In cultural consumption, higher social status is primarily reflected in the consumption of cultural products from diverse levels of sophistication, denoted as cultural omnivorousness. The article asks whether digital media are capable of attenuating these inequalities. Since digital media potentially make cultural products from all levels available to wider audiences, the distinguishing effect of omnivorousness might shrink. However, based on a model of individual decision-making, the article discusses several reasons why this assessment might be too optimistic. Empirically, the article focuses on omnivorousness and media use in feature film consumption. Differentiating between four types of electronic media (television, DVD, video on demand, Internet) and two types of omnivorousness (“by volume,” “by composition”), results reveal that digital media rather reinforce social inequalities in cultural consumption. Television, in contrast, has the highest levels of omnivorousness and the lowest levels of social structuration. Hence, not digital media are a democratizing force, but television.
BlankGGrahamMCalvinoC (2018) Local geographies of digital inequality. Social Science Computer Review36(1): 82–102.
7.
BourdieuP (1984) Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
8.
BüchiMJustNLatzerM (2016) Modeling the second-level digital divide: a five-country study of social differences in Internet use. New Media & Society18(11): 2703–2722.
9.
ColaMPrarioB (2012) New ways of consumption: the audiences of public service media in Italy and Switzerland. Media, Culture & Society34(2): 181–194.
10.
CoulangeonP (2015) Social mobility and musical tastes: a reappraisal of the social meaning of taste eclecticism. Poetics51: 54–68.
11.
CuttsDWiddopP (2017) Reimagining omnivorousness in the context of place. Journal of Consumer Culture17(3): 480–503.
12.
DiMaggioPHargittaiENeumanWR, et al. (2001) Social implications of the Internet. Annual Review of Sociology27: 307–336.
13.
FletcherRNielsenRK (2018) Automated serendipity: the effect of using search engines on news repertoire balance and diversity. Digital Journalism6(8): 976–989.
14.
ImHSongHJungJ (2019) The effect of streaming services on the concentration of digital music consumption. Information Technology & People33: 160–179.
15.
JaakkolaM (2018) Vernacular reviews as a form of co-consumption: the user-generated review videos on YouTube. MedieKultur34(65): 10–30.
16.
JohnstonJBaumannS (2007) Democracy versus distinction: a study of omnivorousness in gourmet food writing. American Journal of Sociology113(1): 165–204.
17.
KraaykampGvan GilsWUlteeW (2008) Cultural participation and time restrictions. Explaining the frequency of individual and joint cultural visits. Poetics36(4): 316–332.
18.
KrauseAENorthAC (2016) Music listening in everyday life: devices, selection methods, and digital technology. Psychology of Music44(1): 129–147.
19.
LagaertS (2018) Gender and cultural tastes: an intrapersonal, interpersonal and contextual approach. Doctoral Thesis, Ghent University, Ghent.
20.
LeguinaAArancibia-CarvajalSWiddopP (2017) Musical preferences and technologies: contemporary material and symbolic distinctions criticized. Journal of Consumer Culture17(2): 242–264.
21.
LeguinaAWiddopPTampubolonG (2016) The global omnivore: identifying musical taste groups in Austria, England, Israel and Serbia. Sociological Research Online21(3): 15.
22.
LindblomTRäsänenP (2017) Between class and status? Examining the digital divide in Finland, the United Kingdom, and Greece. The Information Society33(3): 147–158.
23.
LindsayC (2016) An exploration into how the rise of curation within streaming services has impacted how music fans in the UK discover new music. Journal of Promotional Communications4(1): 115–141.
24.
LivingstoneS (2007) From family television to bedroom culture: young people’s media at home. In: DevereuxE (ed.) Media Studies: Key Issues and Debates. London: SAGE, pp. 302–321.
25.
LizardoOSkilesS (2009) Highbrow omnivorousness on the small screen? Cultural industry systems and patterns of cultural choice in Europe. Poetics37(1): 1–23.
26.
LizardoOSkilesS (2012) Reconceptualizing and theorizing “omnivorousness.” Sociological Theory30(4): 263–282.
27.
LongJS (1997) Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent Variables. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
28.
López-SintasJRojas-DeFranciscoLGarcía-ÁlvarezE (2017) Home-based digital leisure: doing the same leisure activities, but digital. Cogent Social Sciences3(1): 1309741.
29.
MeyrowitzJ (1985) No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior. New York: Oxford University Press.
30.
MiheljSLeguinaADowneyJ (2019) Culture is digital: cultural participation, diversity and the digital divide. New Media & Society21: 1465–1485.
31.
MöllerJTrillingDHelbergerN, et al. (2018) Do not blame it on the algorithm: an empirical assessment of multiple recommender systems and their impact on content diversity. Information, Communication & Society21(7): 959–977.
32.
MorrisJW (2015) Curation by code: infomediaries and the data mining of taste. European Journal of Cultural Studies18(4–5): 446–463.
33.
NavarreteTBorowieckiKJ (2016) Changes in cultural consumption: ethnographic collections in Wikipedia. Cultural Trends25(4): 233–248.
34.
NguyenTTHuiP-MHarperFM, et al. (2014) Exploring the filter bubble: the effect of using recommender systems on content diversity. In: Proceedings of the 23rd international conference on world wide web (WWW’14), Seoul, 7–11 April, pp. 677–686. New York: ACM.
35.
OppK-D (2013) What is analytical sociology? Strengths and weaknesses of a new sociological research program. Social Science Information52(3): 329–360.
36.
PapacharissiZA (2010) A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity Press.
37.
PetersonRAKernRM (1996) Changing highbrow taste: from snob to omnivore. American Sociological Review61(5): 900–907.
38.
PottsJ (2014) New technologies and cultural consumption. In: GinsburghVThrosbyCD (eds) Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 215–231.
39.
PurhonenSGronowJRahkonenK (2010) Nordic democracy of taste? Cultural omnivorousness in musical and literary taste preferences in Finland. Poetics38(3): 266–298.
40.
ReevesA (2014) Cultural engagement across the life course: examining age–period–cohort effects. Cultural Trends23(4): 273–289.
41.
ReisdorfBCGroseljD (2017) Internet (non-)use types and motivational access: implications for digital inequalities research. New Media & Society19(8): 1157–1176.
42.
ReviglioU (2019) Serendipity as an emerging design principle of the infosphere: challenges and opportunities. Ethics and Information Technology21(2): 151–166.
43.
RobetteNRoueffO (2014) An eclectic eclecticism: methodological and theoretical issues about the quantification of cultural omnivorism. Poetics47: 23–40.
44.
RobinsonMJ (2017) Television on Demand: Curatorial Culture and the Transformation of TV. New York: Bloomsbury Academic.
45.
RösselJ (2008) Conditions for the explanatory power of life styles. European Sociological Review24(2): 231–241.
46.
RösselJWeingartnerS (2016) Opportunities for cultural consumption: how is cultural participation in Switzerland shaped by regional cultural infrastructure?Rationality and Society28(4): 363–385.
47.
RösselJSchenkPWeingartnerS (2017) Cultural consumption. In: ScottRAKosslynSMPinkertonN (eds) Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, pp. 1–14.
48.
ScheerderAvan DeursenAJvan DijkJA (2017) Determinants of Internet skills, uses and outcomes. A systematic review of the second- and third-level digital divide. Telematics and Informatics34(8): 1607–1624.
49.
Serrano-CincaCMuñoz-SoroJFBruscaI (2018) A multivariate study of internet use and the digital divide. Social Science Quarterly99(4): 1409–1425.
50.
SeyfertRRobergeJ (2016) Algorithmic Cultures: Essays on Meaning, Performance and New Technologies. New York: Routledge.
51.
StepanP (2013) Film. In: TowseRHandkeC (eds) Handbook on the Digital Creative Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 399–408.
52.
TadayoniRHentenA (2013) Has digitization delivered? Fact and fiction in digital TV broadcasting. In: TowseRHandkeC (eds) Handbook on the Digital Creative Economy. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 134–151.
53.
UdehnL (2001) Methodological Individualism: Background, History and Meaning. London: Routledge.
54.
Van DeursenAJVan DijkJA (2019) The first-level digital divide shifts from inequalities in physical access to inequalities in material access. New Media & Society21(2): 354–375.
55.
Van DijkJAHackerKL (2018) Internet and Democracy in the Network Society. New York: Routledge.
56.
VerboordM (2014) The impact of peer-produced criticism on cultural evaluation: a multilevel analysis of discourse employment in online and offline film reviews. New Media & Society16(6): 921–940.
57.
VogelHL (2015) Entertainment Industry Economics: A Guide for Financial Analysis. New York: Cambridge University Press.
58.
WallaceJ (2018) Modelling contemporary gatekeeping: the rise of individuals, algorithms and platforms in digital news dissemination. Digital Journalism6(3): 274–293.
59.
WalmsleyB (2016) From arts marketing to audience enrichment: how digital engagement can deepen and democratize artistic exchange with audiences. Poetics58: 66–78.
60.
WardeAGayo-CalM (2009) The anatomy of cultural omnivorousness: the case of the United Kingdom. Poetics37(2): 119–145.
61.
WeiL (2012) Number matters: the multimodality of Internet use as an indicator of the digital inequalities. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication17(3): 303–318.
62.
WeingartnerSRösselJ (2019) Changing dimensions of cultural consumption? The space of lifestyles in Switzerland from 1976 to 2013. Poetics74: 101345.
63.
YaishMKatz-GerroT (2012) Disentangling “cultural capital”: the consequences of cultural and economic resources for taste and participation. European Sociological Review28(2): 169–185.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
