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The study seeks to introduce a new media model that (1) clearly illustrates the role of mass media in the transmission of cultural messages, and (2) helps to explain variations in the reception and employment of cultural messages by members of the same culture.

Drawing on decades of theorizing in cultural sociology and communication studies, as well as data from two qualitative content analyses, a new model was developed, explained, and then applied to a specific cultural phenomenon.

Mass media are significant transmitters of cultural messages and play an influential role in shaping culture, yet the process is complex. There is great variety in what messages are accepted by different consumers, how they are interpreted, and how they ultimately are employed (or not). Further, cultures that include contradictory messages are more likely to inadvertently promote deviant paths to culturally valued goals.

First, the model only addresses one dimension of the relationship between mass media and culture; it does not explain cultural influences on mass media. Second, the model does not specifically address recent changes in the media landscape, though an accommodation is suggested. Finally, the model needs additional testing before its utility can be reasonably determined.

First, a new model is introduced that clearly illustrates the complex process by which cultural messages are transmitted to receivers via mass media. Second, the model introduces the concept of “cultural capacity” to complement existing concepts and advance understanding of the operation of culture.

This paper explores how consumers use the media products of mass culture to co-create the meanings of popular culture. Specifically, we examine both why and how Harry Potter fans utilize the primary texts written by J. K. Rowling to co-create their own fan fiction. Towards this end, we utilize Kenneth Burke's dramatistic method to explore the pattern of literary elements in both the original texts and the fan fiction. We argue that the primary impetus for consumers to engage in the co-creation of these texts is found in their ability to emphasize different ratios of literary elements in order to express their individual and collective desires. Through this process, fans utilize and contribute to the meta-textual meaning surrounding these primary focal texts and propel the original products of mass culture to the cultural texts of popular culture.

Sociologists studying the rise of postmodernism have generally concentrated on either macro-level structures of economy or micro-level subjectivities of individuals. Few have specified how meso-level actions within concrete institutions have produced both these macro- and micro-changes. Bourdieu's concept of field provides a meso-level concept that allows sociologists to explain the transition to a postmodern society by changes in the composition and competition of producers and consumers struggling for advantage in the economy and culture. The chapter focuses on architecture, revealing that the rise of a postmodern aesthetic was the result of internal changes of this field and their complex interrelation with the external changes of an economy in transition from Fordism to post-Fordism.

To improve the effectiveness of online reviews in the cultural industries, the purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of online cultural reviews of professional and consumer commentators on consumer responses toward elite and mass cultural offerings by drawing upon associative learning theory and social influence theory.

This study used a 2 (cultural offerings: elite vs mass)×2 (commentators: professional vs consumer) between-participants factorial design to examine the proposed hypotheses. A total of 195 participants were randomly assigned to one of four experimental cells.

The ANOVA results indicate that the credibility of online cultural reviews is significantly higher for professional commentators than for consumer commentators across both elite and mass cultural offerings. Furthermore, the results confirm that there is a significant cultural offering type by commentator interaction on a consumer's offering evaluation, overall attitude, and behavioral intention.

This study provides strong support for the congruence between cultural commentators and cultural offerings in online cultural reviews. The findings can also effectively explain the weak correlation between professional judgments and popular appeal.

For better effectiveness of online cultural reviews, the findings recommend cultural marketers that the use of professional commentators is effective for elite cultural offerings, whereas the use of consumer commentators is effective for mass cultural offerings.

This study proposes a useful dichotomy to classify cultural offerings as elite and mass. Meanwhile, this study is one of the first to examine the congruence between cultural offerings and cultural commentators in online reviews.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate management accounting research in developing countries and formulate suggestions for its progression.

This is a desk based study of existing literature analysed through a framework of management control transformation in developing countries derived from the authors' research.

Research is growing, especially on accounting in state‐owned and privatised enterprises but more is needed on small and micro enterprises, agriculture, non‐governmental organisations, and transnational institutions.

This is the first review of this area and thus should help intending and existing scholars.

The objective of this paper is to recognize the richness in exploring the inter‐linkages between accounting and popular culture. Such an investigation should reap returns in not only furthering an understanding of accounting, but also the ways and means in which notions of accountability and audit permeate our everyday lives. In addition, it attempts to capture the significant transformative influence of accounting, and calculative practices more generally, in the actual shaping of the contours of the cultural context. Finally, it briefly introduces the six papers in this AAAJ special issue.

The paper draws on literature from the fields of both accounting and cultural studies to set out a theoretically informed framework for the future examination of the myriad ways in which accounting is entwined with the popular.

The paper argues a case for the study of accounting within the domain of popular culture, proposes two theoretical lenses from which to examine the inter‐linkages between these two disciplines, and presents a diverse range of research possibilities for further scholarly inquiry in the field.

Traditionally regarded as trivial and unworthy of academic attention, research into the regular rituals that pervade the everyday is now a legitimate field of scholarly inquiry among social and cultural theorists. Accounting researchers, however, have remained relatively aloof from this general trend, preferring to seek solace in the sphere of the corporation rather than the coffee shop. This paper is novel in that it attempts to broaden the scope of accounting scholarship into the new domain of popular culture.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects that local interpretation and the glocalisation of the Australian Hip Hop culture have on the consumption practices of members, exploring the reasons for such effects, and drawing marketing implications.

Three principal methods of ethnographic research were used: participant observation, informal conversations, and semi‐structured in‐depth interviews.

The findings suggest that symbolic representation within the Australian Hip Hop culture takes the form of consumption of brands congruent with the values of authenticity and self‐expression at the core of the Australian Hip Hop culture. Many mass‐produced Hip Hop brands originating in the USA were not perceived as authentic as their meanings were associated with commercialisation and artificiality by cultural members. Furthermore, members of the Australian Hip Hop culture appear to express authenticity by being true to themselves, refusing to imitate African‐American Hip Hop style and rejecting what they perceived as “black” Hip Hop brands. Finally, members of the Australian Hip Hop culture also represented their geographical place via consumption, and used symbolic consumption as a form of subcultural capital.

This paper fills a gap in the literature by providing a detailed analysis on the effects of interpretation and the glocalisation of the Australian Hip Hop culture on consumption.

This paper shows that the collector (like the flâneur) is a decisive character in Walter Benjamin’s philosophy of history, specifically in the manifestation of the historical materialist, yet the paper is not so much about the collector or collecting as it is about the commodity and the experience thereof in consumer society.

The section “The Dream World of Mass Culture” discusses mass culture and the central problem of commodity fetishism as Benjamin sees it. The section “A Physiognomist of ‘the World of Things’” discusses the critical task of the historical materialist actualized and made possible through an activity akin to collecting. The section “Collecting, Child’s Play, and Seeing Similarities” illuminates the central importance of the activity of collecting for Benjamin’s research regarding mass culture, historical materialism, and the experience of modernity itself. The final section explains and fleshes out the central concepts of the mimetic faculty and physiognomic perception for Benjamin.

I find that, ultimately, to understand the ability of the historical materialist to witness history critically, according to Benjamin, is to understand the historical materialist as a collector. To understand the revolutionary activity of collecting is to understand collecting as a manifestation of a fundamental activity of human nature, the inclination to become “like” or to become “similar.” But such an impulse grounds, for Benjamin, not only the activity of collecting but also collective experience, the collective conscious, mass culture, and the essence of the commodity itself as a sociocultural artifact. The paper demonstrates that the mimetic faculty is the primary human faculty Benjamin focused on in his theory of experience.

The originality of this paper lies in the fact that it illustrates the primary importance of the theory of the mimetic faculty, the notion of physiognomic perception, and the work of Heinz Werner to Walter Benjamin’s theory of commodity fetishism that to date has been largely underdeveloped. But, more importantly, the paper shows that Benjamin’s theory of experience could illuminate a path toward developing a theory of experience within a fundamental philosophical anthropology.

Various theoretical studies were carried out which attempted to identify impacting factors of cultural changes; however, these studies ignored the correlation among other affecting factors all together. In this paper, the authors aim not only to discuss the hidden layers that trigger the cultural changes but also to answer the questions of how to identify the main factors in each layer based on casual layered analysis (CLA), which could have a strong impact in shaping other layers’ factors? What are the dominant metaphors and worldviews that human beings are telling themselves about our universe that influences the future cultural changes?

To answer the questions of “how to identify the main factors in each layer,” the CLA methodology was used to investigate the underlying reasons. CLA takes into account four layers (litany, social systems, dominant discourse and worldviews and metaphors), which could be a tremendous help in identifying the mentioned factors.

The analysis shows that there are some contributing factors such as economy, technology, politics, society, environment, mass media, globalization and migration at the second layer – “social systems layer” – which may trigger cultural changes in first layer “litany”; in addition, in the third and deeper layer two dominant worldviews – materialist/secular and religious affecting the contributing factors in the second layer – were identified. Such worldviews are, in turn, supported by metaphors or perfect stories/myths of the deepest layer.

It can be concluded that because the cultural changes as a reality is composed of different layers, it is important to dig into different layers of reality to comprehend the significant shaping factors of that reality to visualize and make the better future.

The Italian government addressed the first wave of its COVID-19 outbreak with a series of social restrictions and calculative practices, all branded with the slogan #istayathome. The hashtag quickly went viral, becoming both a mandate and a mantra and, as the crisis played out, we witnessed the rise of the Italian social movement #istayathome. This study examines how the government's calculative practices led to #istayathome and the constituents that shaped this social movement.

The authors embrace social movement theory and the collective identity perspective to examine #istayathome as a collective action and social movement. Using passive netnography, text mining and interpretative text analysis enhanced by machine learning, the authors analysed just over 350,000 tweets made during the period March to May 2020, each brandishing the hashtag #istayathome.

The #istayathome movement gained traction as a response to the Italian government's call for collective action. Thus, people became an active part of mobilising collective responsibility, enhancing the government's plans. A collective identity on the part of the Italian people sustained the mass mobilisation, driven by cohesion, solidarity and a deep cultural trauma from COVID-19's dramatic effects. Popular culture and Italy's long traditions also helped to form the collective identity of #istayathome. This study found that calculative practices acted as a persuasive technology in forming this collective identity and mobilising people's collective action. Numbers stimulated the cognitive, moral and emotional connections of the social ties shaping collective identity and responsibility. Thus, through collective identity, calculative practices indirectly influenced mass social behaviors and the social movement.

This study offers a novel theoretical perspective and empirical knowledge to explain how government power affects people's culture and everyday life. It unveils the sociological drivers that mobilise collective behaviors and enriches the accounting literature on the effects of calculative practices in managing emergencies. The study contributes to theory by providing an understanding of how calculative practices can influence collective behaviors and can be used to construct informal networks that go beyond the government's traditional formalities.