Mass or popular culture is derived from high culture, so for every item in high culture, there is a corresponding item of lesser importance in popular culture. Popular culture gives us what we want and tells us what we already know. Forms of popular culture include television, comics and magazines, pop music and the cinema.
Due to the technological developments in transportation and telecommunications, popular culture is, to an extent, a function of the commercialisation of modernity. The modern producer of popular culture is able to target a market place much smaller than a producer prior to the beginning of these technologies. Popular culture is governed by the needs of the market place and reproduces the desires of the self. Commodities are imposed upon the popular culture, taking away freedom of choice and individuality. Instead of being linked to one another as members of a community, the relation is formed with a system of industrial production, which is something intangible and untouchable.
In a way popular culture encourages impatience as most things rely on instant accessibility. For example, fast food chains allow us to have satisfying, however unhealthy, food instantly. Some may argue that flat pack furniture is of the popular culture industry as it is all mass produced. Whereas, the high culture population would prefer an original, unique or antique piece of furniture. It is made clear from studying the high culture that they focus on the timeless.
H Hawkins (1990) believed that high and popular cultures do often share similar themes. For example a particular piece of music could be seen as high culture at one point, and popular culture at another. In Italy, Opera is an admired and broadly recognised culture form. The singers and performers are all well known and it always draws in larges audiences. However, in Britain the opera is seen as a privileged taste and the audience are usually older and from higher social classes. It is shown in this case that it often be difficult to assign cultural practices to precise theoretical divisions. Popular culture is seen as a culture which only celebrates fame.
In Britain it is clear that the ‘higher’ class division believe that classical and opera music appreciates the ability to compose such pieces. Theodor Adorno explained that
“With serious music every detail acquires its musical sense from the totality of the piece”.
Adorno argued that those who listened to popular music are taken in by the “veneer of individual effects”, which means that he thought that the listeners think that they are listening to something different and unique, he also believed popular music to be standardized. Gendron (1986) argued against Adorno and questioned how he thought popular music is standardized. Gendron believed that there are far too many different genres of music for it to be standardized.
The popular culture is thought to be the culture which moves with the times and takes a more realistic view on life. It involves a wider range of people and is seen to be wiser to the worldly issues and cultures. High culture believes to have a good sense of unity and they are seen to be the epitome of culture. People from the higher culture are often not a passive audience and seen to be more aesthetically pure. It is not a manufactured culture, thus being less destructive. The elites have communities with members having an individual role and sharing similar interests. Members of the high culture believe that popular culture continually brings down the standards of the people and degrades high culture, meaning it can never attempt to be equal to, or superior to them.
Culture is part of the social world and is shaped by the important positions of power which operate in a social world. All societies are organised politically and economically. Power and authority are circulated within societies, which allow them to have the resources for distributing scarce resources. Cultures are affected by the interests of governing groups in societies, which try to find explanations and confirm their positions in particular structures.
Through the construction of traditions, social hierarchies continue to try and spread through the population. The popular culture, are used by these hierarchies to train and ‘take over’ the lesser groups. This misleading information can then in turn be used to promote a political cause or point of view. It is clear that power and culture are inseparable and that the analysis of culture cannot be detached from politics or powerful relations.
Culture shapes our social structures and social positions and identities. Distinctions are made between the different cultures to allow them to have the right to express the own identities. Even though people are put into certain subcultures doesn’t mean that they lack their own individuality, because every single person is different and has the right to the own opinion and preference even if it may be the same, or different, to somebody else’s.
Bibliography
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Baldwin, et al. (1999) Introducing cultural studies , London: Prentice Hall
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Berger, A. (2000) Media and communication research studies, U.S.A: Sage