One of the terms that Pierre Bourdieu uses in his field theory is, cultural capital. This term is used to distinguish a relative status enjoyed by certain people based on what they know, how they look, and how they behave…In certain circumstances, these characteristics can compensate for, and be leveraged against the lack of traditional economic capital…
You may want to consider the issue of cultural capital in relation to graphic and communication design and to the power, identified by both Walter Benjamin and Stuart Hall , of modern media systems. It’s odd that the cultural capital of graphic and communication design is consistently under-estimated.
If you are accounting for the social relations between people, the issue of cultural capital can be significant in shaping the power relations between different groups of people. It’s an especially significant issue in relation to how young and old interact…the young tend to not have access to traditional forms of capital. So, they invest their community leaders with cultural capital so as to be able to shape society accordingly. In practical terms, you can see this process playing out through the continuous identification of “young gun” players below the age of 30. The promotion of certain individuals gives them influence over their own peer group too. You can see this with the rise of influencer personalities on social medias etc.
Traditionally, the greatest cultural capital has tended to attach to those with the greatest economic capital. So, we have taken our leads, in relation to fashion, culture and lifestyle, from the trickle-down of social elites. This only really began to change after WW2, when a more egalitarian form of social structure began to replace the top-down social hierarchies.
In the 1960s, the advent of widespread mass media, especially in the form of television, produced a new generation of personalities, technicians and managers in advertising and TV. These personalities and their cultural capital were able to shape the media agenda so that it reflected their own interests and shaped the world in relation to their systems and values. More recently, the same thing has happened in relation to the internet and social media. At a less elevated level, the concept of street-cred can be used to identify personalities and backgrounds which confer cultural capital.
Looking back at these, now historic, periods of change, it’s obvious that capital and culture are different forces that shape society; but it’s is also the case that cultural capital endures, over time, and exerts a force that distinguishes it from mere money…
If you are interested in this concept, I would recommend reading
Elms R (2005) The Way We Wore (A Life in Threads) Picador, London
This book is a memoir, by Elms, of growing up against the various youth and counter-cultural groups of the 1970s and 1980. The interaction of music, fashion and lifestyle as defining the cultural capital of those moments in Britain (London) at least, is very precisely drawn.
In contrast to London, the same could be described in say relation to 1990s Manchester and Factory Records…Or 1960s California and the folk/rock interface in popular music. There is cultural capital to be found all around.