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In recent decades, the so-called "digital revolution" has massively driven individuals to move the main activities they perform in their daily lives within entirely digital spaces. This is obviously leading to significant cultural and social consequences, and mass culture is one of the areas that has been most affected by these consequences. It is therefore relevant to wonder how the arrival of the digital world has changed the nature and functioning of mass culture. It is difficult to develop a detailed analysis of the changes that have taken place within the framework of a (necessarily short) journal article, but it is nevertheless possible to try to summarily "map" these changes. Furthermore, it is also possible to attempt to focus on the most relevant characteristics to mass culture in the current digital age. The article also attempts to consider two particularly important features of mass culture in the digital age. The first concerns the progressive lowering of the quality of the expressive aspects of languages, while the second relates to the growth of what sociologist Franois Jost (2013) called the "cult of the trivial" a few years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the sociologist Dick Hebdige, young people of the punk movement lived in a condition of flux. It represents an existential condition that they themselves deeply desired, and which anticipated a similar situation of instability and dynamism that is increasingly spreading within contemporary hypermodern societies. Thus, the punk movement has to some extent anticipated one of the most important processes of social change that have occurred in recent decades. This article attempts to trace the main characteristics of punk, as well as to reconstruct synthetically the nature of this social movement. The aim is to investigate whether these characteristics can also be identified within the youth subcultures born in the following decades and within the contemporary social context. If this happens, it is because this context has an urgent need to intensify its flows. Flows that concern the economy of material flows, but especially that of immaterial flows. Finally, contemporary media (radio, television and above all the Internet and digital platforms) also bear a high degree of responsibility for this situation, because these media use a model of communication based on flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to consider the role attributed to terrorism by the French sociologist Jean Baudrillard, who conducted an extensive study on the nature of terrorism in the West over the course of three decades. His enquiry started with an analysis of the relationship between terrorism and the media, and led to the development of a number of concepts that will be considered in detail in this article. These concepts share the idea that in the West we are currently witnessing a return to what Baudrillard defined as the 'symbolic exchange', a concept which draws on the French tradition of sociological and anthropological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crisis of the Western culture has produced a radical alteration of the concept of past in the contemporary societies and this alteration has determined the birth of a new social phenomenon: the vintage. A phenomenon that is related to a large quantity of social area and, a cause of this, is complicated to analyse. The main scope of this article is to explore the reasons of the actual big success of the vintage. The individuals are involved by the vintage because the diffusion of the actual postmodern culture has weakened the social idea of the time. Indeed, there is a crisis of the conception of the traditional and linear time and the increasing diffusion of an eternal present. This is due to the social role of the media and, in particular, of the television, the first medium with the ability of register the main events of the human life. Events that therefore contemporary individuals can enjoy many times. In consequence of this, the vintage assume the identity of a substituted experience. In the vintage old and new are completely mixed and contemporary individuals can freely consume elements of the past. So, the vintage isn't a nostalgic elaboration of the past, because it's the result of a constructive attitude based on the fruition of mediatic texts of the past. For that reason, the vintage is a mediatic experience that individuals interpret like genuine experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published in 1967, the Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord continues to be a very important tool to observe our reality. Starting from the analysis of commodity fetishism in Marx, which Debord draws on, and the vision of Benjamin about the fundamental role of the magic aspects of the commodity, the paper wondering how human life is changing when, according to Debord, commodity completely involves the social life. By analyzing the various socio-historical phases in which goods have been turned into a spectacle (from les passages to the World Expositions), adopting the principle of visibility – produced by the culture of bourgeois democracy – we reach the current situation, characterized by rhythms and stimuli that saturate the communicative and social spaces. Nowadays, a relationship of mutual complementarity is established between flow of communication and spectacle. It can be said that the “Integrated Spectacle", mentioned by Debord in the “Comments on the society of the Spectacle" (1988) has come true: a model dominated by representations in which the spectacle is totally merged with the social culture, and the experience of reality is filtered by media. In order to emerge from the communication flow of contemporary society, spectacular events of great impact are increasingly necessary. In the era of the “attention economy", where the scarce resource is the attention ability of consumers, daily bombed by myriads of stimuli and information, spectacle seems to be the predominantly model even used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Purpose – The aim the present study is to investigate the consumption practices of fast fashion products. During the introductory stage of this phenomenon, most academic literature has focused its attention on structural and industrial aspects of the fast fashion phenomenon. Now that the phenomenon has been present as a part of individuals' daily lives for some years, the time is ripe for taking a closer look at consumers' standpoint. Design/methodology/approach – The qualitative technique of focus groups was chosen to carry out the research study within Italian consumers. The decision to exploit this methodology was largely guided by the exploratory purposes of this study and by the willingness to analyze the phenomenon of fast fashion and the consumption practices by adopting a social perspective. Findings – Results of the exploratory study show an overview of the phenomenon of fast fashion from the standpoint of the consumers and especially of the way they "live" fast fashion and integrate these products in their consumption practices. Originality/value – The study reveals a new perspective of analysis (consumers' standpoint) to the phenomenon of fast fashion not previously investigated and suggests useful ideas to guide the strategic levers and communications through which fast fashion companies can identify their own evolutionary path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia del Lavoro is the property of FrancoAngeli srl and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is a reciprocal approach to production and consumption in progress. Therefore the progressive orientation and attention of consumers to the purchasing of prospective goods, but also to the production of these goods, is largely due to the opportunities offered by new communications technologies. In short, the consumer is seen more and more as an actor, without being conscious of that process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding the development of the cultural constraints that the society puts on consumption phenomena. The author considers first the ideological criticism which had characterized the sociological thought, focusing on the exponents of the School of Frankfurt. Issues such as false need, alienation, standardization of culture and manipulation by the capitalistic system come under review. Other social constraints are then identified in the growth of consumer protection associations (consumerism) and no global pressure groups. Implications on the social role of brands and the ethical dimensions of consumption are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The processes of change towards immaterial aspects plays an important role in contemporary society. This is particularly clear if we think of the evolution undergone, in the latest years, by cultural models that influence the image and social use of the body. The human body, in fact, has traditionally been considered as the most physical and concrete object that individuals had at their disposal; but, in the current era, it tends to become increasingly intangible as well. Such phenomenon is taking place as a consequence of a process - called "spectacularisation" - faced by western societies from the Eighteen century onwards. What we will try to demonstrate, therefore, is how the current cultural models of the body have their origins in such process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]