CAS SO 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Media Create, Ethnocentrism, Herbert J. Gans
Document Summary
Culture is like two mirrors facing each other: it simultaneously re ects and creates the world we live in. Most sociologists believe that they cause each other. Culture is a vague term that we use to rationalize many behaviors and describe all sorts of people and patterns. Culture is causally used as shorthand for many things. Culture is the sum of the social categories and concepts we recognize in addition to our beliefs, behavior, and practices. The word culture derives from the latin verb colere which means to cultivate. The more common meaning of a noun developed from the kind of human control and domination over nature. The term culture was referred to the distinction between what is natural and what is modi ed or created by humans and follows the laws of the state. Today, we recognize that culture is alway relative. We cannot talk about culture without reference to the global world.
