• The Atlantic ran an article featuring Julia Sonnevend’s (Associate Professor of Sociology and Communications at the New School for Social Research) new book on political charm: Charm: How Magnetic Personalities Shape Global Politics. Sonnevend distinguishes charisma – which requires distance from an audience – from charm – which requires proximity. Charm makes political figures appear “accessible, authentic, and relatable.” Sonnevend describes that charm is becoming increasingly important in our modern media environment: “It has become increasingly possible to give almost continuous access to politicians—or that’s the illusion. Think of our phones, these totemic objects we all carry—the intimacy of sitting in bed with the screen close to your face, watching a politician record a video or a livestream of themselves with their own phone. That’s different from sitting in the living room, watching a TV set where a leader is on a stage.”
  • Amid shifts in the film industry, horror movies have been reliable box office successes. Laura Patterson (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder and host of the Collective Nightmares podcast) explains that the genre allows people to feel “fear in a safe space,” exercise “empathy and understanding” for the characters in difficult situations, and bond with fellow movie-watchers. This story was covered by CPR News.
  • El País ran an article on how young people are embracing alternative forms of work (from self-employment to dubious investments) as conventional work becomes more precarious and uncertain. Mariano Urraco Solanilla (Professor of Sociology at the Complutense University of Madrid) explained that this is a response to a lack of opportunities and incentives in conventional work: “The goal is to regain control over our lives during a time when everything feels like a whirlwind of uncertainty. This is what makes people fantasize, dream, or become intensely involved in studying for exams or pursuing alternatives like moving to the countryside to embrace a neo-rural lifestyle. Fundamentally, these choices are made to feel a sense of control over one’s life, something that paid work no longer affords.”
  • The New York Times ran a story on the changing economic standing of white men without college degrees in the United States. In 1980, their income was 7% higher than the average income for full-time workers; however, since then, they have been surpassed in income by college-educated women and their relative economic standing has lowered. The article cites Arlie Russell Hochschild’s (Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley) new book, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, which describes how this economic shift also undermines the “pride of blue-collar men that they could be of use, to their families, their communities and the country.”