Club Cultures analyses the "hipness" of British rave culture and coins the term, "subcultural capital", an adaption of Pierre Bourdieu's concept as outlined in many works including
Distinction. The study responds to earlier works such as Dick Hebdige's
Subculture: The Meaning of Style.
Local micro-media like flyers and listings are means by which club organizers bring the crowd together. Niche media like the music press construct subcultures as much as they document them. National mass media, such as tabloids, develop youth movements as much as they distort them. Contrary to youth subcultural ideologies, "subcultures" do not germinate from a seed and grow by force of their own energy into mysterious ‘movements’ only to be belatedly digested by the media. Rather, media and other culture industries are there and effective right from the start. They are central to the process of subcultural formation.Thornton, Sarah. (1996). Club Cultures : Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital. Hanover: University Press of New England, p. 117.
Thornton co-edited the first edition of
The Subcultures Reader with Ken Gelder.
Thornton has written about the contemporary art market and art world for publications including
The Economist,
The Sunday Times Magazine ,
The Art Newspaper, Artforum.com
, The New YorkerThornton, Sarah. (19 March 2007). 'Letter from London: Reality Art Show'. The New Yorker. Retrieved 28 June 2009.,
The TelegraphThornton, Sarah. (3 October 2008). 'Is art the new gold?'. The Telegraph. Retrieved 28 June 2009.,
The GuardianThornton, Sarah. (16 October 2008). 'If the work is free, is it art?'. The Guardian. Retrieved 28 June 2009., and
The New Statesman.Thornton, Sarah. (23 October 2008). 'Bye-bye to bling for billionaires'. New Statesman. Retrieved 28 June 2009.
Her book
Seven Days in the Art World was published in 2008.