This article examines pronominal references to anthropomorphic animal characters in contemporary Finnish-language picture books for children ( N = 531). In the Finnish language, the choice of third person pronoun is a key means of distinguishing humans from other animals. The study shows that animal characters in children’s literature are linguistically placed between humans and nonhumans: in about

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

The study of linguistic variation in fiction often concerns the use of dialect features as a tool for characterization; however, its use in situating the author in the construction of the text is less remarked upon. This paper considers both of these uses by examining Lemony Snicket’s usage of four sociolinguistic variables in A Series of Unfortunate Events . ASOUE is of particular interest because

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 this article, I build off the critical work that has engaged with the history of Nantes and the larger question of memorialization in Europe. I analyze the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery, celebrated as Nantes’ recognition of their colonial past and France's journey to abolition. In my analysis of the Memorial, I consider what is being communicated through the memorial, and the stakes it holds

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

The dominant narrative on the origins of English monolingual learners’ dictionaries (MLDs) attributes their development to the EFL teaching and research by West, Palmer and Hornby in the early twentieth century. To date, the pedagogical features of bilingual dictionaries and their value as precursors to learners’ dictionaries have been largely overlooked. In this study, we revisit the genesis of English

This article examines the current state of many online sign language dictionaries by providing an overview of their primary characteristics and presenting a framework for their description, comparison, and analysis. The main aims are to discuss the diverse characteristics of 54 general dictionaries and to apply a comprehensive analytical framework to 31 of them, highlighting features such as search

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

This article discusses literary texts and other cultural practices that resemble, refer to, or make use of material from Google Earth. The aim is to elucidate experiences of glocalization (globalization and localization), an emerging form of spatiality that is related to the interactive ‘Web 2.0.’ The initial analysis of the browser game GeoGuessr and the interactive music video ‘The Wilderness Downtown’

Cet article examine la représentation de la mort dans sept romans de Mahi Binebine, Le sommeil de l’esclave (1992), Les funérailles du lait (1994), L’ombre du poète (1997), Cannibales, (1999), Pollens (1999), Terre d’ombre brûlée (2004), et Les étoiles de Sidi Moumen (2010). En s’appuyant sur une approche phénoménologique, l'étude se concentre sur les perceptions et les réactions des personnages face

French colonization in Vietnam is a totalizing phenomenon, which affected all life, both collective and individual. Many studies are devoted to the memories of this past era with its social contexts and its existential conditions. One of the most visible realities that this phenomenon reveals is that it has destroyed and deconstructed the old frameworks of the culture of colonized people and brought

The aim of this paper is to analyse Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton: An American Musical in terms of its approaches to storytelling and narration. A selection of songs will be analysed focusing on their narrative traits and the figure of the narrator, including its (un)reliability. It will be argued that the songs in Hamilton can be classified depending on their approaches to storytelling, including

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

L’article analyse la représentation de la construction d’un lieu central du pouvoir dans la série télévisée Versailles dans le contexte de la crise de déterritorialisation suite au terrorisme international. Une comparaison de la représentation de la lutte de l’État contre ses adversaires intérieurs et extérieurs à des fictions historiques de la cour du XVIIe et du XVIIIe siècle révèle que les motifs

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 considers visual and narrative representations of mothers and daughters in the understudied publication Mademoiselle Âge Tendre. Issues spanning the years 1968 to 1971 suggest a marked interest – in some cases, a reliance – on the mother figure who, from an adolescent's point of view in the late 1960s, would most likely have been considered conservative, traditional and belonging to the

This article investigates how the core features of narratives and the logic of storytelling are manifested in stories told by the developers and users of an information system and how they may adversely affect their perceptions of the ongoing implementation process. Information systems and the way they operate create a negative cycle where primarily problems possess tellability. We identify a negative

Criminology is foundationally an applied discipline, or one whose knowledge seeks to shape some non-academic practice. Narratives – particularly the narratives of parties to ‘crime’ – are essential to criminology, but criminologists have hardly engaged with narratology. This paper tracks the progression from traditional narrative research involving harm agents and criminalized persons to a relatively

Computational recognition of narratives, if successful, would find innumerable applications with large digitized datasets. Systematic identification of narratives in the text flow could significantly contribute to such pivotal questions as where, when, and how narratives are employed. This paper discusses an approach to extract narratives from two datasets, Finnish parliamentary records (1980–2021)

In this study, Greimas’s work on narrative structure is used to improve a specific practice: the research interview. In the social sciences, narrative interviewing often consists of collecting data from which a narrative is then constructed through analysis afterwards. In the interview method presented here, the interviewer instead prompts the interviewee to construct a narrative. We introduce the

In this article, we discuss a dialogue between narrative theory, reading group practices, and analysis of reading group participants’ experiences. Hanna Meretoja’s theory of narrative agency has informed us in developing a new reading group model that aims to enhance the participants’ narrative agency, and, in turn, the analysis of the reading group experiences provides us with new knowledge on the

In recent years, strands of contemporary narrative theory have taken a turn toward a politically, socially, and environmentally conscious field of study that could be characterized as ‘engaged narratology.’ Creating and disseminating knowledge about how narratives work, these theories emphasize that narrative forms and strategies are neither universal nor neutral; they carry out, but can also challenge

This article presents an exercise in applied narratology within the context of intensive care nursing, specifically the writing of diaries by nurses for patients to fill in memory gaps and alleviate trauma. The article discusses narrative from three perspectives: (1) as nursing practice, resulting in patient diaries with narrative characteristics and purposes; (2) as analysis of this practice, in a

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

In this contribution, we place narrative theory in conversation with narrative practice to offer a small storymaking approach for engendering organizational change. Drawing on insights from counter-narrative studies, small story analysis, and communicative approaches to organizational change, we offer an applied narratology that conceptualizes organizational change as occurring in small storymaking

This article proposes an interrogation of the tropes of female narcissism with a material history of the mirror and women's accounts of looking at themselves in nineteenth-century France. Drawing from a range of sources in order to trace the introduction of the vanity into domestic spaces, I argue that the newfound availability of the looking glass, while encouraging a self-objectification in the eyes

This article argues that in Caché, politics, aesthetics and life collapse into one another by setting a dystopic simulacrum from which the spectator becomes emancipated. Caché critiques colonial-racist discourses within the France–Algeria context alongside the society of the spectacle, subverting binary categorisations such as form/content, ethics/aesthetics and diegetic/extradiegetic through staged

Frederick Charles Worth (1825–1895) is consensually regarded as a founder of haute couture. His business was accompanied by unprecedented marketing strategies. These strategies included also the person of dressmaker in order to change his social status. In accordance with this, dressmaking is no longer just a craft; it has begun to aspire to the position of art. This article wants to show that the

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

The following article offers a comparative, contextualized analysis of two versions of Cauchemar Blanc: its initial iteration as a bande dessinée published in 1974 by Moebius and its cinematic adaptation in 1991 by Mathieu Kassovitz. By analyzing the aesthetic and discursive strategies used, the study demonstrates how the authors use visual media to expose the pervasiveness of racism in France. Though

Understanding the interaction between people and the environment is one of the issues facing contemporary society. In recent dramatic works, the reflection on sustainability and ecological preservation as a crucial necessity in contemporary society has taken center stage. A case in point is Laura Wade’s Colder Than Here (2005), in which the protagonist, Myra, who is diagnosed with terminal cancer,