Shyon Baumann

Shyon has been an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto since 2002.  He received his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University in 2001.

 

email: shyon.baumann@utoronto.ca
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Areas of Research

Shyon works primarily within the areas of the sociology of culture, media, the arts, and inequality. His work also engages with issues in social movements, law, gender, and race and ethnicity.

From Entertainment to Art: The Case of Hollywood

Are Hollywood films art? Today it is commonly accepted that at least some of them are, but this has not always been the case. For sixty years following the beginning of Hollywood production, shortly after the turn of the last century, almost no one in the U.S. thought that Hollywood was capable of producing art. In the 1960s, perceptions of Hollywood films, amongst intellectuals and the public alike, changed drastically, and it became common to identify many Hollywood films as genuine art. What happened? Hollywood Highbrow (Princeton University Press, 2007) answers this question by taking a long view of Hollywood over the 20th century. A close examination of Hollywood production practices, the changing audiences for films, and the emergence of a specialized discourse for analyzing films as art - the new American film criticism of the 1960s - reveals that the recognition of Hollywood films as art was produced primarily through social processes, rather than a sudden change in the artistry of those films. In addition to the book, this project has produced an article that appeared in the American Sociological Review and another article that appeared in Poetics.

Culture and Status in the American Foodscape

How are some foods framed as gourmet foods, suitable for fashionable, high status consumption? And what can we learn from gourmet food about the valuation of cultural products more generally? In this collaborative project with Josée Johnston, the authors analyze the American culinary field to understand the social construction of "good food" and its place in the lives of self-described foodies.  They pay special attention to the discourse of food experts in a variety of media, and our analysis addresses questions of the framing of inequality, nationalism and cosmopolitanism.  They also address the broader cultural meanings embedded in the discourse of gourmet food.  In their article "Democracy vs. Distinction" in the American Journal of Sociology, they explain how gourmet food is valorized in ways that facilitate status distinctions while maintaining claims of inclusivity and equality.  Further work on this project will produce a book, Foodies: Culture and Status in the American Foodscape, to be published by Routledge in early 2009.  (Please email if you are interested in viewing drafts of chapters on authenticity, exoticism, foodies’ self-perceptions and evaluative schemas, or class and status.) 

Race and Gender in Advertising

The advertising industry is frequently criticized for practices that are insensitive, if not harmful, when it comes to the portrayal of women and racial and ethnic minorities.  In this project, funded by a 3-year grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Shyon addresses questions of advertising production, content, and reception to investigate whether such critiques are warranted and to understand better how advertising workers think about these critiques.  What are the decisions underlying the presence or absence and modes of portrayal of women and minority group members in advertising?  How "rationalized" are they, and to what extent are casting decisions based on hard data and marketing theory?  What patterns of inclusion/exclusion exist in advertising content?  And how do audience members understand the depictions of women and minority group members in advertising?  This project has produced a paper on beauty ideals in print advertisements, and current work in this project examines the presence and portrayal of women and minority group members in television advertising.