The Structure of Digital Partner Choice

A Bourdieusian perspective

Andreas Schmitz (Autor)

Buch | Softcover

XIX, 219 Seiten

2018 | 1. Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 2017
Springer International Publishing (Verlag)
978-3-319-82848-0 (ISBN)

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This work approaches the modern phenomenon of online dating, examining the ways people make use of its technical and social potential. In particular, the users' mate preferences, choices, strategies, and interactions are analyzed using the innovative method of click-stream observations and web-questionnaire data. For the purpose of these analyses, two major theories are used - an explicit theory of individual mate choice, and the more general relational theory developed by Pierre Bourdieu, which helps to highlight the social structures both underlying and resulting from mating online. Results show that online dating is not a partner marker free from social structure, but that the traditional social conditions found offline are also reproduced in this virtual setting. In contrast to the picture drawn by media discourse and advertising, online dating represents a partner market which fulfills the promise of happiness in a socially differential way.

Andreas Schmitz took his doctoral studies of sociology at Otto-Friedrich-Universität, Bamberg, supervised by Prof. Dr. Richard Münch. Since 2013 Andreas Schmitz has been working as Post-Doc in the department of sociology at the University of Bonn. In the summer term of 2015 he is acting as a substitute lecturer for Prof. Dr. Jörg Blasius.

1. Introduction.- 2. Online Dating - A Meeting Point for the Modern Individual and Traditional Individualism.- 3. The Market Character of Online Dating.- 4. Classical Theories of Mate Choice and the Relational Deficit in the Study of Relationship Formation.- 5. A Bourdieusian Approach to Mating Processes.- 6. Methodological Implications.- 7. Empirical Analyses.- 8. Online Dating - A Unified and Unifying Symbolic Good Market.

Erscheinungsdatum	05.03.2022
Zusatzinfo	XIX, 219 p. 12 illus., 1 illus. in color.
Verlagsort	Cham
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Gewicht	373 g
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung
Themenwelt	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Makrosoziologie
Schlagworte	Click-stream observations • Habitus-theory • Online Dating • Rational Choice Theory • Sociology of mate choice
ISBN-10	3-319-82848-7 / 3319828487
ISBN-13	978-3-319-82848-0 / 9783319828480
Zustand	Neuware