Page 15 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

6 Cultural change and ordinary life

is subject to processes of fragmentation. Until the mid- to late 1990s there was
a tendency to group these accounts under the idea of ‘postmodernism’ or
‘postmodernity’; while these labels have increasingly fallen into disuse, the
processes that were captured by them are still subject to theorization and sig-
nificantly empirical research. Thus, I will argue that the ‘omnivore’ thesis is in
an important sense an empirical investigation of the fragmentation thesis.
Third, there are a number of arguments that suggest that ordinary life has
become more organized around ideas of spectacle and performance. We dis-
play more and we act more for the camera. Fourth, I will consider the evidence
about the way in which attachment to voluntary associations and ‘fan’-like
processes has impacted on ordinary life. This will involve an initial consider-
ation of the idea of social capital. Each of these areas will be considered
through a case study example.
Having reviewed these changes and theories, Chapter 4 will argue for a
particular way of understanding the processes involved. This will start from
ideas of the way in which audiences are changing and further develop con-
siderations of performance and spectacle. Again drawing on empirical research,
it will further exemplify some of the key anchoring points of ordinary life. In a
number of senses Chapters 2 to 4 set the ground for further and deeper exam-
ination of the issues and evidence in the rest of the book. Chapter 5 focuses on
ideas of globalizing, hybridizing and localizing. This is followed by a chapter
that looks at arguments about how identities and the sense of the self are
produced in a society such as we find in the UK to day. This is followed by two
chapters that analyse processes by which people distinguish themselves from
others, as well as how they reconnect to each other. Chapter 7 will start from
the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu and consider the work that has been done on
class (and increasingly gender) using his ideas of the relationships between
different forms of capital. Chapter 8 examines the omnivore thesis in some
depth. Chapter 9 will consider processes of I what I propose to call enthusing –
how people form attachments to a range of activities in civil society around
clubs, fanlike attachments to TV programmes, music, and so on. This will point
up some of the ‘extraordinary’ moments of ordinary life. In the conclusion to
the book, I will show, as clearly as I can, how the different aspects of the
argument relate to one another.

Notes
1 In this introduction, I have kept references to a readable minimum for ease of
exposition. As the topics are considered at further length in the main body of the
book, appropriate references are provided.
2 As in the work of Raymond Williams.