Culture Cultural Relativism Article: Linguistic Relativism (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) means that there are certain thoughts we have in one language (e.g. English) that cannot be understood by those who exist in another language context (e.g. Spanish) → the way we think is strongly influenced by our native language Culture & Society: Culture is thought of as the rules that guide the way people live Society is thought of as the structure that provides organization for people Subculture vs. Counterculture: Subculture refers to the rules and ideas of a medium sized community that differs in some way from the larger community (i.e. ethnic and religious groups) and can cause tension with the dominant group (which determines the cultural expectations of society) Microcultures refers to groups or organizations that affect only small segments of one’s life and a limited period of one’s life (i.e. a frat, band, etc.) Counterculture is a group with expectations or values that strongly disagree with the main values of a particular society Culture Lag & Culture Shock: Culture lag refers to the fact that culture takes time to catch up with technological innovation, which results in social problems (i.e. material culture changes quickly but nonmaterial culture (ideas, beliefs, values, etc.) tends to resist change) Culture shock refers to the feelings of disorientation, uncertainty, or even fear that people experience when they encounter unfamiliar cultural practices (i.e. moving to another country) - - - - Diffusion: Diffusion is the spread of an invention/discovery from one place to another (often refers to the spread of ideas across the globe) Social media and the internet allow for the spread of ideas to occur even faster in today’s age than ever before Mass Media: Mass media refers to how information is transmitted throughout an entire culture (i.e. books, magazines, internet, etc.) People get them differently (i.e. old people read newspapers and young people check apps like Twitter) Functionalist perspective refers to mass media as functioning to provide entertainment (occupy leisure time) and can also act as an agent of socialization and even an enforcer of social norms (community building) Conflict perspective refers to mass media as focusing on how the media reflect and portrays (even exacerbate) divisions that exist in our society (often reflects the dominant ideology) Gatekeeping refers to the process to which a small number of people and corporations control what sort of information is being presented in the media Tokenism is basically when you add in a minority so that it looks like you’re inclusive, but really it's just to get people to shut up about it Feminist perspective sees mass media as a misrepresentation by showing dominant ideologies and pushing forward stereotyping onto society Focuses on how messages about men and women are portrayed in mass media and how female perspectives are often not shown/misrepresented Interactionist perspective looks at mass media on the micro level to see how it influences day-to-day behavior and how mass media blurs the lines between solitary and group activities (i.e. going to a movie, but noone is allowed to talk about it as its being shown) Evolution & Human Culture: Certain behaviors can also be selected for if they benefit the fitness of the species Cultural universals refers to an element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide (i.e. language, funerals, religion, etc.) Culture can also affect evolution (i.e. when we went from hunter/gatherers to farmers, population grew in one area and disease began to spread a lot more than before → helped shape our own immune systems over hundreds of thousands of years)