CULTURAL MEDIA STUDIES SAMENVATTING
CHAPTER 1 - What is popular culture?
Popular culture is defined in relation to what it is not.
we need to define ‘culture’ before we can define ‘pop(ular) culture’.
WILLIAMS RAYMOND (a culturalist) more about Williams on p. 13+
3 broad definitions for culture:
1) A general process of intellectual, spiritual & aesthetic development. (anthropologist
view) e.g. western European culture represented by philosophers, intellectuals.
2) A way of life (links to place/time/communities/subcultures) e.g. the celebration of
Christmas, youth subcultures.
3) Products and practices of intellectual & artistic activity (signifying practices, cultural
products) e.g. soap opera, pop music, comics texts.
Ideology
crucial concept in studying popular media culture.
The particular ideas and the justification of ideas of any social group. (e.g.
socialist/capitalist ideology).
Ideology often represented as ‘common sense’ or ‘universal truth’.
e.g. the idea of marriage; it is an institute of organization, but it is seen as something
natural, the norm, common sense.
Popculture is full of these norms, values and concerns and it shows a certain worldview.
the importance of showing diversity!
Popular culture is a continuous struggle over ideology (Gramsci).
Popular culture
STOREY JOHN: has 6 definitions of popular culture (EX: only study what’s talked ab in class)
- Popular culture shapes our identities. (identifying with subject positions, attaching to
popculture’s meanings, etc.)
- BOURDIEU PIERRE: taste is a deeply ideological category; it functions as a marker of
‘class’ (in terms of socio-economic stance + level of quality). Our cultural taste
communicates our social positions, supporting class distinctions.
Bourdieu’s definition of popular culture is often supported by the claim that
popculture = mass-produced commercial culture & high culture = result of an individual act
of creation. Those who believe in this distinction, believe that the division is absolutely clear
& trans-historical (fixed for all time).
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, This certainty is problematic. E.g. Shakespeare = ‘epitome of high culture’, but his work
used to be part of ‘popular theatre’. Same goes for film noir; what started as popular cinema
is now considered high culture ( cultural traffic).
‘popular’ has two very different meanings:
- Positive: because it is known & liked among many
- Negative: because of its likeability among the masses.
popular culture as a ‘mass culture’ (draws heavily on previous definition).
Those who believe in this perspective, usually have a previous ‘golden age’ in mind when
cultural matters were different.
‘Popular culture = American culture’ Americanization; British culture has declined under
the homogenizing influence of American culture. The texts and practices of popular culture
are seen as forms of public fantasy. Popculture = collective dream world.
MALTBY RICHARD: Popculture provides escapism that is not an escape to/from anywhere,
but an escape of our utopian selves; ‘it has taken our dreams and packaged them
and sold them back to us’.
E.g. a cultural practice like Christmas could function in the same way as dreams; they
articulate (in a disguised form) collective (but repressed) wishes & desires.
GRAMSCI ANTONIO: ‘hegemony’ to refer to dominant groups in society.
The texts & practices of popular culture move within a ‘compromise equilibrium’, a balance
that’s weighted in the interests of the powerful. Popular culture = a terrain of ideological
struggle between dominant and subordinate classes/cultures. (pretty extensive in the book,
but not in the ppt)
FISKE JOHN:
Understanding Popular Culture; ‘The art of the people is the art of “making do”. The culture
of everyday life lies in the creative discriminating use of the recourses that capitalism
provides’ mass culture = the repertoire, what people actively make from pop culture,
what they actually do with the commodities and commodified practices they consume.
E.g. fan practices, like HPAlliance: diehard fan community + lobbying on human rights.
Fiske argues people need not to be seen as
passive dupes of a commercial popular
culture, he argues we need to distinguish
between a financial and cultural economy;
In a cultural economy, the circulation is not
money, but meanings and pleasures (p. 21).
Pop culture is definitely a culture that
emerged following industrialization and urbanization.
Before industrialization + urbanization, Britain had 2 cultures:
1) A common culture, that was shared by more or less everyone (all classes)
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, 2) A separate elite culture, produced and consumed by a section of the dominant
classes in society.
Results of industrialization + urbanization:
1) Industrialization changed the relations between employers – employees.
2) Urbanization produced a residential separation of classes.
Working men & women lived in parts of town that were close to the factories.
3) Successive governments were encouraged to enact a variety of repressive measures,
aimed at defeating radicalism (result of (fear of) French Revolution).
Political radicalism & trade unionism weren’t destroyed, but were driven
underground to organize beyond the influence of middle-class interference &
control.
result: the cultural map = redrawn.
a cultural space, for producing popular culture (ppl living close together = creativity
boom), is born & utilized outside of the controlling influence of the dominant/paternalizing
classes (ppl organize themselves around common cultural/political ideas).
Popular culture as other
Conclusion:
- Popular culture is not a historically fixed set of popular texts and practices, nor is it a
historically fixed category. Culture is plural (cultures) and should be situated
contextually.
- (Popular) culture is about power and ideology: social conflict! Popular culture is
about taste, values, norms and morals.
- We can study popular culture by looking at texts (television, music, ...) or cultural
practices (going on a holiday, the role of Facebook in our everyday life).
A great deal of the difficulty to situate popular culture, arises from the absent other; it is
never enough to speak of pop culture, we always have to acknowledge that with which it is
being contrasted.
The contextuality of meaning
We understand things in contexts; we also create contexts by our modes of understanding,
and contexts change as a consequence of our inclusion of a particular text. Possible contexts
for text are almost endless.
Where should we situate media? (only ppt)
- The mass media have been the vehicle for communicating the many texts of
(popular) culture
- Media have also become increasingly interwoven into our ways of life
- Some thinkers argue our cultural life cannot be seperated from media anymore, we
live a life ‘in’ media (Deuze, 2012 – see lecture 8 on postmodernism)
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, - Therefore, asking questions about power, ideology and media are becoming
increasingly important, but also complex.
We went from linear programming to personalization; this is one of the many reasons why
the study of pop culture is in continuous transformation.
SILVERSTONE ROGER: Towards a New Media Politics
Silverstone was a major voice in the study of media culture, in
particular on thinking about media, morality and ethics.
How does media culture contribute to the exercise of power in society?
- Within politics?
- Within society?
- Within our everyday life?
E.g. Trump’s ‘The Apprentice’. It shows a clear intertwine between politics and popular
culture. He’s shown as someone powerful, and as someone who’s had tremendous success,
and as someone who could possibly do the same for the country ( refers to him being
elected as president).
CHAPTER 2 – The ‘culture and civilization’ tradition
The ‘culture & civilization’ (ARNOLD) tradition represents a ‘school’ of thought with
common characteristics:
- Situated mainly in Britain, but some ideas expanded to US & western Europe
- 19th c until 1950s, but ideas still persist today
- cultural critics/intellectuals
- binary thinking ab culture: high vs. low
- elite minority vs majority/masses
- culture vs anarchy
- conservative
- nostalgic: pre-industrial society
- top down: social order
Powerful minorities have always reshaped the popular culture of the majority (by patronage
+ direct intervention), and have always checked it for signs of political unrest.
BUT 19th century = period of important social change;
1. Industrialization
2. Urbanization
those with the power momentarily lose their grip on culture!
When their control is recovered, the focus shifts from:
Culture as a symptom of something else (e.g. rebellion) culture itself.
‘The masses’ are organizing themselves, a meaningful popular culture of the working class
comes into being, which functions not only as a means for cohesion & pleasure, but also to
express political agitation. there’s now a separate culture of the subordinate classes of
urban & industrial centers.
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