J P Williams
Biographic Data
| ID | 71712 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J P Williams |
| GIVEN NAMES | J P |
| FAMILY NAME | Williams |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIAMS J P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Nanyang Technological University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7409-2572 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 267 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1938 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Digital literacy, esports, and DIY culture: Top-down and bottom-up approaches to twenty-first century competencies in Singapore
In this article, I explore cultural conceptions and practices of digital literacy articulated in three distinct areas of social action in Singapore, a technology-dense nation. Using qualitative content analysis and interviews with 33 esports players, I compare governmental digital literacy initiatives, grassroots esports programming, and individual players’ narratives and DIY practices. I show that governmental initiatives emphasize functional an…
A Little Bit Like Psychological Torture”: A Grounded Theory of the Sociocultural Challenges Surrounding Expertise Development in an Emerging Esports Ecosystem
Esports-relevant expertise extends beyond gameplay to encompass the cultivation of knowledge, skills, networks, and resources that support competitive success. Using a grounded theory approach and insights from 33 interviews with esports players in an emerging ecosystem, this study develops a sociocultural model that identifies four interrelated dimensions shaping expertise development, while paying special attention to the challenges players fac…
How K-pop Fans Utilize Conventional and Subcultural Frameworks to Construct Fan Identities: A Case Study of Seungri and the Burning Sun Scandal
In this article, we examine how fans on social media platforms manage their identities when faced with moral dilemmas in which their self-images and parasocial relations with idols are jeopardized. In particular, we explore how fans use social identification and deviant labeling as strategies to position themselves as distinct but not deviant cultural consumers. We choose a particular case of stigmatization within the Korean pop culture context –…
Two Approaches to the Study of Music and Meaning in Everyday Life
The MBTI as a Cultural Meme, Its Diffusion on Chinese Social Media, and Its Significance for Millenials' and Gen-Zs' Selves and Identities
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or MBTI, has recently gained popularity among Chinese millennials and Gen Zs. Framing the MBTI as a cultural item or meme, this article explores its emerging significance on Chinese social media. We combine Gary Fine's conception of cultural items' diffusion with the concept of cultural memes to show how the MBTI is Known, Usable, Functional, Appropriate, and Triggered (KUFAT) among young Chinese on social media p…
How fan clubs manage the authenticity of fans’ identities in Chinese idol culture
While existing research on Chinese fan cultures has explored various aspects of fan identity and fan labor, little attention has been given to the role that identity authentication plays in mediating the relationships between fans and the idol industry. This study examines the influence of fan clubs on identity authentication and management within Chinese idol fandom. Drawing on theories of social identity and authenticity, we explore how Chinese…
Authenticity
The concept of authenticity emerged in Greek antiquity and referred to the author or originator of certain actions or objects. Over the centuries, meaning shifted away from the author to concerns with the originality or genuineness of the actions or objects themselves. Today the concept is widely used across the western social sciences and humanities, yet there is no single consensus on its conceptual focus or boundaries due to the different epis…
Subculture’s Not Dead! Checking the Pulse of Subculture Studies through a Review of ‘Subcultures, Popular Music and Political Change’ and ‘Youth Cultures and Subcultures: Australian Perspectives’
Empirical studies of youth cultures and subcultures continue to flourish alongside active theoretical progression and debates within and across a variety of intellectual traditions. Annually, a range of published articles, monographs and edited collections improve our collective knowledge about youth (sub)cultural phenomena from nearly every corner of the globe. In this article I review two recent edited volumes that deal explicitly with subcultu…
Muslim girl culture and social control in Southeast Asia: Exploring the hijabista and hijabster phenomena
While research on youth cultures in Southeast Asia has traditionally focused on crime, class, and delinquency among adolescent and young-adult males, the 21st century has seen an increase in research on the intersections among youth, religion, popular culture, media, identity, and consumption. As part of this trend, we report on an exploration of the terms hijabista and hijabster, which refer to female Muslim cultural identities centered on the n…
The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity: Real' Identities and Intergroup Relations in a Transylvania Internet Forum
Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interacti…
Negotiating Fan Identities in K-Pop Music Culture
In this paper I bring together interaction, media, deviance, self, and identity to make sense of how young Singaporeans consume Korean popular (hereafter, K-pop) music and culture. My overarching goal is to highlight that being a music fan is not a straightforward or even easy experience. Rather, the self as music fan is continually developing within a complex variety of social processes, from the circulation of global, mass media representations…
Authenticity in Culture, Self, and Society
Contents: Authenticity in culture, self and society, Philip Vannini and J. Patrick Williams. Part 1 The Value, Concept, and Ideal of Authenticity: Authenticity without a true self, Alessandro Ferrara Self-authenticity as master motive, Andrew J. Weigert The importance of insincerity and inauthenticity for self and society: why honesty is not the best policy, Dennis D. Waskul Ideology and practice of authenticity in punk subculture, Philip Lewin a…
Rude Boy Subculture, Critical Pedagogy, and the Collaborative Construction of an Analytic and Evocative Autoethnography
This article theorizes and performs an analytic and evocative autoethnography about participation in the Rude Boy subculture in Singapore in the 2000s. Relying on critical pedagogy and a performative conception of subcultural theory, we analyze the second author's past self as a Rude Boy through a collaborative narrative that emerged out of a university course-based research project on youth subcultures. Our narrative, which includes the reproduc…
Sasaengpaen' or K-pop Fan? Singapore Youths, Authentic Identities, and Asian Media Fandom
Since the late 1990s, the Korean pop-culture wave has had a huge impact, achieving immense popularity and sustaining a global community of consumers and fans. In Singapore, a significant K-pop fan culture has emerged among youths. In this article, we study the emergence of the sasaeng fan—a stigmatized fan identity that refers to individuals who are unhealthily interested in the personal lives of K-pop idols. Drawing on data from mass and social …
Articulating the "Counter" in Subculture Studies
Introduction As street protests and clashes between citizens and authorities in places as different as Ferguson, Missouri and Hong Kong in autumn 2014 demonstrate, everyday life in many parts of the world is characterised by conflicting and competing sets of cultural norms, values, and practices. The idea that groups create cultures that stand in contrast to "mainstream" or "dominant culture" is nothing new-sociology's earliest scholars sought cu…
Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft: Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft
Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft
In tandem with the technological advancement of immersive virtual environments, digital games have evolved into complex social worlds where people play collaboratively to achieve individual- and group-oriented goals. The massively multiplayer online games genre has received international attention for the large numbers of users that commit a significant amount of time and effort to online play. Play styles within such game worlds are diverse, but…
Community, Frame of Reference, and Boundary: Three Sociological Concepts and their Relevance for Virtual Worlds Research
Virtual-worlds research is a dynamic and growing interdisciplinary area in the social sciences and humanities. Sociological theory can play an important role in how virtual worlds are conceptualized and studied. Drawing on data from ethnographic projects on two distinct types of virtual worlds, an asynchronous text-based internet forum and a massively-multiplayer online game, I consider what social and cultural similarities these two types of vir…
Teaching and Learning Guide for: Youth‐Subculture Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts
Studies of youth subcultures have been carried out for decades from various theoretical perspectives (including functionalism, social ecology, neo‐Marxism, deviance and labeling, cultural studies, sports and leisure studies) as well as from various methodological standpoints (e.g., deductive and inductive approaches, insider and outsider perspectives, ethnographic, historical comparative, and semiotics). The sociological study of youth subculture…
We Weren't Like No Regular Dope Fiends: Negotiating Hustler and Crackhead Identities
We investigate how participants in the street economy of crack cocaine construct a "hustler" identity by contrasting their social behaviors and styles with a dialectically contrastive crackhead identity. For those who are proximate to, or involved in, the crack cocaine economy, effort is required to avoid being labeled a crackhead. Would-be hustlers construct boundaries that separate them from others on the street through talk and behavior. We dr…
Youth‐Subcultural Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts
The study of youth subcultures has rich histories in the USA and UK, yet has remained a marginal subfield within cultural sociology. In this article, I begin by reviewing the significance of the Chicago school, strain theory, Birmingham school and post‐subcultural studies traditions of youth‐cultural and youth‐subcultural research. I then conceive of a series of significant analytic concepts that over time have proven themselves to be core compon…
Mundane Life in a Media Age
Review of Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds (2005, University of Chicago Press), Elaine Lally’s At Home with Computers (2002, Berg), and Bill Osgerby’s Youth Media (2004, Routledge)
Techniques of Affirmation: Deviant Behavior, Moral Commitment, and Subcultural Identity
Previous studies have examined how individuals act in ways that are considered deviant by mainstream standards and how these individuals neutralize their actions to maintain a positive self concept. But little is known about how individuals who defy social norms by "not doing" socially accepted behaviors construct meaningful subcultural identities. We explore the overlap between "deviant behavior" and subcultural identity through a case study of …
Authentic Identities: Straightedge Subculture, Music, and the Internet
In this article, the author examines the relative roles of music and the internet for self-identifying members of the straightedge youth subculture. For nearly 30 years, subcultures have been conceptualized primarily in terms of music and style. Participation has therefore typically been characterized by the consumption of specific types of music and clothing and participation in local, face-to-face music scenes. However, with the recent growth o…
How Edge Are You?' Constructing Authentic Identities and Subcultural Boundaries in a Straightedge Internet Forum
We analyze how participants in an internet forum dedicated to the straightedge subculture articulate and express subcultural identities and boundaries, with particular attention to how they accomplish these tasks in a computer-mediated context. Through participant observation, 'focused discussions,' and interviews, we explore the complexity of identity-making processes in terms of cyberspace and subculture, conceptualizing identification as occur…
Authentic Identities: Straightedge Subculture, Music, and the Internet
In this article, the author examines the relative roles of music and the internet for self-identifying members of the straightedge youth subculture. For nearly 30 years, subcultures have been conceptualized primarily in terms of music and style. Participation has therefore typically been characterized by the consumption of specific types of music and clothing and participation in local, face-to-face music scenes. However, with the recent growth o…
How Edge Are You?' Constructing Authentic Identities and Subcultural Boundaries in a Straightedge Internet Forum
We analyze how participants in an internet forum dedicated to the straightedge subculture articulate and express subcultural identities and boundaries, with particular attention to how they accomplish these tasks in a computer-mediated context. Through participant observation, 'focused discussions,' and interviews, we explore the complexity of identity-making processes in terms of cyberspace and subculture, conceptualizing identification as occur…
The Construction Of The Local And The Limits Of Contemporary Community Building In The United States
With new relationships between state and civil society, community building has arisen as a preferred mechanism to ameliorate urban poverty. Community building is a much-supported but undercriticized paradigm, especially with respect to questions about the benefits that impoverished neighborhood residents actually acquire from these initiatives. The authors examine community building as a process that is related to larger agendas meant to enact ce…
Techniques of Affirmation: Deviant Behavior, Moral Commitment, and Subcultural Identity
Previous studies have examined how individuals act in ways that are considered deviant by mainstream standards and how these individuals neutralize their actions to maintain a positive self concept. But little is known about how individuals who defy social norms by "not doing" socially accepted behaviors construct meaningful subcultural identities. We explore the overlap between "deviant behavior" and subcultural identity through a case study of …
We Weren't Like No Regular Dope Fiends: Negotiating Hustler and Crackhead Identities
We investigate how participants in the street economy of crack cocaine construct a "hustler" identity by contrasting their social behaviors and styles with a dialectically contrastive crackhead identity. For those who are proximate to, or involved in, the crack cocaine economy, effort is required to avoid being labeled a crackhead. Would-be hustlers construct boundaries that separate them from others on the street through talk and behavior. We dr…
Sasaengpaen' or K-pop Fan? Singapore Youths, Authentic Identities, and Asian Media Fandom
Since the late 1990s, the Korean pop-culture wave has had a huge impact, achieving immense popularity and sustaining a global community of consumers and fans. In Singapore, a significant K-pop fan culture has emerged among youths. In this article, we study the emergence of the sasaeng fan—a stigmatized fan identity that refers to individuals who are unhealthily interested in the personal lives of K-pop idols. Drawing on data from mass and social …
Youth‐Subcultural Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts
The study of youth subcultures has rich histories in the USA and UK, yet has remained a marginal subfield within cultural sociology. In this article, I begin by reviewing the significance of the Chicago school, strain theory, Birmingham school and post‐subcultural studies traditions of youth‐cultural and youth‐subcultural research. I then conceive of a series of significant analytic concepts that over time have proven themselves to be core compon…
Rude Boy Subculture, Critical Pedagogy, and the Collaborative Construction of an Analytic and Evocative Autoethnography
This article theorizes and performs an analytic and evocative autoethnography about participation in the Rude Boy subculture in Singapore in the 2000s. Relying on critical pedagogy and a performative conception of subcultural theory, we analyze the second author's past self as a Rude Boy through a collaborative narrative that emerged out of a university course-based research project on youth subcultures. Our narrative, which includes the reproduc…
Muslim girl culture and social control in Southeast Asia: Exploring the hijabista and hijabster phenomena
While research on youth cultures in Southeast Asia has traditionally focused on crime, class, and delinquency among adolescent and young-adult males, the 21st century has seen an increase in research on the intersections among youth, religion, popular culture, media, identity, and consumption. As part of this trend, we report on an exploration of the terms hijabista and hijabster, which refer to female Muslim cultural identities centered on the n…
The Straightedge Subculture on the Internet: A Case Study of Style-Display Online
This article discusses one way in which cultural studies theories can be applied to current research of subcultures on the internet. Starting from Clarke's and Hebdige's theories of subcultural style and Frith's theory of music and identity, a case study of an online subcultural website is used to highlight the ways in which resistance is displayed by members of the 'straightedge' music subculture. In particular, usernames and signature files are…
The Interactional Construction of Social Authenticity: Real' Identities and Intergroup Relations in a Transylvania Internet Forum
Authenticity has become an increasingly salient topic within various interactional traditions, including conversational and discourse analysis, discursive psychology, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and symbolic interactionism. However, there has been remarkably little cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts. In this study, we consider the relevance of the interactional sociolinguistic concept of relationality for symbolic interacti…
Community, Frame of Reference, and Boundary: Three Sociological Concepts and their Relevance for Virtual Worlds Research
Virtual-worlds research is a dynamic and growing interdisciplinary area in the social sciences and humanities. Sociological theory can play an important role in how virtual worlds are conceptualized and studied. Drawing on data from ethnographic projects on two distinct types of virtual worlds, an asynchronous text-based internet forum and a massively-multiplayer online game, I consider what social and cultural similarities these two types of vir…
Neighborhood Revitalization and the Practice of Evaluation in the United States: Developing a Margin Research Perspective
The dominant framework of neighborhood revitalization in the United States that emerged in the 1990s is the comprehensive community‐building approach based on a “theory of change” model. This framework posits that to improve neighborhoods and the quality of life of residents, programmatic efforts are needed that are “resident‐driven” and holistic in their focus. While these types of initiatives flourish, neighborhood revitalization often results …
How K-pop Fans Utilize Conventional and Subcultural Frameworks to Construct Fan Identities: A Case Study of Seungri and the Burning Sun Scandal
In this article, we examine how fans on social media platforms manage their identities when faced with moral dilemmas in which their self-images and parasocial relations with idols are jeopardized. In particular, we explore how fans use social identification and deviant labeling as strategies to position themselves as distinct but not deviant cultural consumers. We choose a particular case of stigmatization within the Korean pop culture context –…
Articulating the "Counter" in Subculture Studies
Introduction As street protests and clashes between citizens and authorities in places as different as Ferguson, Missouri and Hong Kong in autumn 2014 demonstrate, everyday life in many parts of the world is characterised by conflicting and competing sets of cultural norms, values, and practices. The idea that groups create cultures that stand in contrast to "mainstream" or "dominant culture" is nothing new-sociology's earliest scholars sought cu…
All's Fair in Love and Journalism: Female Rivalry in Superman
Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft
In tandem with the technological advancement of immersive virtual environments, digital games have evolved into complex social worlds where people play collaboratively to achieve individual- and group-oriented goals. The massively multiplayer online games genre has received international attention for the large numbers of users that commit a significant amount of time and effort to online play. Play styles within such game worlds are diverse, but…
How fan clubs manage the authenticity of fans’ identities in Chinese idol culture
While existing research on Chinese fan cultures has explored various aspects of fan identity and fan labor, little attention has been given to the role that identity authentication plays in mediating the relationships between fans and the idol industry. This study examines the influence of fan clubs on identity authentication and management within Chinese idol fandom. Drawing on theories of social identity and authenticity, we explore how Chinese…
Authenticity
The concept of authenticity emerged in Greek antiquity and referred to the author or originator of certain actions or objects. Over the centuries, meaning shifted away from the author to concerns with the originality or genuineness of the actions or objects themselves. Today the concept is widely used across the western social sciences and humanities, yet there is no single consensus on its conceptual focus or boundaries due to the different epis…
Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft: Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft
Teaching and Learning Guide for: Youth‐Subculture Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts
Studies of youth subcultures have been carried out for decades from various theoretical perspectives (including functionalism, social ecology, neo‐Marxism, deviance and labeling, cultural studies, sports and leisure studies) as well as from various methodological standpoints (e.g., deductive and inductive approaches, insider and outsider perspectives, ethnographic, historical comparative, and semiotics). The sociological study of youth subculture…
Mundane Life in a Media Age
Review of Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds (2005, University of Chicago Press), Elaine Lally’s At Home with Computers (2002, Berg), and Bill Osgerby’s Youth Media (2004, Routledge)
The Mystique of Moonlighting: “When You Care Enough to Watch the Very Best”
Book Notices
BOOK NOTICES Get access The Makers of the New Testament. By R. L. PELLY. London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1938. III pages, 2 shillings. J. P. WILLIAMS J. P. WILLIAMS Groton School Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume VI, Issue IV, Fall 1938, Page 234, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/VI.IV.234 Published: 01 October 1938
A Secondary School Course in the New Testament Based Upon Form Criticism
A SECONDARY SCHOOL COURSE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT BASED UPON FORM CRITICISM JOHN PAGE WILLIAMS JOHN PAGE WILLIAMS Groton School Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume VI, Issue IV, Fall 1938, Pages 195–199, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/VI.IV.195 Published: 01 October 1938
A Model Parliament of Religions--a Note on Method in Comparative Religion
Journal Article A MODEL PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS—A NOTE ON METHOD IN COMPARATIVE RELIGION Get access JOHN PAUL WILLIAMS JOHN PAUL WILLIAMS Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume VI, Issue I, Winter 1938, Pages 34–35, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/VI.I.34 Published: 01 December 1938
The Mystique of Moonlighting: “When You Care Enough to Watch the Very Best”
All's Fair in Love and Journalism: Female Rivalry in Superman
Biology and Destiny: The Dynamics of Gender Crossing in Quantum Leap
Quantum Leap, one of a number of contemporary media texts which features a male protagonist who is mistakenly perceived as female, represents how television constructs gender as a category while reassuring the audience that sexuality is a biological given.
Denying Divinity
The classical texts of Christianity and Zen Buddhism contain resources with potent appeal to contemporary spirituality. The ‘apophatic’, or ‘negative’, may offer a means to integrate the conservation of traditional religious practices and beliefs with an openness to experience beyond the limits of doctrine and of rational thought. This book argues for a new understanding of what is meant by apophatic theology, supported by extensive analysis of t…
Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions.
Maximus the Confessor
This chapter presents a reading of Maximus the Confessor's apophatic theology based on a broad spectrum of his writings. It focuses on three texts that offer slightly different versions of a distinction between two ways of approaching the divine. First, in a celebrated passage from the tenth of the Ambigua, Maximus divides theology into two ‘universal modes’: one that ‘goes first, is simple, and does not refer to the divine as cause’ , and anothe…
Neighborhood Revitalization and the Practice of Evaluation in the United States: Developing a Margin Research Perspective
The dominant framework of neighborhood revitalization in the United States that emerged in the 1990s is the comprehensive community‐building approach based on a “theory of change” model. This framework posits that to improve neighborhoods and the quality of life of residents, programmatic efforts are needed that are “resident‐driven” and holistic in their focus. While these types of initiatives flourish, neighborhood revitalization often results …
The Construction Of The Local And The Limits Of Contemporary Community Building In The United States
With new relationships between state and civil society, community building has arisen as a preferred mechanism to ameliorate urban poverty. Community building is a much-supported but undercriticized paradigm, especially with respect to questions about the benefits that impoverished neighborhood residents actually acquire from these initiatives. The authors examine community building as a process that is related to larger agendas meant to enact ce…
The Straightedge Subculture on the Internet: A Case Study of Style-Display Online
This article discusses one way in which cultural studies theories can be applied to current research of subcultures on the internet. Starting from Clarke's and Hebdige's theories of subcultural style and Frith's theory of music and identity, a case study of an online subcultural website is used to highlight the ways in which resistance is displayed by members of the 'straightedge' music subculture. In particular, usernames and signature files are…
Multiculturalism or Assimilation? An Examination of a University International House through a Cultural Studies-as-Praxis Model 1
How Edge Are You?' Constructing Authentic Identities and Subcultural Boundaries in a Straightedge Internet Forum
We analyze how participants in an internet forum dedicated to the straightedge subculture articulate and express subcultural identities and boundaries, with particular attention to how they accomplish these tasks in a computer-mediated context. Through participant observation, 'focused discussions,' and interviews, we explore the complexity of identity-making processes in terms of cyberspace and subculture, conceptualizing identification as occur…
Authentic Identities: Straightedge Subculture, Music, and the Internet
In this article, the author examines the relative roles of music and the internet for self-identifying members of the straightedge youth subculture. For nearly 30 years, subcultures have been conceptualized primarily in terms of music and style. Participation has therefore typically been characterized by the consumption of specific types of music and clothing and participation in local, face-to-face music scenes. However, with the recent growth o…
Youth‐Subcultural Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts
The study of youth subcultures has rich histories in the USA and UK, yet has remained a marginal subfield within cultural sociology. In this article, I begin by reviewing the significance of the Chicago school, strain theory, Birmingham school and post‐subcultural studies traditions of youth‐cultural and youth‐subcultural research. I then conceive of a series of significant analytic concepts that over time have proven themselves to be core compon…
Mundane Life in a Media Age
Review of Edward Castronova’s Synthetic Worlds (2005, University of Chicago Press), Elaine Lally’s At Home with Computers (2002, Berg), and Bill Osgerby’s Youth Media (2004, Routledge)
Techniques of Affirmation: Deviant Behavior, Moral Commitment, and Subcultural Identity
Previous studies have examined how individuals act in ways that are considered deviant by mainstream standards and how these individuals neutralize their actions to maintain a positive self concept. But little is known about how individuals who defy social norms by "not doing" socially accepted behaviors construct meaningful subcultural identities. We explore the overlap between "deviant behavior" and subcultural identity through a case study of …
Teaching and Learning Guide for: Youth‐Subculture Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts
Studies of youth subcultures have been carried out for decades from various theoretical perspectives (including functionalism, social ecology, neo‐Marxism, deviance and labeling, cultural studies, sports and leisure studies) as well as from various methodological standpoints (e.g., deductive and inductive approaches, insider and outsider perspectives, ethnographic, historical comparative, and semiotics). The sociological study of youth subculture…
We Weren't Like No Regular Dope Fiends: Negotiating Hustler and Crackhead Identities
We investigate how participants in the street economy of crack cocaine construct a "hustler" identity by contrasting their social behaviors and styles with a dialectically contrastive crackhead identity. For those who are proximate to, or involved in, the crack cocaine economy, effort is required to avoid being labeled a crackhead. Would-be hustlers construct boundaries that separate them from others on the street through talk and behavior. We dr…
Community, Frame of Reference, and Boundary: Three Sociological Concepts and their Relevance for Virtual Worlds Research
Virtual-worlds research is a dynamic and growing interdisciplinary area in the social sciences and humanities. Sociological theory can play an important role in how virtual worlds are conceptualized and studied. Drawing on data from ethnographic projects on two distinct types of virtual worlds, an asynchronous text-based internet forum and a massively-multiplayer online game, I consider what social and cultural similarities these two types of vir…
Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft: Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft
Coordinated Action in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft
In tandem with the technological advancement of immersive virtual environments, digital games have evolved into complex social worlds where people play collaboratively to achieve individual- and group-oriented goals. The massively multiplayer online games genre has received international attention for the large numbers of users that commit a significant amount of time and effort to online play. Play styles within such game worlds are diverse, but…
Articulating the "Counter" in Subculture Studies
Introduction As street protests and clashes between citizens and authorities in places as different as Ferguson, Missouri and Hong Kong in autumn 2014 demonstrate, everyday life in many parts of the world is characterised by conflicting and competing sets of cultural norms, values, and practices. The idea that groups create cultures that stand in contrast to "mainstream" or "dominant culture" is nothing new-sociology's earliest scholars sought cu…
Negotiating Fan Identities in K-Pop Music Culture
In this paper I bring together interaction, media, deviance, self, and identity to make sense of how young Singaporeans consume Korean popular (hereafter, K-pop) music and culture. My overarching goal is to highlight that being a music fan is not a straightforward or even easy experience. Rather, the self as music fan is continually developing within a complex variety of social processes, from the circulation of global, mass media representations…
Sociology (27 works) · Aesthetics (14 works) · Art (13 works) · Computer Science (13 works) · Law (13 works) · Media studies (13 works) · Political science (13 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Social science (11 works)