Cultural diamond

History[ edit ] Moissan trying to create synthetic diamonds using an electric arc furnace After the discovery that diamond was pure carbon, [3] many attempts were made to convert various cheap forms of carbon into diamond. Whereas Hannay used a flame-heated tube, Moissan applied his newly developed electric arc furnacein which an electric arc was struck between carbon rods inside blocks of lime.

Diamond in the Rough: Clarifying the Relationship between Media Studies and Cultural Sociology By Peter Brinson The nascent field of cultural sociology can be described as anything but unified.

Its multidisciplinary roots and influences have left a lasting imprint on scholarly activity in this broad field of study: Cultural diamond is to be expected in these circumstances, strong theoretical arguments and polemics abound about what is legitimate enquiry in the field of cultural sociology Alexander ; Bourdieu ; Peterson and Anand ; Swidler ; Wuthnow Rather than add to this contest, I have a different agenda in this Sorry, but full essay samples are available only for registered users Choose a Membership Plan paper.

I aim to draw together some of the diverse theories, methods, and goals of cultural sociologists in a pragmatic way. For social science, pragmatism offers a perspective that judges a theory or analytic approach by the contribution it makes towards explaining some empirical phenomenon.

Theories are tools for understanding; not just ends in themselves. Although I acknowledge the vast intellectual and scientific gains that can be made from competition among strong theories through rigorous critique, the benefits come only from moderation or the emergence of a middle ground.

The pragmatic approach I take here evaluates some of the prominent strands of research in cultural sociology according to their own standards and the extent to which they meet their own goals.

I view each approach as valuable for answering certain kinds of questions and not others, and for shedding light on some cultural phenomena and not others.

Such an approach is beneficial in a way that strict adherence to a strong theory is not: In the first instance, culture is significant for actors in the world; Cultural diamond the second, culture is significant for observers or scholars of the world.

To clarify what I mean, the Cultural diamond of culture, broadly understood to refer to the sociological study of art, literature, music, drama, etc. It follows from this view of culture or, the cultural realm that, in society, everything can be understood culturally.

The broad categories of things that sociologists study can all be studied culturally, in addition to being studied materially: The fact that such a wide array of objects, ideas, processes, and relations may be studied from the cultural perspective is another reason why the field of cultural sociology appears so fragmented.

Naturally, no single theory can account for the cultural dimensions of all of these aspects of social life; hence, the pragmatic approach to cultural sociology I take here. After examining the fit between the cultural diamond and the larger realm of cultural sociology research, I also examine the goodness of fit between the cultural diamond and media studies, a field of interdisciplinary research to which the cultural diamond ought to be particularly applicable.

These two examinations show quite clearly that the cultural diamond is in need of being updated. I argue that revising the cultural diamond in light of contemporary research in the sociology of media and cultural sociology can add theoretical and conceptual clarity to the field of cultural sociology, because it provides a way of thinking about how disparate research traditions make sense together.

In addition, I argue that bringing media studies squarely under the umbrella of cultural sociology is mutually beneficial for both fields: Originally published inthe diagram has gone essentially unchanged in two decades.

In explaining the diamond, she writes: The cultural diamond is not a theory. It has nothing to say about how its points might be related, only that they must be related.

Nor is it in itself a model, for it implies no causal direction. Any point or linkage may be specified as the dependent variable. Furthermore, each link is an arrow understood to have two heads…. I am contending that cultural analysis demands the investigation of the four points and six connecting lines of this diamond; studies that neglect some points or connections are incomplete.

It contains four points social world, creator, receiver, and cultural object and six linkages, all of which must be accounted for in a thorough explanation of some cultural phenomenon.

Using this visual schematic, not only can particular cultural phenomena be described, but also can the relationships among different research traditions in cultural sociology be understood.

One genre, city comedies, experienced a revival in London in the 18th Century, and another genre, revenge tragedies, experienced a revival in London in the 20th Century. Griswold uses the factors to which the cultural diamond calls attention in order to explain why this particular pattern of revivals emerged, why plays produced in a previous time for a different group of people somehow resonated with audiences living in a very different world.

Additionally, however, changes in the amount of funding available to theaters and the ways that theaters were operated helped to explain why revivals were easier to produce in some times and why there was a virtual absence of revivals during the 19th Century.

Griswold, in short, makes a convincing argument for taking the cultural diamond seriously in her study. As the reader may have noticed thus far, the points of the cultural diamond lack analytic specificity and refer in only a general way to relevant sociological factors that might explain cultural phenomena.

Thus, it is unsurprising that each point on the cultural diamond has become the arena for whole research traditions in cultural sociology. Some of the foundational contributions to cultural sociology have been to illuminate the dialectical relationship between macro-level structures like religion, politics, and the economy and individual-level beliefs and values Marx ; Weber More recent theorizing has concerned how nation-states are culturally constructed Anderson and how culture is changing in an era of globalization Appadurai As the hermeneutic tradition tells us, all cultural objects, from literature and art to clothing, food, and consumer goods, can be read as texts.In the Fourth Edition of Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, author Wendy Griswold illuminates how culture shapes our social world and how society sh.

Transcript of Cultural Diamond- Dos Equis. Social World Creator Receiver Cultural Object The Beer The Legend Originally Labeled "Siglo XX", meaning "20th Century" Renamed "Dos Equis" (Two X's") Face between the X's is that of Aztec ruler Montezuma.

1 Culture and the Cultural Diamond C ulture is one of those words that people use all the time but have trou- ble defining. Consider the following stories about some of the wildly different things we envision when we talk about culture.

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Agenda. Taaltraining. Vertalen. At Sun's. Cultural Diamond. Contact. Algemene Voorwaarden. KvK Wbtv-nr.: Therefore, the social world is truly the foundation of the cultural diamond, insofar as it provides the political, economic, social and cultural patterns, space and influence that are required to keep the process of a shared cultural significance in motion.

The conceptual tool she uses to investigate the connections between cultures and societies are the "cultural object", and the "cultural diamond".

Cultural objects are given meanings shared by members of the culture, and it is through those meanings that those objects are linked to the social worlds.