EXPRESS: Social Atmospheres: How Interaction Ritual Chains Create Effervescent Experiences of Place

2021 ◽  
pp. 002224292110233
Author(s):  
Tim Hill ◽  
Robin Canniford ◽  
Giana M. Eckhardt
Keyword(s):  
Marketing Research ◽  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Interaction Ritual Chains ◽  
Shared Experiences ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
Collective Effervescence ◽  
Stage Process ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
English Premier League

Atmospheres are experiences of place involving transformations of consumers’ behaviors and emotions. Existing marketing research reveals how atmospheric stimuli, service performances, and ritual place-making enhance place experiences and create value for firms. Yet it remains unclear how shared experiences of atmosphere emerge and intensify among groups of people during collective live events. Accordingly, this paper uses sociological interaction ritual theory to conceptualize ‘social atmospheres’: rapidly changing qualities of place created when a shared focus aligns consumers’ emotions and behavior, resulting in lively expressions of collective effervescence. With data from an ethnography of an English Premier League football stadium, the authors identify a four-stage process of creating atmospheres in interaction ritual chains. This framework goes beyond conventional retail and servicescape design by demonstrating that social atmospheres are mobile and co-created between firms and consumers before, during and after a main event. The study also reveals how interaction rituals can be disrupted, and offers insight as to how firms can balance key tensions in creating social atmospheres as a means to enhance customer experiences, customer loyalty, and communal place attachments.

The Micro-sociology of Interaction Rituals within Megachurches

High on God ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 79-88
Author(s):  
James K. Wellman ◽  
Katie E. Corcoran ◽  
Kate J. Stockly
Keyword(s):  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
Emotional Energy ◽  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Interaction Ritual Chains ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Collective Effervescence

We describe the paradigm of micro-sociology using Randall Collins’s work on interaction ritual chains to understand how emotional energy is produced in megachurches. We argue that individuals are motivated to participate in megachurches through a process of interaction ritual chains that produce and evoke deep desires satisfied through emotional energy, which attracts and keeps so many coming to megachurches. We describe Collins’s ingredients for successful rituals (co-presence, a shared mood, a mutual focus of attention, and barriers to outsiders) and how megachurches meet or transform these ingredients for their purposes. As we narrate Collins’s interactive ritual structure, we briefly outline the ways in which the six desires, described in Chapter 3, are met in a cyclical manner within megachurches. We show how they are evoked and addressed in overlapping and synchronic ways, which reinforces the power of the collective effervescence of these churches.

Whose Bodies? Bringing Gender Into Interaction Ritual Chain Theory

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-271
Author(s):  
Todd W Ferguson
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Religious Congregations ◽  
Congregational Life ◽  
Emotional Energy ◽  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Interaction Ritual Chains ◽  
Gendered Identities ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
Gender System

Abstract The goal of this paper is to bring gender into the theory of interaction ritual chains. While this theory focuses on how bodies emotionally respond within interactions, it ignores how the sex–gender system impacts bodies. The cultural norms for women and men shape how bodies react emotionally in rituals. To demonstrate the need for interaction rituals to account for gender, I explore how gendered feeling rules affect ritual outcomes in religious congregations. Using multilevel regressions to analyze data from the 2001 US Congregational Life Survey, I show that men have lower levels of emotional energy than women. Additionally, the gender ratio has an effect, and individuals who are in congregations with higher percentages of men experience lower levels of emotional energy. This effect is more powerful for men than it is for women. I conclude by stating that interaction ritual theory must account for the gendered identities of its participants.

MEDIATED INTERACTION RITUALS: A GEOGRAPHY OF EVERYDAY LIFE AND CONTENTION IN BLACK LIVES MATTER*

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-313
Author(s):  
Sander van Haperen ◽  
Justus Uitermark ◽  
Alex van der Zeeuw
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Image Recognition ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Black Lives Matter ◽  
Geographically Dispersed ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
Different Types

The Movement for Black Lives has connected millions of people online. How are their outrage and hope mediated through social media? To address this question, this article extends Randall Collins’s Interaction Ritual Theory to social media. Employing semisupervised image recognition methods on a million Instagram posts with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter, we identify four different interaction ritual types, each with distinct geographies. Instagram posts featuring interactions with physical copresence are concentrated in urban areas. We identify two different types of such areas: arenas where contention plays out and milieus where movement identities are affirmed. Instagram posts that do not feature physical copresence are more geographically dispersed. These posts, including memes and selfies, allow people to engage with the movement even when they are not embedded in activist environments. Our analysis helps to understand how different forms of engagement are embedded in particular places and connected through the circulation of social media posts.

scholarly journals Protesting Populist Knowledge Practices: Collective Effervescence at the March for Science London

2021 ◽  
pp. 174997552110335
Author(s):  
Neil Stephens ◽  
Photini Vrikki ◽  
Hauke Riesch ◽  
Olwenn Martin
Keyword(s):  
Observational Study ◽  
The Other ◽  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
Science Society ◽  
Collective Effervescence ◽  
A Chain

On 22 April 2017, 10,000 people joined the March for Science London, one of 600 events globally asserting the importance of science against post-truth. Here we report an online and on-the-ground observational study of the London event in its distinct, post-Brexit referendum context. We analyse the motives for marchers’ attendance, and their collective enactment of what science is and why and by what it is threatened. Drawing upon Interaction Ritual Theory and the concept of civic epistemology, we develop the notion of populist knowledge practices to capture the ‘other’ that marchers defined themselves against. We detail how this was performed, and how it articulated a particular vision for science–society relations in Britain. In closing, we argue that the March for Science is one in a chain of anti-populist activist events that retains collective effervescence while transcending specific framings.

Loneliness and interaction ritual theory: failed interaction chains among Finnish university students

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna-Mari Husu
Keyword(s):  
University Students ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
Relational Understanding ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Ritual Theory ◽  
The Individual

This article relates loneliness to interaction ritual theory, understanding loneliness in terms of problematic microinteractional dynamics. The advantage of interaction ritual theory is that it extends our understanding of the issue of the psychologised self and related questions such as how loneliness feels or is experienced. Loneliness is here defined as a response to interaction representing relational understanding of emotions. Interaction ritual theory is interested in the emotional consequences that individuals experience from successful or unsuccessful interaction rituals. Loneliness in this view represents a state in which the individual is denied access to rewarding aspects of interaction. This study is based on 32 lifecourse interviews with Finnish students. It finds that loneliness as a failed microinteractional dynamic originates from students’ previous negative experiences of interaction, problematic situational settings and the structured flow of students’ daily activities.

scholarly journals Cocaine Rituals in Club Culture: Intensifying and Controlling Alcohol Intoxication

2021 ◽  
pp. 002204262098651
Author(s):  
Marit Edland-Gryt
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Young People ◽  
Alcohol Intoxication ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Cocaine Use ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Collective Effervescence ◽  
Drinking Culture ◽  
Cocaine Users ◽  
And Control

Clubbing is an important part of the nighttime economy, and cocaine use is, for some young people, an essential part of this clubbing culture. However, the interaction rituals around the use of powder cocaine in this context remain understudied. This study is based on qualitative interviews with young adult recreational cocaine users ( n = 28) and explores how they use cocaine in club settings, in relation to rituals and drinking culture. The analysis identified three main explanations for using cocaine: (a) unity with friends because of shared transgression, (b) the high as a “collective effervescence,” and (c) the possibility to control, extend, and intensify drinking to intoxication. These three explanations illustrate how cocaine rituals were deeply integrated in drinking-to-intoxication rituals, and how the illegality of cocaine use reinforced feelings of unity with friends. In the nighttime economy, cocaine use and its related rituals are used to intensify and control alcohol-fuelled partying.

Effervescence Accelerators: Barriers to Outsiders in Christian Interaction Rituals

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Draper
Keyword(s):  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Religious Rituals ◽  
Interaction Rituals ◽  
Collective Effervescence ◽  
Social Dynamic ◽  
Christian Congregations

Abstract In interaction ritual theory, barriers to outsiders are cues that communicate who is and is not excluded from a ritual. Prior research on religious rituals has established strong support for the hypothesis that barriers promote collective effervescence and social solidarity. Questions remain, though, regarding how this social dynamic impacts the practices, identities, missions, and conflicts of congregations who strive to be inclusive. We conducted microsociological analysis of rituals based on participant-observation and focus groups at six Christian congregations: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-day Saints, Christian Scientists, Brethren, Catholics, and Episcopalians. Barriers were built in all the rituals, bringing congregational distinction through contrast with different types of outsiders. We also observed effervescent moments where barriers were low and inconsequential, suggesting that severe barriers are unnecessary. Rather, the special ritual function of barriers is to provide instant jolts of effervescence, especially when other social dynamics are failing.

“God Is Like a Drug…”: Explaining Interaction Ritual Chains in American Megachurches

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 650-672 ◽  
Author(s):  
James K. Wellman ◽  
Katie E. Corcoran ◽  
Kate Stockly-Meyerdirk
Keyword(s):  
Interaction Ritual ◽  
Interaction Ritual Chains

Traditional Market Research and Neuromarketing Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-167
Author(s):  
Sertac Eroglu ◽  
Nihan Tomris Kucun
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Behavior ◽  
Market Research ◽  
Marketing Research ◽  
New Horizons ◽  
Related Data ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Marketing Relationship ◽  
Traditional Market ◽  
Traditional Marketing ◽  
And Behavior

Marketing research, dedicated to comprehending consumer behavior and purchasing practice, comprises methodical gathering, analysis, and interpretation of related data. Since the understanding of consumer behavior is a comprehensive and complicated task, the contemporary marketing studies argue that traditional marketing research should be supported by neuromarketing methods to explore consumers' psychology, motivation, and behavior. In this chapter, the advantages and disadvantages of traditional marketing and neuromarketing research methodologies and the differences between them are discussed. The traditional market research methods are explained through their qualitative and quantitative dimensions. The most commonly used grouping scheme of techniques in neuromarketing research is presented, namely, neurometric, biometric, and psychometric techniques. The marketing research supported by neuromarketing approaches enables us to look at the consumers' mind as closely as we have never experienced before and opens up new horizons in understanding consumer and marketing relationship.

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