Inculture

Ethnography

graffman — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 07:37:29 +0000

Ethnography reveals what people really do. It allows you to see patterns of behavior in a real world context. The method answers how and why by everyday life participant observation study. Saying and acting are separate phenomenon. Ethnography gain insights into how people define and create meaning. Designers, communicators and product developers need to understand the relationship between what they produce and the meaning their products and messages have for the consumers.

Old and new media

graffman — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:32:40 +0000

There are some fundamental differences between “old” and “new” media. Old media is objective and still synonymous with power from an “elite” which is not obvious to trust and also perceived as tedious. New media is free (Internet) and private (cellphone). You are the producer and you decide whether you want to be disturbed or not. Old media deals with coincidences, every now and then. New media is constantely ongoing regarding communication, information, practical chores and entertainment. It is embraced as more free and not enforced. There is no imposed advertisement, as it is in television or on the radio, and there are no frames or boundaries as in magazines or newspapers. The Internet is free, one can search what ever one wants – unlimited, one can opt out and experiment. The cellphone is even more pronounced as “personal” and a free form of communication; I decide on how to use it and when. Advertisement exists even on the Internet and in cellphones, but it is much more peripheral.

Food – A new pop culture

andersson — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:04:19 +0000

SVT´s new show Landet brunsås was aired 3 weeks ago and as an anthropologist I can´t overlook the anthropological aspect of the show. Food discussions are very common in the anthropological arena and as the late cultural anthropologist Mary Douglas stated in her book Purity and Danger (1966) schemes of classification regarding food exists everywhere.We all make classifications regarding what to eat, which food that are trendy at the moment, what is healthy and so on. One has to understand the impact of our changable world. As cultural borders blur, so does the food borders, and they have been bluring for a long long time. Just think about the discussion of where pizza comes from! In the show they talk about aboriginality, of where different meals come from, but also the more up-to-date topic: locally produced food. That´s the good food, compared to ready-made-food, which we have classified as bad. It is not only unhealthy, but also, bad for the environment. But back when ready-made-food entered the market, it was all good. You see, our classification of what´s right or wrong change constantely. Landet Brunsås calls food a new pop culture. Cooking home made food is simply very trendy today. Especially if it is slow food, organic, hand selected and prepared with love and eaten with your family or friends. Making these kind of choices, shows that you have time, which today is very rare – and trendy, of course. New food combinations and trends will continue to develop, and thank god for that, I mean, who wants to eat ´köttbullar och brunsås` for life!?

Think short, or?

graffman — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:23:12 +0000

Inculture is asked to comment on Dan Herman’s lecture on thursday at Berghs School of Communication. Dr Herman is the man behind the think short paradigm and method: an integrative and comprehensive method for developing, branding and marketing innovations designated to arouse immediate consumer enthusiasm and achieve rapid market penetration and a vast success. It is, according to Dr Herman, a ground-breaking complement to the conventional ‘think long’ marketing and branding. Other commentators will be Stefan Nerpin and Carl Peyron. More about this in a later post.

Web service award day and longing

graffman — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:17:31 +0000

Inculture will talk about youth and media consumption at the web service award day. The topic of the day is The Future and the Web and the moderator Richard Gatarski has asked us speakers “what we long for on the web”. I’ve thought a lot about that and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t long for anything – I barely have time to inspect or take part of all the cool new stuff that shows up on the Internet. A sign of today, we get fed and stuffed with new products and innovations at such a fast pace, that we never get the chance to long for something.

BoBo buys fairtrade coffee and travels to Bali

andersson — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 11:04:47 +0000

I make my own muesli – I enjoy picking out the most delicious looking almonds, the most healthy seeds, the most colourful fruits and mix it with organic and fairtrade oatmeal. In that way I start my morning just the way I like it And, yes, it is very boboitian!

A BoBo is an urban young person, between 27-40, who enjoys the benefits of todays individualised society. What is prominent is the paradoxal view of the BoBos. They can gladley pay more for a fairtrade coffe but they wouldn`t refuse their winter vacation to Bali or South Africa. They will naturally buy an energy-saving dishwasher in their market-up kitchen with the latest accessories and their job is not just a job; it is life forfilling and improving, almost like a hobby. Even if their modern and busy live is very important, they still want to be enlightened and have a traditional family around them. It is these choises, the ones they make when combining the postmodern benefits with old fashioned values, that defines them as a BoBo.

Vote-offs and everyday life

graffman — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 09:00:33 +0000

Vote-offs and mean comments from a jury are quite obvious elements in many TV-shows today, which means that one does not really react to it anymore. Young media consumers have become accustomed and used to it. As some of our young informants point out, it would be worse to get voted out by ones friends, as in the TV-show Robinson, as by a professional jury whose job is to sift the wheat from the chaff. But the time of humiliation-TV is over, at least in the perspective of young consumers. They have a more indifferent attitude towards the phenomenon as result of the normalization of the semi-reality show-entertainment themes in visual media. The young informants who we studied believe that vote-offs shows is like life in general:

Julia says that it is like everyday life and explains that vote-outs usually occurs if someone is different. “In ´Robinson` someone was a little different at the beginning and was voted out quickly. It is a bit like those who say different things, they become outsiders in society. It´s just like crews and groups in school”. Markus agress and says that in school one “shall have the right style”. Julia adds that those who don´t have the right style will be placed in a category or will become outsiders.

Second hand feeling – feeling what others feel

andersson — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:04:34 +0000

Watching a beautiful reunion of a wild lion with its former owner brings many people to tears. Laughing at a little kitten or a cute panda sneezing, or the latest; a baby elephant sneezing and scaring itself. These are sweet little youtube-clips that may brighten our day.

There are of course millions – billions maybe?! – other clips that make us laugh, cry, feel sympathy, nauseaus or even disgust. The interesting part is that we get a second hand feeling.

Feelings are what thrive us when we communicate with people. As SvD´s 100 känslor Linda Backman and John Airaksinen explain; when one asks its friend how the weekend was, one wants to know the emotion the weekend gave, not what wine they had for dinner. The feeling is what gives us an explanation we can use and transform into an emotinal bond with ones friend.

But when we watch an emotional clip, the feeling that we get is more a reaction to the reaction of the people in the clip. We can´t feel the sadness that an old man feels while listening to Schumanns Träumerei. Instead we get a second hand feeling – we translate his sadness into our sadness; we borrow his feeling and we feel his feeling.

But which is more real? The authentic feeling or our second hand feeling? Or is both equally real?

Berghs Print no 1

graffman — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:14:17 +0000

Some weeks ago Berghs School of Communication gathered a group of people to discuss the future. The head master of the school, Sofia Strömberg, had an idea that me-society is moving into a we-society. Johan Ronnestam, Teo Härén, Isabella Dahlborg Lidström and I discussed this idea and the result of the discussion is here.

Christmas culture consumption

graffman — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 10:14:05 +0000

Christmas again and time to consume. Do you think the consumers will spend less money due to the recession? Propably not. Why? Because now when many people think that the immediate crisis is over their behavior will go back to normal. Consumption patterns are deeply rooted in today’s society. McCracken writes an interesting article on the Harvard Business blog site and explains how consumers today are making and maintaining social lives through consumption. What’s good with this article is that McCracken looks at the consumers from a classical anthropological view, namely to understand consumption from the consumers’ point of view.