My job market struggles are made all more the inexplicable by the fact that I maintain an active publication track in a hot field of study – zombies. In the past year alone I have published three articles, and I have an additional three under review, and numerous projects in the pipeline.

While my research on zombies may be an odd topic for sociologists to tackle, my scholarship garners much interest. My first sole-authored article “Locating Zombies in the Sociology of Popular Culture,” for instance, can net 100+ downloads in a day on my academia.edu webpage. The same piece has been quoted in numerous press outlets, elicits interview requests, and even gets me open invitations to present at professional conferences that, ironically, I cannot afford to attend.

One of my “under review” articles “The New Horror Movie” is required reading for a graduate seminar taught by a friend at Aarhus University in Denmark. While some in sociology may be turned off to my research on zombies (something they do without reading it), I have also published and received grant money in the sociology of race – a topic of perennial sociological interest.

Zombies are a hot area in popular culture so it makes sense that academics would address this and think about what it says about or means for American society. At the same time, I wonder how many people within the larger discipline of sociology are thinking about zombies. Traditional markers of the status of a topic within the discipline include things like papers about the topic at professional meetings of sociologists (conferences involving other disciplines may not matter as much), respected faculty tackling the subject, important programs/departments teaching the course/having a concentration of faculty teaching about it/attracting graduate students interested in the topic, numerous articles/book chapters/books published and in the pipeline, citations of said publications, and perhaps a research network or ASA section or some sort of permanent sociology group addressing the topic. All of this takes quite a bit of time to develop and for the benefits to trickle down to those who study the subject.

I wonder if there is some easy way to track trends in sociological subjects over time to see which hot topics of past decades made it and which did not.

A college education as another object of conspicuous consumption?

Posted on March 6, 2014 by legallysociable

A law professor argues the price of a college degree is related to seeing it as part of conspicuous consumption:

More than a century ago, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe the practice of buying luxury goods in order to display social status. In its purest form, conspicuous consumption involves purchasing expensive goods precisely because they are expensive, which means that the true conspicuous consumer will have what economists call an inverted demand curve.

Normally, when the price of a good rises, demand for it will fall. Demand for a Veblen good, by contrast, goes up as it becomes more expensive. The purpose of buying it is to display wealth, so the fewer people that can afford to buy a good, the more valuable it becomes to conspicuous consumers…

In economic terms, higher education is a positional good: It is valuable to have a college degree because other people don’t have one. It is also to a significant extent a Veblen good: Sending one’s children to college, and most especially a prestigious (meaning expensive) college, is a way of signaling social status via the conspicuous consumption of a luxury good.

All of this helps explain why college tuition has increased three times faster than the cost of living over the past three decades. University administrators have discovered that, to a remarkable degree, the more they charge for what they’re offering, the more people will want to buy it.

This reminds me of the argument Mitchell Stevens makes in Creating a Class. After a prolonged study of college admissions, Stevens suggests prospective college students tend to select the school they will attend primarily based on status (my note: which is often tied to price). The emphasis is not on learning but rather on the economic benefits this can lead to (better jobs, better social networks) as well as the status the college confers to its graduates.

I encountered a bit of this with my graduate education at the University of Notre Dame. While Notre Dame does not have one of the highest ranked sociology programs, people who heard I was at Notre Dame expressed they were impressed since it is viewed as a good school. The implication was that I must be a good student if Notre Dame thought highly of me – a transfer of status from the university to the individual. However, I suspect their claims were based on the undergraduate ranking (usually between #15-20 in US News) and not on the specific of the sociology graduate program.

Are America’s most admired simply America’s most powerful?

Posted on January 1, 2014 by legallysociable

Peter Beinart looks at the most recent Gallup’s most recent Most Admired poll and notices a trend:

Nor is it true that Gallup merely measures celebrity, since athletes and Hollywood icons are largely absent. Looking at the winners across the decades, the most common denominator is power. Indeed, the only female winners not in close proximity to political power are Mother Theresa in the 1980s and 1990s and Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who gained fame treating polio, in 1951.

The men tell a similar story. Presidents almost always win. When they’re deemed weak or unpopular, the public anoints another strong political figure: Douglas MacArthur supplants Harry Truman in 1946 and 1947; Dwight Eisenhower tops Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and 1968; Henry Kissinger replaces Richard Nixon between 1973 and 1975. Even the religious figures who do best are the ones closest to power. Although he never wins, the Reverend Billy Graham—famous for pastoring to presidents—makes the top-10 list more than other man between 1948 and 2005. The other highest-scoring religious figures are popes. Missing are any of the clergy, like William Sloane Coffin or Daniel Berrigan, who made their names fighting the Vietnam War.

In fact, activists protesting injustice rarely rank highly. That includes Martin Luther King. He doesn’t make America’s top 10 most admired men in 1963, the year of the March on Washington. King comes fourth in 1964 and sixth in 1965 but then falls out of the top ten again in 1966 and 1967. The same is true for Nelson Mandela. By the mid-1980s, the global anti-apartheid movement had made Mandela a household name. But as far as I can tell, he doesn’t crack Gallup’s top-10 list until he is elected South Africa’s president in 1994. (To be fair, I was only able to check 1983, 1984 , 1986, 1987, and 1992. For 1993, I could only find the top five. After 1994, Mandela becomes a top-10 regular. But by then, the Cold War is over, the controversy surrounding his communist sympathies has evaporated, and he’s become safe.

I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised at this. Part of it could be that people get to vote for some of the political positions so they feel like they had a voice. Additionally, the media tends to cover the most powerful a lot. Celebrities may get a lot of attention but they tend not to do too well, whether star athletes or Hollywood stars, in job prestige rankings.

Beinart suggests the American public should pay more attention to activists, people fighting for justice rather than people holding the reins of justice. These two things are not mutually exclusive: powerful leaders can be good leaders. But, this could be a problem if people are admired simply for the power they command rather than for what they actually do with that power.

“They get McMansions, we get McJobs”

Posted on December 31, 2013 by legallysociable

One columnist suggests McMansions are for the few thriving in the current economy while everyone else gets low-paying jobs:

The Great Recession ended in mid-2009, but for middle class Americans the economic “recovery” never began.

Times will get harder in 2014 for thousands of families in Bucks and Montgomery counties. As reported in this newspaper, long-term unemployment benefits ceased on Saturday for 73,000 Pennsylvanians, about 6,000 of them in the two counties. These people and their dependents will have the penultimate hope ’n change experience – no job, few prospects for full-time work and no unemployment benefits.

The economic news for the majority of Americans has not been good in recent years. However, I’m intrigued by the argument about who McMansions are for. The suggestion here is that McMansions are only for the wealthy, those who have still done well in the economic crisis. Yet, the typical usage of the word McMansion implies that they are big houses for the masses, not just the wealthy. At the economic peak in the early 2000s, the idea of a McMansion meant that a middle-class American could purchase a large and ostentatious home.

At play here is the relative status of McMansion owners. Are they the nouveau riche who are trying to conspicuously present their wealth? Are they the top 10% of the population? The truly wealthy don’t need McMansions – they have mansions – but in times of more scarcity, McMansions might not be for the masses. Also, the article seems to present its criticism of McMansions from those of lower economic and social standing whereas some of the critique of McMansions in recent decades has come from the top in suggesting the owners aren’t really wealthy or don’t have much architectural taste.

Venkatesh on writing for a mass audience vs. a more scholarly audience

Posted on September 12, 2013 by legallysociable

A review of Sudhir Venkatesh’s latest book Floating City: A Rogue Sociologist Lost and Found in New York’s Underground Economy notes that Venkatesh finds himself between writing for the public versus academics. And the reviewer doesn’t like hearing about this tension:

There’s one more thing that’s irritating: Early on, Venkatesh tells readers that some sociologists at his Ivy-League institution look down on writing a book for the masses. And he describes being caught between wanting to be taken seriously as an academic and telling stories and reaching a larger audience. But that internal torture sounds hollow, and it seems pretty clear that Venkatesh, well-known already, likes the spotlight of mass appeal. So why not just drop the pretense and write?

While the average reader might not be interested in this tension, I feel I have heard versions of this conversation numerous times. But, which way the conversation goes tends to depend heavily on the context. At the more official sessions and events of the ASA, you get more of a push for the scholarly audience. The big names are present, there is a lot of conversation about theories and the latest research, and there are awards for he best scholarly work. At more regional meetings, you hear a mix. When teaching undergraduate liberal arts students, they often ask why academics tend to write in journals that relatively few people read. From their point of view, why become a sociologist if not many people pay attention to your findings and ideas?

Perhaps the reviewer is right: Venkatesh and others could just pick a side and go with it. Yet, there are clear consequences for such decisions. There are certainly sociologists who have gone the more mass market approach and done okay, even if their status within the academic discipline doesn’t rise accordingly or they are viewed by some as lightweights.

McMansions pass away quickly like reality stars, unlike stone buildings

Posted on July 24, 2013 by legallysociable

McMansions are often assumed to a passing phenomenon. See this quote from the TV show House of Cards:

“Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts fallin’ apart after 10 years,” Spacey’s character, Rep. Francis “Frank” Underwood (D-Antebellumville), tells us in an on-again off-again honeysuckle accent. “Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries.”

Or this description of a common path of reality stars: becoming famous and buying a McMansion.

Anyone remember what happened when that other TLC reality show about a big family got really, really popular? Jon and Kate Plus Eight quickly evolved: In later seasons, there was a new McMansion for the family, and a posh new look for Kate. By all accounts, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo could have followed the same trajectory. According to TMZ, the network has raised their salary from $5,000 and $7,000 an episode at the beginning of the series to “somewhere between $15,000 and $20,000 an episode.” But the extra cash hasn’t changed the family’s priorities.

For one thing, a bigger house was apparently in the offing, too. “We’re told TLC even offered to help the family find a somewhat larger, more secure home, but June refused,” said TMZ. “She said she wanted to stay in the house because she makes a big deal over Christmas — decorating the house for the community. June is heavily involved in her town.” Thus Season 2 takes place in and around their same little house with the beat-up furniture and the one bathroom.

Both quotes above discuss the notion that McMansions won’t last long. It pits modern spec houses against solid stone buildings. In reality, many homes in the US are not the stone variety. Plus, we don’t quite know how McMansions will stand up in the long run. Barring natural disasters, humans can be pretty resourceful with existing structures if they want to. The link to reality stars is quite clever; the implication is these are stars who will burn brightly, purchase their McMansions, and then burn out, never to be heard from again. McMansions have more staying power than these reality stars, if just by the number of such homes that have been built.

McMansions are new in the sense that the word didn’t really emerge in popular usage until the late 1990s. These houses simply haven’t been around that long so they are newer luxury items. On the other hand, McMansions seem to have become another part of the long-running battle between old and new money. McMansion can then be a derogatory term thrown at the nouveau riche who don’t have the proper social standing to compete with old money.

All together, there is a temporal dimension to the use of the term McMansion. Critics hope they are a passing fad. Others suggest they are making a comeback or larger homes are simply what Americans desire. Perhaps we need a new popular form of housing to replace the McMansion…

Google says their creative interview questions didn’t predict good workers…so why ask them?

Posted on June 21, 2013 by legallysociable

Google announced yesterday that their creative and odd interview questions didn’t help them understand who was going to be a good worker. So, why did they ask them?

“We found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time,” Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, told the New York Times. “They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart.”

A list of Google questions compiled by Seattle job coach Lewis Lin, and then read by approximately everyone on the entire Internet in one form or another, included these humdingers:

How much should you charge to wash all the windows in Seattle?

Design an evacuation plan for San Francisco

How many times a day does a clock’s hands overlap?

A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune. What happened?

You are shrunk to the height of a nickel and your mass is proportionally reduced so as to maintain your original density. You are then thrown into an empty glass blender. The blades will start moving in 60 seconds. What do you do?

Bock says Google now relies on more quotidian means of interviewing prospective employees, such as standardizing interviews so that candidates can be assessed consistently, and “behavioral interviewing,” such as asking people to describe a time they solved a difficult problem. It’s also giving much less weight to college grade point averages and SAT scores.

The suggestion here is that these were more about the interviewer than the interviewee. Interesting. This is just speculation but here are other potential reasons for asking such questions.

1. They really thought these questions would be a good filter – but they learned better later. Was this initial idea based on research? Experience? Anecdotes? Or did this just sort of happen one time and it seemed to work so it continued? For a company that is all about data and algorithms, it would be interesting to know whether this interviewing practice was based on data.

2. Perhaps Google is trying to project a certain image to potential employees: “We are a place that values this kind of thinking.” The interview at Google isn’t just a typical interview; it is an experience.

3. They wanted to be to the wider public as a place that asked these kind of intimidating/interesting (depending on your point of view) questions. And this image is tied to social status: “Google does something in their interviews that others don’t! They must know something.” Were these questions all part of a larger branding strategy? It would be interesting to know how long they have thought the questions didn’t predict good workers. What does it say about the company now if they are moving on to other methods and more “quotidian”/pedestrian/boring interviewing approaches?

Suburbs wooing the Chicago Cubs highlights the regional nature of sports teams and stadiums

Posted on June 15, 2013 by legallysociable

The Chicago Cubs moving out of the city seems unlikely. But, that hasn’t stopped several Chicago suburbs from suggesting they would be willing to work out a deal with the Cubs to build a new stadium:

What the soliciting suburbs believe — and sources close to the Cubs confirm — is that the siblings of Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts are souring on Chicago and growing increasingly concerned the deal will be modified in a way that denies the team the revenue it needs to renovate Wrigley without a public subsidy…

“If this deal looks like it’s going down in flames or not getting done in a reasonable time, Tom will invest in ‘Plan B’ locations. He’d still work with the mayor on a city site. But, maybe not in Wrigleyville. I know people don’t believe it. But, it’s true,” the Cubs source said…

Aides to Mayor Rahm Emanuel privately dismissed this week’s public solicitation from DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin as a Cubs-orchestrated negotiating ploy.

“This is all manufactured to gain leverage,” said a top mayoral aide, who asked to remain anonymous.

Last month, Ricketts threatened to move his team out of Wrigley and Chicago if he doesn’t get the outfield signs he needs to bankroll a $300 million stadium renovation without a public subsidy.

This comes after the announcement this week that DuPage County has two potential sites for the Cubs. But, little extra information about these plans were provided.

But, I think a more interesting take is the regional nature of sports teams and stadiums. Sports teams these days are really regional entities, particularly considering that more people live in the suburbs than central cities. It is unusual to have a team like the Cubs so closely tied to a specific neighborhood. Additionally, cities often see sports stadiums as economic engines, even though research suggests spending lots of taxpayer dollars on stadiums doesn’t pay off for communities. On one hand, it is not all that different than fighting over big box stores or corporate headquarters because of the supposed economic benefits. Yet, on the other hand it is a constant status symbol. Could the city of Chicago really afford in terms of prestige to lose the Cubs? I don’t think so. Would a suburb get a big status boost from hosting the Cubs? Possibly. If a suburb was able to woo the Cubs, I imagine they would trumpet this fact and try to build around it for decades.

This has happened before in Chicago. When the Chicago Bears were looking for a new stadium from the 1970s to the early 1990s, several suburbs were involved. The Bears ended up getting a decent enough deal from the city to stay. (Maybe they should have pushed harder. They have the smallest NFL stadium in terms of seats and with it also being an open-air facility, this limits its Super Bowl possibilities in the future. Also, the facility is still owned by the Chicago Park District and this has led to issues over the years.) Again, it is hard to imagine the Chicago Bears, a historic NFL franchise, playing out in the suburbs next to a major highway. What would have been a boon for a suburb would have been a big perceived loss for Chicago.

In the end, these sorts of negotiations can pit cities against suburbs in similar ways to fighting over business opportunities. But, rather than arguing about just money, sports teams are viewed as public goods that belong to a region. Perhaps the worst possible outcome is for the region to lose a team to another region altogether. The second worst outcome might be for the big city to lose the stadium to an upstart suburb.

How others see you based on your smartphone choice

Posted on April 3, 2013 by legallysociable

Buying consumer goods it not just about functionality. Items like smartphones serve as status markers:

As people ride the wave of technological innovation, judgmental people now include what smartphone or mobile device an individual owns in their criteria for social identity.

Sociology associate professor Coye Cheshire of the Berkeley School of Information said identity is closely linked into these kinds of choices.

The Apple iPhone has been an indicator of approved or superior status among consumers, Cheshire added.

Moreover, mobile device owners often see Apple devices as the top-tier consumer products when it comes to gadgetry.

Cheshire said an iPhone fits for people who do not have the luxury of tinkering with menus. But it does not necessarily mean an iPhone owner only understands little about technology and mobile devices. It rather advertises they have more important things to do with their time.

This is a good sociological reminder: we don’t just make choices for ourselves. Rather, what we decide to buy (plus what we eat, who we are friends with, where we live, etc.) are part of more complex social worlds where our individual choices are formed by and interact with other people. Also, in purchasing technology today, people buy in part because they think they are getting unique devices that allow them to express their individuality. This is happening even as they join millions of others in buying commonly available products.

Of course, these social symbols can change over time. Think of BlackBerry phones – they were once hot products that spoke to someone’s drive and ambition but today signal something quite different.

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