From aesthetic principles to collective sentiments: The logics of everyday judgements of taste

Contemporary research into the sociology of taste has, following Bourdieu (1984), primarily emphasised the role of social position, or more broadly as implicated int he reproduction of social inequality. We argue that although important, such a preoccupation with the social distribution of objectified tastes--for example in music, literature, and art--has been at the expense of investigating the everyday perceptual schemes and resources used by actors to accomplish a judgement of taste. Our argument is traced using a range of classical and contemporary literature which deals with the personal/collective tension in taste, aesthetics and fashion. We use data from a recent national survey to investigate how a sample of ordinary fashion. We use data from a recent national survey to investigate how a sample of ordinary actors understand the categories of 'good' and 'bad' taste. The analysis shows a strong collective strand in everyday definitions of taste, often linked to moral codes of interpersonal conduct. Also, taste is largely defined by people as a strategy for managing relations with others, and as a mode of self-discipline which relies on the mastery of a number of general principles that are resources for people to position their own tastes within an imagined social sphere. This paper proposes a schematic model which accounts for the range of discriminatory resources used to make judgements of taste.

Grainger as an interpreter of Grieg

Piano performances; Grieg's Piano Concerto in A minor; Op. 16 (Music); Norwegian Bridal Procession, Op. 19 no. 2 (Music)

An analysis of why telehealth systems in Australia have not always succeeded

Telehealth programmes are rather similar to humans in the way that they are planned, develop, grow and ultimately die or disappear. To achieve good life expectancy for a telehealth programme there appear to be three major needs: nurturing, which includes the provision of money, ideas, education, training and innovation; experience, which involves an integrated management process, the achievement of long and wide patterns of usage, the development of updated policies and procedures and the involvement of multiple disciplines; success, which involves evidence of outcomes, evaluation and research, and, most important, the sharing of information through scientific and popular press publications, and conferences and collaborations with internal and external groups. The future of telehealth in Australia is at a watershed. There are now a substantial number of programmes, and there has been a large amount of financial and human investment in telehealth around the nation. There is, however, no forum for national leadership, no national association and little support at federal government level.