School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemChamber music audiences: access, participation and pleasure at Melbourne concerts( 2003)This thesis examines the social role of chamber music. It argues that in contemporary Australian society the chamber music audience is largely unobserved and under-theorised, and redresses this with a study of Melbourne concert audiences. An analysis of the chamber music 'scene(s)' in Melbourne finds that audience-ship is a socially constructed practice accessed through a particular habitus that facilitates participation and pleasure at concerts. In this way access and participation is acquired through social vehicles that exist outside the concert hall. The thesis also finds that chamber music is not simply one unified cultural form, but a diverse set of music genres and cross-fertilised forms with some striking differences in the audiences of ‘new music' concerts compared with other forms of chamber music. Through an analysis of survey data and self-narrated audience biographies the thesis demonstrates that, for those with the necessary habitus, chamber music constitutes an important source of cultural capital: it is a worthwhile object of desire, an indispensable and irreplaceable means of pleasure and happiness and plays a worthwhile role in the public and private lives of individuals. The habitus that facilitates an appreciation for chamber music is not available to everyone and in an era of confused egalitarianism this finding challenges the claim that access to the arts and high culture has been democratised. Particular cultural precursors arc necessary in order to derive access, participation and pleasure in high cultural events such as chamber music concerts. In this way access, participation and pleasure of chamber music remain off limits to most Australians.
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ItemThe show must go on: organizational responses to traumatic employee fatalities within multiple employer worksites( 1995)This thesis analysed the way organizations working within multiple employer worksites, that is sites characterized by contracting and subcontracting arrangements, respond to the death of a worker. Data on responses was used to explore recent debates in regulatory theory. The introductory chapters traces shifts in the regulatory debate between "deterrence" based punitive methods of securing corporate compliance, towards more recent discussions which look to a regulatory mix of punish and persuade to gain optimal corporate behaviour. Of particular interest is Braithwaite's (1993) conception of regulation as concerned primarily with "nurturing virtue", ie using responsive regulatory techniques to encourage compliance. Braithwaite's concept of organizational virtue was fleshed out using research and theorizing in related areas; namely the work of organizational symbolists to explore corporate virtue as a cultural concept, and social theory, in particular the work of Marx and Weber to understand the relationship between structure, culture and virtuous behaviour, noting in particular the theorized structural relationships between small and large business. The data gathered for this study was used primarily to analyse the prospects for nurturing virtue, taking account of possible structural and cultural imperatives which may lie behind virtuous behaviour. Data was gathered through the records of the Victorian State Coroner on all deaths at work that occurred within multiple employer worksites in 1987. It was considered that multiple employer worksites characterized best the contemporary economic climate which has seen extensive shifts towards greater use of "contracting out" and downsizing in order to make production more cost effective. Responses to the deaths were ascertained by initial exploration of Coroner's records followed by in depth interviewing with each of the organizations involved. Analysis of the responses allowed operationalization of the concept of organizational virtue. Responses by organizations which contributed to the death, fell into two major categories: either "virtuous", where extensive changes were made to prevent repetition of the death; or "blinkered" (ie lacking in virtue) organizations which made minimal changes, or whose changes simply involved reducing legal liability, such as changing company name. Various factors associated with the responses were analysed. These were: Managers' rationalizations about responsibility for the death; organizational culture; the structural environment of the organization, namely its size and position in the contracting hierarchy; the influence of the law on response; and finally the affect of increasing competitiveness and increased regulatory expectations in the area of health and safety. How the organization perceived their responsibility for making safety improvements after the death, and the actual response to the event could be best understood by looking at the size of the organization, and the cultural orientation to success the organization had. This suggests that in order for "nurturing virtue" to be successful, the culture of the organization and the structural environment within which it is situated must first be understood. Further, in terms of the affect of law on virtue, a wide range of laws need to be considered, beyond that specifically concerned with regulations, in this case the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1985 (Vic). Compensation Law, and the common law each have a role to play. Like other influences however, the impact of law on response was mediated by the size and culture of the organization. The thesis expands on the need to take account of structure and culture as central to the purpose of regulation. It does this, drawing on the work of Shearing (1993), Grabosky (1994a and b) and Gunningham (1993) among others, and links these theorists to a comprehensive model of regulation which builds on parameters laid down by both Marx and Weber.