Eric Klinenberg

Clippings – March 18th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on March 18, 2024
  • The Amsterdam News ran a feature on Elizabeth Ross Haynes, sociologist and women’s rights advocate. Haynes’ master’s thesis, Two Million Negro Women at Work (1922), was “praised for decades as the most comprehensive study of Black women in the United States.” Haynes’ work highlighted the lack of training opportunities and low wages for Black women in the workforce.
  • The New York Times ran a story on how dating apps are struggling to sell subscriptions (the bulk of their revenue) to younger daters. Jess Carbino (Online Dating Consultant and former Sociologist for Tinder and Bumble) describes this trend as a demographic shift, commenting younger people “still feel a desire to use online dating apps, but they’re not necessarily experiencing a sense of urgency to find a partner.”
  • Gaëtan Mangin (Sociologist at the Université d’Artois) wrote an article for The Conversation describing how, amid transitions to electric vehicles, owners of older cars are committed to certain ideas of sustainability. Many older car owners highlight the importance of using what you already have, often support driving less, and suspect that electric vehicles may be more polluting than they appear.
  • ABC News ran a story on the rising use of Ozempic and other GLP-1 agonists for weight loss. Pepper Schwartz (Professor of Sociology at the University of Washington) commented on how physical appearance and identity can be inter-woven: “If you change your looks so much that you feel like a different person, then your identity is changing.”
  • The American Prospect interviewed Eric Klinenberg (Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU) on America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Klinenberg discussed 1) how ‘social distancing’ was “rooted in good epidemiological science” but sociologically “destined to fail” as it undermined social solidarity; 2) how America was an outlier in COVID experiences, with high levels of destructive behavior; and 3) how our current presidential candidates are framing the pandemic as the election unfolds.

Clippings – March 5th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on March 5, 2024
  • The Cut interviewed Gretchen Sisson (Sociologist at Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) at the University of California San Francisco) about her new book Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood, which highlights experiences of birthmothers in the adoption industry. Sisson describes how many birthmothers want to become parents, but participate in adoption for financial reasons: “We have to understand adoption largely as a product of inequity and poverty, and that is a fundamental understanding that we just don’t have in this country,” Sisson says.
  • Eric Klinenberg (Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU) appeared on Plain English with Derek Thompson to discuss the “hanging out crisis” (the decline in face-to-face interactions), the importance of social infrastructure, and why “aloneness isn’t always loneliness.”
  • Robert Bullard (Distinguished Professor and Director of the Robert D. Bullard Center for Climate and Environmental Justice at Texas Southern University) appeared on Living on Earth to discuss how an elevated highway has caused destructive flooding in Shiloh, Alabama. “This is one of the worst cases of environmental racism that I have seen in the 40 years that I’ve worked on this. … If you look at the damage that has been caused over the last six years, you can see the drainage systems are pointed like cannons into the community. It’s almost as if the state is saying “We want you out of here. And if you don’t leave, we’re gonna drown you. We’re gonna drive you out.” Bullard discussed how pollution, vulnerabilities to climate change, and vulnerabilities to harmful infrastructure are racially segregated. This story was picked up by Inside Climate News.

Clippings – February 26th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on February 26, 2024
  • Eric Klinenberg (Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at NYU) appeared on MSNBC’s Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast and in The New Yorker to discuss his new book 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed. Klinenberg described learning through examining crises, enduring effects of the pandemic (a “societal version of long COVID”), and various experiences of New York residents in 2020. “You know, as a sociologist, I think of crises as doing for me what a particle accelerator does for a physicist,” Klinenberg stated. “It’s like it speeds up things that are always happening and makes you able to perceive conditions that you otherwise can’t see.”
  • Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (Associate Professor of Sociology and Associate Director of the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota) was quoted in the StarTribune following new research by Wrigley-Field and colleagues that suggests ‘excess deaths’ (the number of deaths over the average expected deaths in a time period) during the pandemic were driven by COVID. “If these excess natural cause deaths had nothing to do with COVID, you would probably see them happening throughout this period, irrespective of when the COVID waves are,” said Wrigley-Field. The research suggests that the death toll from COVID exceeds the official tally. This research was also covered by WebMD, The Guardian, and MPR News.
  • Emine Fidan Elcioglu (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto) was interviewed by The Trace about her research examining a southwest border militia group that supplied information on migration routes to the U.S. Border Patrol with the goal of decreasing migration. She found that the group’s gun culture bolstered recruitment, morale, and participation. “Guns can become a gateway for people to get involved in other forms — and much more extremist forms — of politics,” Elcioglu stated. “Guns can become sort of a way to pull them in and radicalize them on issues beyond just guns.”
  • Recent calls for a nationwide caste census to collect caste data (last collected in 1931) have sparked controversy in India. In an interview with IndiaSpend, Surinder S. Jodhka (Professor of Sociology at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences in Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi) emphasized that caste is a crucial indicator of social exclusion. “In order to engage with these issues in a democratic society, we need empirical evidence. Unless there are political mobilizations, systems do not open up. It can also fossilise caste identities,” Jodka stated. “The objective of caste census should not be to reinforce caste-based identity or an identity-based imagination of our future. It should be made a part of a narrative around socioeconomic lives. Eventually, the hope is that once there is a level playing field, we can explore transforming identities into citizenship-based social life where everyone feels that they are equal to others. This requires evidence and data.”

Clippings – February 12th, 2024 TSP Media Report

Mallory Harrington on February 12, 2024
  • Chicago Magazine interviewed Eric Klinenberg (Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University) about his new book, 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed. The book–a “social autopsy”–focuses on New York City in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and examines how institutions broke down during the crisis. “Societies reveal themselves when they’re under threat,” Klinenberg said. “You can see who we are and what we value, whose lives matter and whose don’t.”
  • Jonathan Wynn (Professor of Sociology at UMass Amherst) and Daniel Skinner (Associate Professor of Health Policy at Ohio University) recently wrote a piece for The Conversation on the “paradox of medically overserved communities.” For urban, non-profit hospitals, mission statements usually include providing a benefit to the local community; however, people living around these hospitals tend to have worse health in comparison to the broader city population.
  • Paul Spoonley (Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Massey University) appeared on AM to comment on New Zealand’s aging population and low fertility rates. Spoonley noted that by the 2030s, 1 in 4 people will be over the age of 65 and that care for an older population will place fiscal strain on the government. This story was covered by Newshub.
  • Lindsey D. Cameron (Assistant Professor of Management, Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania), Curtis K. Chan (Professor of Management and Organization at Boston College), and Michel Anteby (Professor of Management and Organizations, Sociology at Boston University) wrote an article for the Harvard Business Review on how gig workers respond to employers labeling them as “heroes.” They interviewed Instacart workers in 2020, after the company launched a “Household Heroes” marketing campaign. While some workers “readily embraced the hero label and viewed their work as resoundingly worthy,” others rejected the label and viewed the label as exploitative and manipulative. Most workers struggled “to reconcile the banality of grocery shopping with the idea that they were doing moral work.” Cameron, Chan, and Anteby warn companies that “moralizing jobs” to increase motivation can backfire.

Ladies Love Serious Men with Animals

Caty Taborda on June 17, 2015

Click to pre-order the book.

And Other Notes on Online Dating

If you’re coming across this post sometime between checking your morning email and logging into your favorite online dating apps, then this piece is for you. And with nearly 22% of straight couples and 70% of gay and lesbian couples meeting online, you’re in good company.

Using findings from their recent book collaboration, Modern Romance, sociologist Eric Klinenberg and comedian Aziz Ansari offer their advice for navigating the demanding, and often confusing, world of online dating. Among their findings highlighted in a New York Times op-ed, they learned that certain profile pictures are more successful for landing dates than others. Women baring cleavage in a flirty selfie, unsurprisingly, have high success rates, but strangely, so do men holding animals while looking away from the camera with serious facial expressions.

With all those cleavage-filled, serious pet owner profile pictures, the fast-paced world of online dating often allows users to either exclude a potential date too quickly or feel overwhelmed by perceived options. Klinenberg and Ansari reference several psychology studies to explain indecisiveness among online daters, but clear things up with a rap analogy:

Think about it in terms of pop music. When a new song featuring Drake comes on the radio, you’re like, “What is this song? Oh another Drake song. Big deal. Heard this before. Next please!”

Ideally, they argue, “you keep hearing it and you think, ‘Oh Drake, you’ve done it again!’” In non-Drake terms: online dating works a lot better if users are patient and get to know one another instead of being quick to dismiss based on photos of superficial profile information. So before you swipe from profile to profile, consider forgoing the comfort of your couch and instead meet someone in person for a better chance of establishing a real connection.

Libraries, Coffee Shops, and Natural Disasters

Molly Goin on November 15, 2013

The aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Photo by Jordi Bernabeu
The aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. Photo by Jordi Bernabeu via flickr.com

With death toll rising from the devastating typhoon in the Philippines this week, it seems that we’re constantly being reminded of the destruction of natural disasters, especially for rural and poor areas. Rural communities can be difficult to reach in times of environmental chaos, and poorer regions don’t always have the resources to cope with a crisis. When city services shut down or relief aid doesn’t come through immediately, community members band together to manage the aftermath of the disaster as best they can.

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg believes that community resources including “public places from libraries to mom-and-pop shops and coffee shops” can influence the outcomes of a crisis by providing the community the familiarity and support they need. In researching one such disaster, the 1995 Chicago heat wave, Klinenberg found that the residents of neighborhoods with more social infrastructure—like libraries and coffee shops—fared much better during the heat.

Those resources so dramatically improve the quality of our life on a regular day, but when there’s a heat wave or a hurricane or some other disaster, they can make the difference between life and death. In the Chicago heat wave, they did.

These types of social infrastructure benefit communities beyond times of crisis, according to Klinenberg who argues,

The nice thing about investing in climate security through social infrastructure is that the residual benefit is that we could dramatically improve the quality of life in these places all the time regardless of the weather. And it’s that kind of intelligent design that we desperately need at this moment.

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The Urbanite’s Guide to Surviving Climate Change

Erin Hoekstra on January 22, 2013

In the wake of Superstorm Sandy, Occupy Wall Street shifted its efforts to neighborhood-level storm relief. Image via Daniel Latorre via flickr.com.

Like Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters affecting urban areas, Superstorm Sandy reminded many that U.S. cities are unprepared for the effects of climate change. According to sociologist Eric Klinenberg in a recent issue of The New Yorker, the U.S. lags far behind other countries in “climate-proofing,” or investing in infrastructural developments that will protect cities and their inhabitants from increasingly-severe natural disasters and rising water levels.

Beyond investing in physical infrastructure, preparing for and surviving climate change, Klinenberg writes, will involve “recognizing the importance of social infrastructure: the people, places, and institutions that foster cohesion and support.” Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson has emphasized the importance of strong social ties during natural disasters. In their research on the 1995 Chicago heat wave that killed over 700 people, Klinenberg and Sampson found that neighborhoods with a strong sense of community and many churches and civic organizations—neighborhoods where people look out for one another—fare better when disaster strikes.

Although infrastructure investment and development play a major role in mitigating the effects of climate change, it may well prove that “civil society will ultimately determine which people and places will withstand the emerging threats from climate change.”