binary logit and ordered logit models, with data from the 2018 General Social Survey, test the predictions of three occupational stress theories: job demands-control-support, effort-reward balance, and distributive justice. The results indicate that native-born, non-Hispanic white workers and native-born, Latino workers who are unable to develop their occupational skills on the job have greater odds of favoring reduced immigration. Job insecurity, lack of promotion opportunities, and poor intercolleague respect also negatively affect native-born, non-Hispanic white workers’ immigration opinions, while having to expend greater physical effort and having less time to complete the work negatively affect native-born, Latino workers’ immigration opinions. At the same time, native-born, non-Hispanic white workers who participate in stress management training have significantly greater odds of supporting increased immigration levels and significantly lower odds of desiring lower immigration levels. As immigration to the United States remains strong, understanding the social processes of native-born employee perceptions and the solutions to problematic intergroup relations may benefit individuals, businesses, and the economy.
{"title":"Does Occupational Stress Play a Role in Forming Restrictionist Immigration Opinions?","authors":"J. Berg","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2123419","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2123419","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This study extends the labor market competition perspective of immigration attitudes by examining the influence of occupational stress and employer-sponsored stress management programs on native-born, full-time workers’ opinions toward immigration levels. Binary logit and ordered logit models, with data from the 2018 General Social Survey, test the predictions of three occupational stress theories: job demands-control-support, effort-reward balance, and distributive justice. The results indicate that native-born, non-Hispanic white workers and native-born, Latino workers who are unable to develop their occupational skills on the job have greater odds of favoring reduced immigration. Job insecurity, lack of promotion opportunities, and poor intercolleague respect also negatively affect native-born, non-Hispanic white workers’ immigration opinions, while having to expend greater physical effort and having less time to complete the work negatively affect native-born, Latino workers’ immigration opinions. At the same time, native-born, non-Hispanic white workers who participate in stress management training have significantly greater odds of supporting increased immigration levels and significantly lower odds of desiring lower immigration levels. As immigration to the United States remains strong, understanding the social processes of native-born employee perceptions and the solutions to problematic intergroup relations may benefit individuals, businesses, and the economy.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49468859","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-07-03DOI: 10.1080/00380237.2022.2073576
Yan Dalla Pria, C. Bonnet
ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of professionalization and mediatization of rugby on the representations of masculinity in this sport over the last quarter century. Data used for both statistical analysis (using chi-square tests of independence and Multiple Correspondence Analysis) and qualitative content analysis were collected in France through a corpus of 799 rugby-related advertisements mainly dating from 1987 to 2015. The authors demonstrate that, alongside the hegemonic masculinity produced by the socialization of rugby players until the 1980s (the “Beast”), the marketization of elite rugby that began in the 1990s has led to the emergence of an alternative figure of masculinity that values aesthetics over physical strength (the “Beefcake”). The authors theorize this hybridization as a way for rugby players, who follow the lead of advertisers and communications agencies, to distance themselves from the increasingly stigmatized figure of masculinity embodied by their sport in order to entice new audiences. Simultaneously, while allowing them to seize the financial manna of advertising, this rebranding reveals the plasticity of the hegemonic masculinity conveyed by rugby, which is able to regenerate itself by evolving with the times. Based on this case, the authors then discuss the dialectic relationship between the hegemonic model and hybrid masculinities in both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.
{"title":"The Beefcake and the Beast: Professionalization, Mediatization, and the Representations of Masculinity in French Rugby","authors":"Yan Dalla Pria, C. Bonnet","doi":"10.1080/00380237.2022.2073576","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2022.2073576","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The purpose of this article is to examine the influence of professionalization and mediatization of rugby on the representations of masculinity in this sport over the last quarter century. Data used for both statistical analysis (using chi-square tests of independence and Multiple Correspondence Analysis) and qualitative content analysis were collected in France through a corpus of 799 rugby-related advertisements mainly dating from 1987 to 2015. The authors demonstrate that, alongside the hegemonic masculinity produced by the socialization of rugby players until the 1980s (the “Beast”), the marketization of elite rugby that began in the 1990s has led to the emergence of an alternative figure of masculinity that values aesthetics over physical strength (the “Beefcake”). The authors theorize this hybridization as a way for rugby players, who follow the lead of advertisers and communications agencies, to distance themselves from the increasingly stigmatized figure of masculinity embodied by their sport in order to entice new audiences. Simultaneously, while allowing them to seize the financial manna of advertising, this rebranding reveals the plasticity of the hegemonic masculinity conveyed by rugby, which is able to regenerate itself by evolving with the times. Based on this case, the authors then discuss the dialectic relationship between the hegemonic model and hybrid masculinities in both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.","PeriodicalId":39368,"journal":{"name":"Sociological Focus","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45363961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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