culture

A large city at night, with colorful lights illuminating the cityscape. Photo by Wolfram from Pexels under Pexels license.

From Hollywood actors to community activists and literary writers, Asian Americans have been gaining increasing visibility on public platforms. However, given that Asian Americans come from over 20 ethnic and national groups, there is variety and diversity in history, language, culture, and experience that the umbrella term “Asian American” cannot encompass. Over time, in fact, Asian Americans have been lumped into a monolithic culture and stereotypes typically associated with East Asians, erasing the diversity that is a crucial part of Asian America. 

What does it mean to be “Asian American” in the United States? How are Asian Americans defying, redefining, and embracing this ambiguous and monolithic label? 

Immigration and Asian Americans

Asian Americans and their immigration to the United States have always been an important part of the history of the United States. Ethnic groups like Chinese and Japanese Americans have been around since the gold rush and sugarcane fields of Hawaii respectively. Other groups, especially Southeast Asian refugees, came to the United States as a result of colonialism and war. It is important to acknowledge how these different histories compose and have shaped Asian American identities, cultures, and communities.

• Lee, Erika. 2015. “A Part and Apart: Asian American and Immigration History.” Journal of American Ethnic History 34(4):28–42. 
• Lee, Erika. 2016. The Making of Asian America: A History. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Panethnicity

Panethnicity refers to any collective identity built across ethnic boundaries and differences (Okamoto and Mora 2014). For Asian Americans, panethnicity was created as a political identity for activism and solidarity among Asian-origin peoples in the face of a deeply racialized United States. In more recent decades, “Asian American” has become an identity for Asian Americans to share in panethnic cultural histories, activities, and media. However, it has also become an identity forced upon Asian-origin peoples, where entities like the government group all Asian-origin ethnicities under this broad umbrella term to distinguish them from both White people and other people of color.

• Lee, Jess. 2019. “Many dimensions of Asian American pan‐ethnicity.” Sociology Compass 13(12). 

• Nakano, Dana Y. 2013. “An interlocking panethnicity: The negotiation of multiple identities among Asian American social movement leaders.” Sociological Perspectives 56(4):569-595.

• Okamoto, Dina G. 2014. Redefining race: Asian American panethnicity and shifting ethnic boundaries. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

• Okamoto, Dina, and G. Cristina Mora. 2014. “Panethnicity.” Annual Review of Sociology 40:219-239.Espiritu, Yen Le. 1992. Asian American panethnicity: Bridging institutions and identities. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

The Monolithic “Asian American” – Commonalities and Variations

In recent decades, “Asian American” as a panethnic category has also become a point of contention for people who are categorized and racialized as such. Many ethnic groups, like South Asian ethnic groups, feel unrepresented in an umbrella category that seems to predominantly reflect East Asian culture, values, experiences, and socio-cultural status. An example of this is the “model minority” stereotype, which upholds Asian Americans as hard-working and high achieving in comparison to other racial minority groups, and yet still inferior and a threat to White people (Kim 1999). However, the model minority is often in reference to East Asians (although depending on the context this can also include Asian Indians and Vietnamese), ignoring the disparities many Asian Americans like South and Southeast Asians experience.

As a result, there have been calls to disaggregate, or break down, Asian Americans by ethnic groups because of how this monolithic racial label camouflages the vast differences and inequities between Asian American groups. Examples include the income gaps between groups like Chinese Americans and Nepalese Americans, and even within ethnic groups, like Chinese Americans, there are vastly different and unequal experiences. 

• Kibria, Nadia. 1998. “The contested meanings of ‘Asian American’: Racial dilemmas in the contemporary US.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(5), 939-958.
• Lee, Jennifer, and Karthick Ramakrishnan. 2020. “Who counts as Asian.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 43(10):1733-1756.
• Tsuda, Takeyuki. 2022. “I Don’t Feel Very Asian American”: Why Aren’t Japanese Americans More Panethnic?” Sociological Inquiry 92: 919-942. 
• Yamashita, Liann. 2022. ““I just couldn’t relate to that Asian American narrative”: How Southeast Asian Americans reconsider panethnicity.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity 8(2):250-266

Xenophobia and Anti-Asian Racism

Asian Americans continue to face xenophobic sentiments in a country where, no matter who is included or how long their family has been in the US, they are treated as foreigners (Tuan 1998). Even when praised as “model minorities” who “made it” compared to other minority groups, this valorized position can quickly crumble beneath them. The COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of anti-Asian hate that followed is an example of Asian Americans’ tenuous position in the racialized hierarchy of the United States. 

• Kim, Claire Jean. 1999. “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans.” Politics & Society 27(1):105-138. 
• Kim, Nadia. 2007. “Asian Americans’ experiences of “race” and racism.” In Handbooks of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations, pp. 131-144. Boston, MA: Springer US.
• Tessler, Hannah, Meera Choi, and Grace Kao. 2020. “The anxiety of being Asian American: Hate crimes and negative biases during the COVID-19 pandemic.” American Journal of Criminal Justice 45:636-646.
• Tuan, Mia. 1998. Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites? The Asian Ethnic Experience Today. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. 

Originally published March 30, 2022.

Today “help wanted” signs are commonplace; restaurants, shops, and cafes have temporarily closed or have cut back on hours due to staffing shortages. “Nobody wants to work,” the message goes. Some businesses now offer higher wages, benefits, and other incentives to draw in low-wage workers. All the same, “the great resignation” has been met with alarm across the country, from the halls of Congress to the ivory tower.

In America, where work is seen as virtuous, widespread resignations are certainly surprising.  How does so many are walking away from their jobs differ from what we’ve observed in the past, particularly in terms of frustrations about labor instability, declining benefits, and job insecurity? Sociological research on work, precarity, expectations, and emotions provides cultural context on the specificity and significance of “the great resignation.”

Individualism and Work

The importance of individualism in American culture is clear in the workplace. Unlike after World War II, when strong labor unions and a broad safety net ensured reliable work and ample benefits (for mostly white workers), instability and precarity are hallmarks of today’s workplace. A pro-work, individualist ethos values individual’s flexibility, adaptability, and “hustle.” When workers are laid off due to shifting market forces and the profit motives of corporate executives, workers internalize the blame. Instead of blaming executives for prioritizing stock prices over workers, or organizing to demand more job security, the cultural emphasis on individual responsibility encourages workers to devote their energy into improving themselves and making themselves more attractive for the jobs that are available.

• Robert N. Bellah. 1985. “The Pursuit of Happiness” and “Culture and Conversation: The Historical.” Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Richard Sennett. 2000. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Lester Spence. 2015. Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books.

Expectations and Experiences

For many, the pandemic offered a brief glimpse into a different world of work with healthier work-life balance and temporary (if meaningful) government assistance. Why and how have American workers come to expect unpredictable work conditions and meager benefits? The bipartisan, neoliberal consensus that took hold in the latter part of the twentieth century saw a reduction in government intervention into the social sphere. At the same time, a bipartisan pro-business political agenda reshaped how workers thought of themselves and their employers. Workers became individualistic actors or “companies of one” who looked out for themselves and their own interests instead of fighting for improved conditions. Today’s “precariat” – the broad class of workers facing unstable and precarious work – weather instability by expecting little from employers or the government while demanding more of themselves.

• Wendy Brown. 2017. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Zone Books.
• Carrie M. Lane. 2011. A Company of One Insecurity, Independence, and the New World of White-Collar Unemployment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Devika Narayan. 2022. “Manufacturing Managerial Compliance: How Firms Align Managers With Corporate Interest. Work, Employment & Society, Forthcoming. 
• Guy Standing. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Press.

Generational Changes

Researchers have identified generational differences in expectations of work. Survey data shows that Baby Boomers experience greater difficulty with workplace instability and the emerging individualist ethos. On the other hand, younger generations – more accustomed to this precarity – manage the tumult with greater skill. These generational disparities in how insecurity is perceived have real implications for worker well-being and family dynamics.

• Sarah Burgard, Jennie Brand, James House. 2009. “Perceived Job Insecurity and Worker Health in the United States.” Social Science and Medicine 69(5): 777–​785.
• Erin Kelly, Phyllis Moen, J. Michael Oakes, Wen Fan, Cassandra Okechukwu, Kelly Davis. 2014. “Changing Work and Work-​ Family Conflict: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network.” American Sociological Review 79(3): 485–​516.
• Jack Lam, Phyllis Moen, Shi-Rong Lee, and Orfeu Buxton. 2016. “Boomer and Gen X Managers and Employees at Risk: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network Study.” Pp. 51-73 in Beyond the Cubicle: Job Insecurity, Intimacy, and the Flexible Self. New York: Oxford University Press.

Emotions

Scholars have also examined the central role emotions play in setting expectations of work and employers, as well as the broad realm of “emotional management” industries that help make uncertainty bearable for workers. Instead of improving workplace conditions for workers, these “emotional management” industries provide “self-care” resources that put the burden of managing the despair and anxiety of employment uncertainty on employees themselves, rather than companies.

• Barbara Ehrenreich. 2010. Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World. London: Granta Books.
• Eva Illouz. Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. 2007. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity.

Today “help wanted” signs are commonplace; restaurants, shops, and cafes have temporarily closed or have cut back on hours due to staffing shortages. “Nobody wants to work,” the message goes. Some businesses now offer higher wages, benefits, and other incentives to draw in low-wage workers. All the same, “the great resignation” has been met with alarm across the country, from the halls of Congress to the ivory tower.

In America, where work is seen as virtuous, widespread resignations are certainly surprising.  How does so many are walking away from their jobs differ from what we’ve observed in the past, particularly in terms of frustrations about labor instability, declining benefits, and job insecurity? Sociological research on work, precarity, expectations, and emotions provides cultural context on the specificity and significance of “the great resignation.”

Individualism and Work

The importance of individualism in American culture is clear in the workplace. Unlike after World War II, when strong labor unions and a broad safety net ensured reliable work and ample benefits (for mostly white workers), instability and precarity are hallmarks of today’s workplace. A pro-work, individualist ethos values individual’s flexibility, adaptability, and “hustle.” When workers are laid off due to shifting market forces and the profit motives of corporate executives, workers internalize the blame. Instead of blaming executives for prioritizing stock prices over workers, or organizing to demand more job security, the cultural emphasis on individual responsibility encourages workers to devote their energy into improving themselves and making themselves more attractive for the jobs that are available.

• Robert N. Bellah. 1985. “The Pursuit of Happiness” and “Culture and Conversation: The Historical.” Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Richard Sennett. 2000. The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
• Lester Spence. 2015. Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics. Brooklyn, NY: Punctum Books.

Expectations and Experiences

For many, the pandemic offered a brief glimpse into a different world of work with healthier work-life balance and temporary (if meaningful) government assistance. Why and how have American workers come to expect unpredictable work conditions and meager benefits? The bipartisan, neoliberal consensus that took hold in the latter part of the twentieth century saw a reduction in government intervention into the social sphere. At the same time, a bipartisan pro-business political agenda reshaped how workers thought of themselves and their employers. Workers became individualistic actors or “companies of one” who looked out for themselves and their own interests instead of fighting for improved conditions. Today’s “precariat” – the broad class of workers facing unstable and precarious work – weather instability by expecting little from employers or the government while demanding more of themselves.

• Wendy Brown. 2017. Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Zone Books.
• Carrie M. Lane. 2011. A Company of One Insecurity, Independence, and the New World of White-Collar Unemployment. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• Devika Narayan. 2022. “Manufacturing Managerial Compliance: How Firms Align Managers With Corporate Interest. Work, Employment & Society, Forthcoming. 
• Guy Standing. 2011. The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class. London: Bloomsbury Press.

Generational Changes

Researchers have identified generational differences in expectations of work. Survey data shows that Baby Boomers experience greater difficulty with workplace instability and the emerging individualist ethos. On the other hand, younger generations – more accustomed to this precarity – manage the tumult with greater skill. These generational disparities in how insecurity is perceived have real implications for worker well-being and family dynamics.

• Sarah Burgard, Jennie Brand, James House. 2009. “Perceived Job Insecurity and Worker Health in the United States.” Social Science and Medicine 69(5): 777–​785.
• Erin Kelly, Phyllis Moen, J. Michael Oakes, Wen Fan, Cassandra Okechukwu, Kelly Davis. 2014. “Changing Work and Work-​ Family Conflict: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network.” American Sociological Review 79(3): 485–​516.
• Jack Lam, Phyllis Moen, Shi-Rong Lee, and Orfeu Buxton. 2016. “Boomer and Gen X Managers and Employees at Risk: Evidence from the Work, Family, and Health Network Study.” Pp. 51-73 in Beyond the Cubicle: Job Insecurity, Intimacy, and the Flexible Self. New York: Oxford University Press.

Emotions

Scholars have also examined the central role emotions play in setting expectations of work and employers, as well as the broad realm of “emotional management” industries that help make uncertainty bearable for workers. Instead of improving workplace conditions for workers, these “emotional management” industries provide “self-care” resources that put the burden of managing the despair and anxiety of employment uncertainty on employees themselves, rather than companies.

• Barbara Ehrenreich. 2010. Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World. London: Granta Books.
• Eva Illouz. Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. 2007. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity.

Originally published May 4, 2020

When we talk about work, we often miss a type of work that is crucial to keeping the economy going and arguably more challenging and difficult than ever under conditions of quarantine and social distancing: care work. Care work includes both paid and unpaid services caring for children, the elderly, and those who are sick and disabled, including bathing, cooking, getting groceries, and cleaning.

Sociologists have found that caregiving that happens within families is not always viewed as work, yet it is a critical part of keeping the paid work sector running. Children need to eat and be bathed and clothed. Families need groceries. Houses need to be cleaned. As many schools in the United States are closed and employees are working from home, parents are having to navigate extended caring duties. Globally, women do most of this caring labor, even when they also work outside of the home. 

• Paula England. 2005. “Emerging Theories of Care Work.” Annual Review of Sociology 31: 381–399.
• Suzanne Bianchi, Nancy Folbre, and Douglas Wolf. 2012. “Unpaid Care Work.” In N. Folbre (Ed.) For Love and Money: Care Provision in the United States (pp. 40–64). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Shahra Razavi and Silke Staab. 2010. “Underpaid and Overworked: A Cross-national Perspective on Care Workers.” International Labour Review 149: 407–422.

Globally, women do most of this caring labor, even when they also work outside of the home. Historically, wealthy white women were able to escape these caring duties by employing women of color to care for their children and households, from enslaved African Americans to domestic servants. Today people of color, immigrants, and those with little education are overrepresented in care work with the worst job conditions. 

• Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung. 1989. The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. Penguin Random House.
• Evelynn Nakano Glenn. 2010. Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America. Harvard University Press.
• Mignon Duffy, Amy Armenia, and Clare L. Stacey. 2015. Caring on the Clock: The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work. Families in Focus. Rutgers University Press.
• Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. 2001. Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. University of California Press.

In the past decade, the care work sector has grown substantially in the United States. However, care workers are still paid low wages and receive little to no benefits. In fact, care work wages are stagnant or declining, despite an overall rise in education levels for workers. Thus, many care workers — women especially — find themselves living in poverty.  

• Rachel E. Dwyer. 2013. “The Care Economy? Gender, Economic Restructuring, and Job Polarization in the U.S Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 78: 390–416.
• Jennifer Craft Morgan and Brandy Farrar. 2015. “Building Meaningful Career Lattices: Direct Care Workers in Long-term Care.” In M. Duffy, A. Armenia and C. L. Stacey (Eds.), Caring on the Clock: The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work. Families in Focus (pp. 278–286). Rutgers University Press.

Caring is important for a society to function, yet care work — paid or unpaid — is still undervalued. In this time of COVID-19 where people are renegotiating how to live and work, attention to caring and appreciation for care work is more necessary than ever.

On the 7th day of each December, Americans are reminded of Pearl Harbor — the 1941 attack on an American naval base that killed 2,400 Americans. This event has become an icon in American memory. The events of that day have been told and retold by the media and amongst families. It has been featured in history books and the focal point of Hollywood movies, museums, and memorials. In fact, sociologists suggest that iconic events like Pearl Harbor have come to define the nation.

Sociologists also insist that memories are socially constructed. To say that a memory is socially constructed means that our recollections of events such as Pearl Harbor are not natural or unfiltered history but in fact mediated and filtered through social institutions like the media and politics. Some sociologists argue that this construction of memory is motivated by contemporary  interests. For example, at the time, media reports on Pearl Harbor highlighted national security and portrayed Japan as America’s enemy. These accounts were used to invoke American anger and pride. Both political actors and the media created moral depictions of the event, emphasizing American victimhood and the need for immediate action.

• Emily S. Rosenberg. 2003.  A Date Which Will Live: Pearl Harbor in American Memory. Duke University Press.
• Joachim Savelsberg and Ryan D. King. 2011. American Memories: Atrocities and the Law. Russell Sage Foundation.
• Patricia Leavy. 2007. Iconic Events: Media, Politics, and Power in Retelling History. Lexington Books.

Yet over time, our collective recollection and interpretation of events may change, and sometimes, we use past events to understand current events. For instance, in the aftermath of 9/11, memories of Pearl Harbor were invoked to both give meaning to and to make sense of the surprise attacks on American soil. The use of a past event, Pearl Harbor, to understand a contemporary event like 9/11 is what has been called a bridging metaphor. And politicians often use bridging metaphors to inspire new emotional responses by connecting current events to memories and sentiments of past events.

• Jeffrey K. Olick. 2016. The Sins of the Fathers: Germany, Memory, Method. University of Chicago Press.
• Geoffrey White. 2003. “Pearl Harbor and September 11: War Memory and American Patriotism in the 9-11 Era.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 1(4): 293-310.
• Jeffrey Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser, and Piotr Sztompka. 2004. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. University of California Press.

Sociologists think of history, memories, and the commemoration of iconic events such as Pearl Harbor as interrelated. History is not an unbiased and fixed account of past events and people, but rather, something that is actively, collectively remembered and reconstructed. History, in this sense, does not simply exist, but has to be made and remade. This process is inevitably shaped by the conditions and concerns of both the past and the present, and the narratives that emerge are key in creating a collective, American identity. What other iconic historical events can you think of that shape how Americans understand themselves and current events today? How do you think they may shift and change in the coming years?

When we talk about work, we often miss a type of work that is crucial to keeping the economy going and arguably more challenging and difficult than ever under conditions of quarantine and social distancing: care work. Care work includes both paid and unpaid services caring for children, the elderly, and those who are sick and disabled, including bathing, cooking, getting groceries, and cleaning.

Sociologists have found that caregiving that happens within families is not always viewed as work, yet it is a critical part of keeping the paid work sector running. Children need to eat and be bathed and clothed. Families need groceries. Houses need to be cleaned. As many schools in the United States are closed and employees are working from home, parents are having to navigate extended caring duties. Globally, women do most of this caring labor, even when they also work outside of the home. 

• Paula England. 2005. “Emerging Theories of Care Work.” Annual Review of Sociology 31: 381–399.
• Suzanne Bianchi, Nancy Folbre, and Douglas Wolf. 2012. “Unpaid Care Work.” In N. Folbre (Ed.) For Love and Money: Care Provision in the United States (pp. 40–64). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Shahra Razavi and Silke Staab. 2010. “Underpaid and Overworked: A Cross-national Perspective on Care Workers.” International Labour Review 149: 407–422.

Globally, women do most of this caring labor, even when they also work outside of the home. Historically, wealthy white women were able to escape these caring duties by employing women of color to care for their children and households, from enslaved African Americans to domestic servants. Today people of color, immigrants, and those with little education are overrepresented in care work with the worst job conditions. 

• Arlie Hochschild and Anne Machung. 1989. The Second Shift: Working Families and the Revolution at Home. Penguin Random House.
• Evelynn Nakano Glenn. 2010. Forced to Care: Coercion and Caregiving in America. Harvard University Press.
• Mignon Duffy, Amy Armenia, and Clare L. Stacey. 2015. Caring on the Clock: The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work. Families in Focus. Rutgers University Press.
• Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo. 2001. Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. University of California Press.

In the past decade, the care work sector has grown substantially in the United States. However, care workers are still paid low wages and receive little to no benefits. In fact, care work wages are stagnant or declining, despite an overall rise in education levels for workers. Thus, many care workers — women especially — find themselves living in poverty.  

• Rachel E. Dwyer. 2013. “The Care Economy? Gender, Economic Restructuring, and Job Polarization in the U.S Labor Market.” American Sociological Review 78: 390–416.
• Jennifer Craft Morgan and Brandy Farrar. 2015. “Building Meaningful Career Lattices: Direct Care Workers in Long-term Care.” In M. Duffy, A. Armenia and C. L. Stacey (Eds.), Caring on the Clock: The Complexities and Contradictions of Paid Care Work. Families in Focus (pp. 278–286). Rutgers University Press.

Caring is important for a society to function, yet care work — paid or unpaid — is still undervalued. In this time of COVID-19 where people are renegotiating how to live and work, attention to caring and appreciation for care work is more necessary than ever.

This post was created in collaboration with the Minnesota Journalism Center. 

Coronavirus — also known as COVID-19 — has taken the global media world by storm. Over 2,000 have died and more than 79,000 are infected globally. The World Health Organization has been criticized for not declaring a public health emergency earlier than they did, but doctors including Dr. Emily Landon at the University of Chicago are saying that “people shouldn’t panic.” 

In cases of public health epidemics, whether people panic depends in part on how journalists cover the issue and which experts they cite. Journalists tend to quote official sources like government officials and public health officials to inform the public about outbreaks of illness including influenza, swine flu, Zika, Ebola, and more recently, coronavirus. Being quoted in news articles gives public health officials the opportunity to share their expertise on said topics to help inform readers about how to protect themselves and avoid infection. From a sociological perspective, focusing on the spread of information about pandemics and infectious diseases provides opportunities for scholars to comment on evolving social structures and processes in a way that will influence the biomedical sciences’ public and policy agenda.

• Mark Davis and Davina Lohm. 2020. Pandemics, Publics, and Narrative. Oxford University Press.
• Robert Dingwall, Lily M. Hoffman, and Karen Staniland. 2013. “Introduction: Why a Sociology of Pandemics?” Sociology of Health & Illness 35(2): 167–173.
• Mark Davis, Davina Lohm, Paul Flowers, Emily Waller, and Niamh Stephenson. 2014. “We Became Sceptics”: Fear and Media Hype in General Public Narrative on the Advent of Pandemic Influenza.” Sociological Inquiry 84(4): 499–518.

As epidemiologist Adam Kucharski wrote in The Guardian, “stories sparking fear seem to have overtaken the outbreak in real life” and misinformation (a topic The Society Pages has written about here) seems to be more contagious than the virus itself. The “need for speed” in publishing journalistic updates about the virus as well as scholarly work has resulted in several retractions, including the retraction of a preprint of a scholarly paper after its analysis was found to be faulty. 

Further, the spread of information — and misinformation, including conspiracy theories — about health crises often occurs on social media platforms including Twitter and Instagram. Scholars found that false information spread especially quickly during Ebola outbreaks in West Africa and in the Zika outbreak in Brazil, which led to the formation of counterproductive policies passed by public health officials who struggled to combat false claims. In recent years, Instagram was found to be the most effective platform for health organizations including Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, and Doctors without Borders to engage followers during global health crises.

• John M. Carey, Victoria Chi, D. J. Flynn, Brendan Nyhan, and Thomas Zeitzoff. 2020. “The Effects of Corrective Information about Disease Epidemics and Outbreaks: Evidence from Zika and Yellow Fever in Brazil.” Science Advances 6(5).
• Jeanine P.D. Guidrya, Yan Jin, Caroline A.Orr, Marcus Messner, and Shana Meganck. 2017. “Ebola on Instagram and Twitter: How Health Organizations Address the Health Crisis in their Social Media Engagement.” Public Relations Review 43(3): 477–486.
• Anthony Stefanidis, Emily Vraga, Georgios Lamprianidis, Jacek Radzikowski, Paul L Delamater, Kathryn H Jacobsen, Dieter Pfoser, Arie Croitoru, and Andrew Crooks. 2017. “Zika in Twitter: Temporal Variations of Locations, Actors, and Concepts.” JMIR Public Health and Surveillance 3(2).

Scholars, including Dr. Anita Varma, recently published five tips for journalists on covering coronavirus. These include paying attention to the frames used and including quotes from official sources like government officials as well as the people directly affected by the health concern. Dr. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen published an article on the role that fear plays in narratives about public health crises. The bottom line is: The way stories are told matters and affects the management of pandemics and policy responses.

• Alessio Cornia, Marina Ghersetti, Paolo Mancini, and Tomas Odén. 2016. “The Partisans, the Technocrats and the Watchdogs.” Journalism Studies 17(8): 1030–1050.
• Chi Kit Chan. 2016. “Defining Health Risk by Media Template: Hong Kong’s News Discourse of the Swine Flu Pandemic.” Journalism 17(8): 1018–1036.

• Peter Ruigrok and Nel Vasterman. 2013. “Pandemic Alarm in the Dutch Media: Media Coverage of the 2009 Influenza A (H1N1) Pandemic and the Role of the Expert Sources.” European Journal of Communication.

This post was created in collaboration with the Minnesota Journalism Center. 

Objectivity and neutrality have been cornerstone norms of journalistic practice in democracies in the Western world for over a century. However, in recent years ideals of fairness, accuracy, and balance have come under increasing attack from many different and sometimes unexpected directions. 

Many beliefs about the need for media objectivity go back to Alexis de Tocqueville’s 19th century argument that the circulation of newspapers are integral to fostering a functional and effective democracy. Indeed, objectivity became a news value in the 1830s, partly to do with the rise of the Associated Press (AP), created in 1848 by a group of New York newspapers that wanted to take advantage of the speed of the telegraph in transmitting news to multiple outlets. To transmit news to a variety of news outlets with a variety of political allegiances consistently, a sense of objectivity had to be maintained to be relevant to as wide an audience and clientele as possible. 

• Michael Schudson. 1981. Discovering The News: A Social History Of American Newspapers. New York, NY: Basic Books.

• Gaye Tuchman. 1972. Objectivity as Strategic Ritual: An Examination of Newsmen’s Notions of Objectivity. American Journal of Sociology 77(4): 660–679.

Cutting against these norms was the sensationalism of newspaper content in the late 19th century. While the use of emotion in reporting has often been connected to the commercialization and tabloidization of journalism, in recent years it has also appeared in coverage of disasters, crises, and human rights abuses — and has come to be seen as positive and valuable as well. The roles of objectivity and impartiality have always been contested within journalistic practice, so rather than seeing emotion as the opposite of objectivity, some scholars now argue it can come alongside and inform journalistic practice worldwide.

• Karin Wahl-Jorgensen. 2019. Emotions, Media and Politics. Medford, MA, USA: Polity.
• Matt Carlson. 2017. Journalistic Authority: Legitimating News in the Digital Era. Columbia University Press.
• Valerie Bélair‐Gagnon. 2013. Revisiting Impartiality: Social Media and Journalism at The BBC. Symbolic Interaction 36(4): 478–492.

The role of objectivity has also come into question as a mechanism that can silence marginalized writers and populations. Relatedly, news can also reinforce institutions of power in society, for better or for worse. In populist countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, “professional journalism” is often pitted against “militant journalism” promoted by neo-populist governments and their sympathizers — a movement that has critical implications for the freedom of the press in societies in the Global South. Also, news media has been found to negatively portray protests and protesters.

• Danielle Kilgo and Summer Harlow. 2019. “Protests, Media Coverage, and a Hierarchy of Social Struggle.” The International Journal of Press/Politics 24(4): 508–530. 
• Lewis Raven Wallace. 2019. The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity. University of Chicago Press.

• Silvio Waisbord. 2013. Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Polity.

After writing several bestsellers on girls and sexuality, journalist Peggy Orenstein has turned her attention to boys. Her new book, Boys & Sex, draws from hundreds of conversations with boys and young men about how they understand and participate in sex. Many of these boys struggle with ideas about what it means to be a man and how to live up to these ideals (or not). 

A desire for sex with women is a key component of “hegemonic masculinity” — the idealized, dominant form of masculinity. From a very early age, boys learn they should desire girls. For instance, preschool teachers regularly encourage “crushes” between boys and girls in their classrooms. 

• Heidi Gansen. 2017. “Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity: Gendered Sexual Socialization in Preschool Classrooms.” Sociology of Education 90(3): 255-272.
• Karin A. Martin. 1998. “Becoming a Gendered Body: Practices of Preschools.” American Sociological Review 63(4): 494-511.

Part of the way boys can demonstrate or prove their masculinity is by talking about their sexual experiences with their peers. Another way is through putting other boys down and undermining other boys’ heterosexuality with homophobic name-calling. 

• C.J. Pascoe. 2007. Dude You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. University of California Press. 

As boys enter adolescence, they face even greater pressure to have sex with girls to demonstrate their masculinity. However, many boys do not actually buy into these expectations  — some openly reject the idea that they should be having sex with girls; others simply try to avoid the subject or deflect questions about their own sexual prowess when their friends bring it up. Those who do accept that sex with girls is part of showing their manhood often struggle with feelings of inadequacy if they do not live up to these expectations. 

• Kiera D. Duckworth and Mary Nell Trautner. 2019. “Gender Goals: Defining Masculinity and Navigating Peer Pressure to Engage in Sexual Activity.” Gender & Society 33(5): 795-817. 

Both social scientists and popular authors like Peggy Orenstein are contributing to public conversations around youth sex and sexuality. Their work shows the importance of understanding and addressing the sexual expectations that come with masculinity.  

This post was created in collaboration with the Minnesota Journalism Center. 

Obstruction, quid pro quo, impeachment. The tweets, the news alerts, the endless headlines. This political landscape, and the overall media news landscape, can be exhausting, and news consumers are showing they are tired of it all. A June 2019 Digital News Report explained that this news fatigue has turned into news avoidance: 41 percent of respondents in the United States (and 32 percent worldwide) said they “often or sometimes” avoid the news. 

Scholars are exploring the reasons for news avoidance, with some readers finding news “too negative,” “frustrating” or “annoying.” Other research shows that women are more likely than men to avoid the news, a gap explained by structural inequalities, like family commitments and household responsibilities.

One of the first journalism studies on this topic found that participants avoided the news but counted on the news finding them. The study from Stephanie Edgerly identified participants who did not follow any news accounts or journalists on social media but relied on Facebook to notify them of significant news and events.

These news avoiders are less inclined to vote, a troubling fact to University of Minnesota researcher Benjamin Toff:

“I do have concerns about whether our news environment is all that conducive to creating an electorate of people who actually hear the other side, can think through complicated political debates and issues, and understand a variety of different perspectives.”

Women’s news avoidance is intertwined with a lack of political engagement. This can lead to women facing difficulty advocating for themselves in the political sphere and fewer women involved in the political process or even running for office.

• Stephanie Edgerly. 2016. “Seeking Out and Avoiding the News Media: Young Adults’ Proposed Strategies for Obtaining Current Events Information.” Mass Communication and Society 20(3): 358–377.
• Benjamin Toff and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2018. “‘“I Just Google It’”: Folk Theories of Distributed Discovery.” Journal of Communication 68(3): 636–657.
• Benjamin Toff and Ruth Palmer. 2019. “Explaining the Gender Gap in News Avoidance: “News-Is-for-Men” Perceptions and the Burdens of Caretaking.” Journalism Studies, 20(11): 1563-1579.
• Kim Christian Schroeder and Mark Blach-Orsten. 2016. “ The Nature of News Avoidance in a Digital World..” Digital News Report. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. 
• Aleksandra Urman. 2019. “News Consumption of Russian Vkontakte Users: Polarization and News Avoidance.” International Journal of Communication 13: 25.

One way to decrease the number of news avoiders is to improve the quality of news itself and make news consumption more appealing. “Solutions journalism” explores sociological problematic issues in communities (homelessness, childhood obesity, etc) and critically examines problem-solving efforts. This goes beyond more straight-forward traditional reporting of the facts and, instead, offers ideas on how to resolve issues important to community members. Research demonstrates that readers are more likely to engage with (share, like, etc) solutions-oriented content than traditional news content. In addition, findings reveal readers report more favorable attitudes towards the news story and news organization when news discussed solutions.

• Karen McIntyre. 2019. “Solutions Journalism: The Effects of Including Solution Information in News Stories about Social Problems..” Journalism Practice, 13(1): 16-34.

• Andrea Wenzel, Daniela Gerson, Evelyn Moreno, Minhee Son and Breanna Morrison Hawkins. 2018. “Engaging Stigmatized Communities through Solutions Journalism: Residents of South Los Angeles Respond.” Journalism19(5): 649-667.

Another important avenue in combating this news avoidance issue is media literacy. For more on media literacy, click here.