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A great amount of effort has gone into studying correspondences between contemporary class structures and the distribution of lifestyles and media practices therein. Structural overlaps between these spaces imply the existence of a symbolic order, where dominant factions of society constitute taste keepers endowed with the power to stigmatize those below them in the social hierarchy. Yet, research has not come to terms with the reach and depth of this symbolic order. This study combines the Bourdieusian approach with recent developments in stigma research and the notion of felt stigma. Using multiple correspondence analysis on a survey with the adult Swedish population (n = 2003) findings align with previous research in that the social space is built around capital volume and capital composition, and that media practices connect to that structure. This symbolic order is not, however, internalized by people at lower social positions. Instead, it is people invested in culture and arts – a cultural middle-class – who are most likely to anticipate that others would look down on their practices and preferences.

This article mobilizes Pierre Bourdieu's full theory-method to study how class shapes our news orientations in a digital, high-choice media environment. An online survey ( N = 3850) was used to create a statistical representation of the contemporary Swedish social space with variables measuring access to economic, cultural, social, and cosmopolitan capital. A range of digital news preferences and practices were then given co-ordinates in that space. Results highlight the importance of class habitus for the formation of digital news repertoires. Since different groups form altogether different news repertoires—and distaste the preferences of the groups most different to themselves (in terms of access to capitals)—news practices and preferences solidify the positions of groups in the social structure. The study sheds light on the relationship between social and digital inequality and challenges the psychological and individualistic bias in contemporary research on news media use.

The founders of the interdisciplinary field of communication geography argue that the field carries the potential to provide a processual view of communication as spatial production. This article sets out to delineate this underexplored aspect of communication geography. The aim is to expand the research agenda of communication geography by acknowledging the role of everyday social interaction on the one hand, and media environments on the other, in producing and maintaining peoples' taken-for-granted senses of space. This focus is guided by combining central insights of social phenomenology and medium theory. In synthesizing these positions, a research agenda emerges that emphasizes the capacity of media to "mold" the scope and character of communication that in turn maintain the scope and character of taken-for-granted space in everyday reality.

The concept cosmopolitanism has the potential of becoming one of the most interesting social scientific tools for understanding contemporary social life. Operationalising it however, has proved a difficult task. Here, researchers utilise different single indicators while making claims towards the same theoretical concept. This not only undermines the theoretical complexity immanent in the term cosmopolitanism, but also creates a false intersubjectivity in the field of cosmopolitanism studies. In order to 'save' cosmopolitanism from the risk of becoming an 'empty signifier' (Skrbis et al. 2004) or a '"free-floating" discursive geist' ( Holton 2009 ), in an attempt to address the 'muddy' ( Calhoun 2008 ) nature of the concept, this paper presents a methodological blueprint that locates the process of definition in the intersection of the theoretical and the empirical. As such, the proposed methodological way of conduct starts on the conceptual level in order to define the central theoretical tenets included in the cosmopolitan disposition. It then operationalises these claims into indicators that are included in an exploratory analysis of the data set. In conducting a minor quantitative study on 'digital natives' in Sweden the method is illustrated as being able to discern manifestations of 'actually existing cosmopolitanisms' ( Malcomson 1998 ) and thus avoid the risk of reductionism involved with the use of one-dimensional indicators or pre-existing, less-than-adequate variables in secondary data.

The contemporary media landscape invites us to experience a belonging to various distant places, mourn the victims of faraway disasters, expose ourselves to foreign cultures and engage in political issues in places far from our local context of living. In other words, we are invited to become citizens of the world – cosmopolitans. But are we? And if so, how is such cosmopolitanism expressed in a given society, under what social conditions, and in relation to what media practices? Contemporary social theory depicts a global or cosmopolitan mode of orienting in the world as paradigmatic of social life in global modernity. To date, little is known about the structural realities of such orientations. Against this backdrop, the aim of the present study is to understand the potentially "cosmopolitan" character of peoples' outlooks and practices, and the societal conditions in which they can be identified. On the one hand, the aim of the study is to contribute to the largely theoretical accounts of the "cosmopolitan" character of social life in present times, andon the other, to understand the specific role of various media practices in the process generally described as "cosmopolitanization". Results yielded by a national survey deployed in Sweden (n = 1 025) show that the distribution of various cosmopolitan dispositions abides by logics of social stratification. In tandem with previous research, cosmopolitanism – when studied "from below" – has a tendency to emerge in more privileged spheres of society. Being "connected" and simply living in a potentially global media landscape does not nullify this pattern. Contrary to significant parts of popular and scholarly conviction, the media is no uniform, all-encompassing environment operating as a force of cosmopolitanization across all social strata. The results of this study point towards a "mediatized cosmopolitanism" that is impossible to disentangle from social context and the power dynamics pertaining to that context. ; Det samtida medielandskapet tillåter oss att känna tillhörigheter till en mängd olika platser, sörja offer för katastrofer i fjärran länder, exponera oss för främmande kulturella uttryck och engagera oss i politiska frågor rörande platser långt bortom vårt lokala sammanhang. Vi tycks med andra ord bli inbjuda att bli världsmedborgare – kosmopoliter. Men är vi det? Hur uttrycks i sådana fall kosmopolitismen i ett givet samhälle - under vilka förhållanden och i relation till vilka mediepraktiker? Samtida samhällsvetenskaplig teori framställer ett globalt-, eller kosmopolitiskt förhållningsssätt som paradigmatiskt för det sociala livet i den globala moderniteten. Dock finns inte tillräckligt underlag för att förstå den strukturella verkligheten kring sådana förhållningssätt. Mot den bakgrunden är syftet med föreliggande studie att förstå den potentiellt sett "kosmopolitiska" karaktären på människors förhållningssätt och praktiker och de förhållanden i vilka sådana orienteringar kommer till uttryck. Således är syftet å ena sidan att bidra empiriskt till teoretiska beskrivningar av vår kosmopolitiska samtid. Å andra sidan söker studien också förstå den specifika rollen av olika mediepraktiker i relation till den process som beskrivits som "kosmopolitaniseringen". Resultat från en nationell enkätundersökning i Sverige (n = 1 025) visar på en social stratifiering av kosmopolitiska orienteringar. I linje med tidigare forskning påvisar föreliggande studie att kosmopolitism studerad "underifrån" har en tendens att framförallt komma till uttryck i mer priviligierade samhällssfärer. Att vara "sammanlänkad" och helt enkelt leva i ett potentiellt sett globalt medielandskap motverkar inte den tendensen. I motsats till både populära och akademiska utsagor utgör inte medierna en unison och allomfattande miljö som sätter igång en process av kosmopolitanisering i alla samhällets skikt. Studiens resultat pekar istället mot en "medialiserad kosmopolitism" som är omöjlig att förstå utan att ta hänsyn till sitt sociala sammanhang och de maktförhållanden som råder i det sammanhanget.

In this paper focus is put on how the "meta-processes" (Krotz, 2007) of mediatization and commercialization are expressed in relation to the city – how they conflate and create the conditions from which the being of the contemporary city is renegotiated from polis to postpolis. The contemporary "commodification of everything" (Harvey, 2005) and the logic of the global market economy means that the city expresses a need to create a "competitive identity" (Anholt, 2007) and elevate to the fore of attention its' "collective symbolic capital" (Harvey, 2012). This involves turning the city into a brand and as such, the city becomes dependent upon the logics of the media and the symbol – the contemporary city is "the realm of the sign" (Tesfahuney & Schough, 2009: 142). In all its shapes, suggests Debord, "the society of the spectacle constitutes the model for the dominant perspective in society" (2002: 22). Thus the representation of the city – the city-as-a-brand - is both ideological and political in the sense that makes claims as to "represent the entirety of the city when the image is actually a strongly selective and partial ideal image" (Ek, 2007: 97). But the city-as-a-brand is also political in its attempts at reifying the city as a non-political entity. The spectacle-city – the city which turned in to a commodity which turned into a brand which lost itself in its own appealing mirror image like Narcissus - embodies an extreme commodity fetishism in the way in which its' social relations (criminality, segregation, unemployment, gentrification) are placed in the shadows. The resources spent on city-branding amplifies the image of the city as the "space of ultimate experiences" (Tesfahuney & Schough, 2009: 120) while the consequences of neoliberal doctrine veils itself behind the curtains.

In this paper focus is put on how the "meta-processes" (Krotz, 2007) of mediatization and commercialization are expressed in relation to the city – how they conflate and create the conditions from which the being of the contemporary city is renegotiated from polis to postpolis. The contemporary "commodification of everything" (Harvey, 2005) and the logic of the global market economy means that the city expresses a need to create a "competitive identity" (Anholt, 2007) and elevate to the fore of attention its' "collective symbolic capital" (Harvey, 2012). This involves turning the city into a brand and as such, the city becomes dependent upon the logics of the media and the symbol – the contemporary city is "the realm of the sign" (Tesfahuney & Schough, 2009: 142). In all its shapes, suggests Debord, "the society of the spectacle constitutes the model for the dominant perspective in society" (2002: 22). Thus the representation of the city – the city-as-a-brand - is both ideological and political in the sense that makes claims as to "represent the entirety of the city when the image is actually a strongly selective and partial ideal image" (Ek, 2007: 97). But the city-as-a-brand is also political in its attempts at reifying the city as a non-political entity. The spectacle-city – the city which turned in to a commodity which turned into a brand which lost itself in its own appealing mirror image like Narcissus - embodies an extreme commodity fetishism in the way in which its' social relations (criminality, segregation, unemployment, gentrification) are placed in the shadows. The resources spent on city-branding amplifies the image of the city as the "space of ultimate experiences" (Tesfahuney & Schough, 2009: 120) while the consequences of neoliberal doctrine veils itself behind the curtains.

This study focuses on the political attitudes of UK citizens in the aftermath of the 'Brexit' vote. It has been argued that differences within electorates across Europe are found in disputes over taxes, redistribution of wealth and social welfare, as much as in divergent ideas on how to deal with globalisation, migration, and climate change. This article uses the 2016–2017 round of the European Social Survey (N = 1959) to shed light on two important issues in regard to the relationship between 'old' and 'new' politics. By using multiple correspondence analysis, we first consider the structure, or dimensionality, of the space of political attitudes in contemporary UK society. Contrary to a prevailing discourse that forwards the argument that postmaterial values constitute an altogether separate political dimension in late modernity, we observe that such values collapse into traditional left/right standpoints. Second, we discuss the connection between class (economic capital, cultural capital, and occupational class) and position-takings in the space of political attitudes. We show that class retains a limited effect on political position-takings, where educational capital plays the most important role. The divisions between the politically interested–uninterested, old–young, men–women, and rural–urban are more clearly demarcated than differences between people of different social class positions. Furthermore, polarisation is most prevalent between a highly opinionated, relatively resourceful, small minority of the population.

This study focuses on the political attitudes of UK citizens in the aftermath of the 'Brexit' vote. It has been argued that differences within electorates across Europe are found in disputes over taxes, redistribution of wealth and social welfare, as much as in divergent ideas on how to deal with globalisation, migration, and climate change. This article uses the 2016–2017 round of the European Social Survey (N = 1959) to shed light on two important issues in regard to the relationship between 'old' and 'new' politics. By using multiple correspondence analysis, we first consider the structure, or dimensionality, of the space of political attitudes in contemporary UK society. Contrary to a prevailing discourse that forwards the argument that postmaterial values constitute an altogether separate political dimension in late modernity, we observe that such values collapse into traditional left/right standpoints. Second, we discuss the connection between class (economic capital, cultural capital, and occupational class) and position-takings in the space of political attitudes. We show that class retains a limited effect on political position-takings, where educational capital plays the most important role. The divisions between the politically interested–uninterested, old–young, men–women, and rural–urban are more clearly demarcated than differences between people of different social class positions. Furthermore, polarisation is most prevalent between a highly opinionated, relatively resourceful, small minority of the population.

This editorial introduces a thematic issue on "Rethinking Media and Social Space". By critically rethinking the relationship between media and social space this issue takes initial steps towards ensuring that media studies is appropriate for a mediatized world. Contemporary societies are permeated by media that play important roles in how people maneuver and position themselves in the social world. Yet, analyses of media-related social change too often fail to engage with the complex and situated nature of power relations. This editorial highlights three enduring problems: (1) the annihilation of the socially structured and structuring role of media technologies and practices; (2) the conflation of inherent social capacities of media technologies and discourses with existing mediations of power, and (3) the reduction of social space to one predominant dimension which overshadows all other forms of social power that media technologies, discourses, and practices are part of. As a response to these problems -and in bringing together the arguments of the five articles included in the thematic issue- this editorial calls for sociologized approaches to media technologies, discourses, and practices.

The relationship between media practices and social inequality has been studied within a range of sub-disciplines in media and communication studies and cultural sociology. In various, more or less direct, ways these studies point to the fact that habitus – the socially formed class specific relations to the social world – generates certain tastes, lifestyles, practices and preferences. When social groups form relatively distinct media practices, and distance themselves from the practices of other groups, they reproduce their social position, and 'make' their class. By analysing in-depth interviews with members of an emerging cultural middle-class, this study shows how class-making also manifests in the ways in which people expect that others would 'look down' on their media practices. By anticipating stigma from imagined others, the cultural middle-class stays in line with class-specific lifestyles and media practices, thus cementing their distinct character in the social space.