The Production of Culture
Volume 45 No. 2 (Summer 1978)
Arien Mack, Editor
Lewis A. Coser, Guest Editor


Table of Contents Notes on Contributors Ordering information


Editor's Introduction

The papers gathered in this issue of Social Research attempt to lay bare some of the social roots of the production and distribution of symbolic products in contemporary American society. They challenge the traditional disjunction between high culture and low, and suggest instead that all forms of culture are subject to social determinants no matter what their aesthetic or cognitive differences may be in other respect.

The creation of cultural values in general, and of high culture in particular, usually has been approached with awe and reverence by analysts and critics alike. Artistic and literary works have been considered to belong to a sacred realm which had to be sharply distinguished from the quotidian world of profane human products. High culture, if not mass culture, it was felt, involved an act of creation inspired by unique inspiration and could not be compared to the humdrum production of ordinary objects. It is this traditional disjunction between the sacred and the profane in the sphere of culture that is challenged in the papers that have been gathered here. By pointing to an array of mundane processes that underlie the production, distribution, and reception of all symbolic goods, be it in high culture or in mass culture, the contributors to this issue attempt in their diverse ways to provide building blocks for the process of analytical desacralization of the cultural realm. They do not, of course, challenge the need for aesthetic discriminations, but they assert that cultural products, be they of high or of mediocre aesthetic value, still partake of a set of common characteristics. All these products, they argue, must be seen as worthy objects of concern within public networks of producers and consumers, as well as of cultural entrepreneurs who mediate between them even though they may at times manipulate both. Peter Berger once argued that, no matter what their personal beliefs and values might be, it behooves sociologists of religion to adhere to "methodological atheism."  In the same way, no matter what one's personal tastes and aesthetic standards may be, it behooves us to set them aside when attending to the sociological analysis of cultural products.

Several papers in this issue specifically deal with the production of cultural goods, with the making of books, the making of news, and the making of music. Others discuss the diverse ways in which cultural products reach their consumers, be it through the operation and the manipulation of market forces, as with modern paintings, or through public sponsorship and subsidy in the performing arts. Another set of papers, finally, addresses itself to diverse modes of analysis judged most appropriate in dealing with the sociological underpinnings of cultural trends or specific symbolic products.

By tracing the ways in which symbolic goods are produced and reach their publics, and the ways such publics, as well as sponsors and cultural entrepreneurs, in their turn, influence the character of cultural offerings, these papers wish to contribute in a modest way to the sociological analysis of the networks of significant symbols to which all of us adhere to some extent, even when we attempt to escape from them by creating countercultural values.
    
Lewis A. Coser
Guest Editor

Back to the Top


Table of Contents