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distinction of culture between popular, high,and mass culture
impact of media on culture and society
different influence of media in society
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In this essay I intend to explore what is meant by the terms popular culture and high culture. I will also look at how the relationship between these two terms has become distorted and blurred over time. In order to reinforce what I am saying about popular and high culture I will be using a range of examples from the music industry to show how the line between high culture and popular culture has become ambiguous. I will also call upon the work of John Storey to give my work an academic foundation. Although Storey is the main academic I will be looking at, I will also include references to a number of other academics who have written about popular culture and high culture.
The term ‘popular culture’ is a particularly difficult one to define. The word ‘culture’ alone is, according to Ray Williams, “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language” (Storey; 2006, 1). Popular culture must also be a term that is equally hard to define. Popular culture is an ambiguous phrase in cultural theory. In its simplest form: popular culture can be seen as the culture of the working class and minority cultures such as; folk and youth culture.(Brooker; 2003).
Popular culture is often referred to as being produced by the mass media ‘for’ the public, who are seen as consumers. An example of this would be the television programme ‘The X Factor’. The X Factor is produced by a large television company which is owned by a multi millionaire music mogul. The programme is shown extensively throughout the winter months, when people favour staying indoors to going outside. The concept of the show is that it entices people in during the first couple of week. This is done by showing the contestants’ auditions. The reason for t...
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...nment. Oxford. Wiley-Blackwell.
• DiMaggio, P. (1992). Cultural Boundaries and Structural Change: The Extension of the High Culture Model to Theater, Opera and the Dance, 1900-1940. Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
• Storey, J. (2003). Inventing Popular Culture: From Folklore to Globalization. Oxford. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
• Storey, J. (2006). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Oxford. Prentice Hall.
• Strinati, D. (1995). Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. New York: Routledge.
Websites:
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/licencefee (Last Accessed: 21st March 2011)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Boyle (Last Accessed: 21st March 2011)
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Rhapsody (Last Accessed: 21st March 2011)
• http://www.journoblog.com/2010/05/cultural-differences (Last Accessed: 21st March 2011)
Epstein, Dan. 20th Century Pop Culture: The Early Years to 1949. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2001. Print.
Pop culture in the 1950s and 1960s began to spread and infest the nation from front to back through radio shows, books and magazines, television programs, and even motion pictures. Whether it is culture in terms of political affairs, clothing or the latest musical sensations, the United States has always played the dominant role when it came to who knows what is best, first. Some cases of Americanizati...
In comparing the sixties and the nineties, my first thought was how much popular culture has changed since then and how different society is today. The strange thing is, the more I tried to differentiate between them, the more similarities I found. Both the sixties and the nineties were about youth, creativity, free-thinking, and expression. With the nineties coming to a close and the popularity of anything ?retro," I decided to compare the fashions, people, music, and issues that defined pop culture in the 1960?s and its influence on pop culture in the 1990?s.
In Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine argues that a distinction between high and low culture that did not exist in the first half of the 19th century emerged by the turn of the century and solidified during the 20th century, and that despite a move in the last few decades toward a more ecumenical interpretation of “culture,” the distinction between high art and popular entertainment and the revering of a canon of sacred, inalterable cultural works persists. In the prologue Levine states that one of his central arguments is that concepts of cultural boundaries have changed over the period he treats. Throughout Highbrow, Lowbrow, Levine defines culture as a process rather than a fixed entity, and as a product of interactions between the past and the present.
Zizek, S. (2006). From Reality to the Real (Vol. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader). (J. Storeys, Ed.) Harlow: Pearson.
Historically, popular culture has been seen to evolve along with the era in which it is generated. The analysis of the predominantly popular genre within a given generation can serve, therefore, as a window into that particular generation’s prevailing way of thought. One thing that greatly affects that way of thought is the recent history immediately preceding that time.
In assessing the impact and effect of popular cultural forms like MTV, it is important to acknowledge the extent to which, rather than having them imposed upon us, we may instead appropriate or assimilate parts, whilst choosing to reject or ignore the rest. This, of course, has the consumer or viewer acting (or perhaps more accurately interacting) as opposed to simply passively receiving (Philo par 16).Even though critics of MTV stand strongly against the passive consumer, th...
Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Fourth Edition. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 2006. Print.
In the beginning, the relationship between everyday culture and mass media culture are closed but there are some difference between popular culture and traditional culture. The traditional culture is known as ‘high culture’ which refer to literature, art, music etc. However, popular culture is the produced by mass media, may know it as low culture. People used to entertainment or relaxation. It shared and spread rapidly in groups, communities, societies and so on. Some people may say popular culture help us to understand more about the world because of the globalization factor.
Popular culture is often dismissed as frivolous, unimportant or simply mindless entertainment, both by media critics and by academics. However, it is important to examine and think critically about popular culture and what it can tell us about the society that we live in. In the specific case of the relationship between gender and popular culture, popular culture is informed by the way gender is structured and the structure of gender is, in part, reinforced by popular culture.
What popular culture and mass culture are, their significance to society and how they are consumed are very multifaceted questions that have been subject to wide debate is the fields of Sociology and Cultural Studies. Many theorists have chimed in on the debate to answer these questions. Two notable theories on this topic are that of Dwight MacDonald in his work “A Theory of Mass Culture” and John Fiske in his work “Popular Culture”. MacDonald argues that mass culture is a phenomenon that is detrimental to society. He believes that although mass culture is something that produced “by and for human beings” that is ultimately is what leads to the loss of individuality and individual thought and expression in favor
There are many ways to define popular culture. Many individuals have grappled with the question what is popular culture? And how to critically analyze and deconstruct the meanings. Looking at the root words of popular culture is where to begin. Raymond Williams states ‘popular’ means: “well liked by many people" or “culture actually made for the people themselves (Storey, p.5). This is part with the word ‘culture’ combine to look at how the two words have been connect by theoretical work within social and historical context. John Storey approaches popular culture in six categories, they are as followed: “Popular culture is simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people”, Popular culture is “the culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture”, Popular culture is “mass culture”, “Popular culture is the culture that originates from ‘the people.” and “Popular culture as a site of struggle
...of high culture by vulgar commercialism or as a suppression of authenticate working-class culture, but should be read as a complex hegemonic dialectic of liberation and control. What this analysis of the cultural market brings home to us is the need to take the question of scarcity and thus of the allocation of cultural resources seriously, together with the question of audiences: who they are, how they are formed, and how they can best be served. The only alternative to the market which we have constructed has tended to subsidize the existing tastes and habits of the better-off or to create a new form of public culture which has no popular audience.
Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change” (John Podhoretz). It encompasses the advertisements we see on T.V, the clothes we wear, the music we listen too, and it’s the reason Leonardo DiCaprio has not won an Oscar yet. It defines and dictates the desires and fears of the mainstream members of society; and it is so ingrained into our lives that it has become as natural as breathing. Moreover, adults never even bat an eyelash at all the pop culture and advertising that surrounds them since it has become just another part of everyday life. Pop culture is still somewhat seen as entertainment enjoyed by the lower class members of society; but pop culture standards change over time. A notable example of this is the sixteenth century author, William Shakespeare, since his works were considered pop culture, entertainment that could be enjoyed by everyone, but now they are considered literary classics. While pop culture encompasses most aspects of our lives, its influence is most obvious through each generations reaction to media,
“Culture” is a term that over the years, has taken many forms, served many purposes and has been defined in a variety of contexts. At the rise of the industrial era, inhabitants of rural areas began to migrate to cities, thus starting urbanization. As this new era began to unfold, urbanization, mass production, and modernization became key ingredients in the transformation of culture. As more people became literate and the production of mass media such as magazines, pamphlets, newspapers etc. increased, many had the option and desire to identify collectively – popular culture began to rise. Popular or “mass” culture can be described as a “dynamic, revolutionary force, breaking down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste, and dissolving