Seeing Red and Wearing Pink: Trajectories of Cultural Power in the AIDS and Breast Cancer Ribbons

• In Event: 094 - Regular Session. Sociology of Culture 1: Evolving Meanings and Messages in Organizational Settings

Abstract

In this paper we explain these trajectories of cultural power by analyzing cases of the emergence, institutionalization, and contestation of red and pink ribbons. Broadly, we ask, what accounts for the waxing and waning of the cultural power of these symbols? More specifically, we are interested in the conditions under which the ribbons diffuse, motivate to action, and how they operate as uncontroversial one day, and invite intense contestation the next. Through an analysis of Lexis-Nexis articles discussing red and pink ribbons, along with historical and social scientific accounts of related organizations, we identify different trajectories. While red ribbons faced contestation early in their history, with declining power over time, pink ribbons enjoyed relatively little criticism early with increasing contestation over time. By comparing these trajectories, we account for varieties of power: the capacity to be institutionalized and widely diffused; the capacity to energize personal narratives; and the capacity to enable contestation. Why did these symbols become the institutionally backed icons of their respective diseases? Is institutionalization a precursor to contestation? How does cultural work around these symbols in the public sphere constrain and enable personal and intra-movement uses of the ribbons? Ultimately this paper makes a contribution to theories of cultural power by theorizing the intersecting trajectories of power and acknowledging how some dimensions of cultural power create obstacles and opportunities for alternative paths to power.

Authors

• Terence Emmett McDonnell, University of Notre Dame

• Amy E. Jonason, University of Notre Dame

• Kari Marie Christoffersen, University of Notre Dame