Cultural media studies –
Communicatiewetenschappen
What is popular culture?
Popular culture defined by what it is not
• Culture (Raymond Williams: 3 definitions)
o A general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development
o A particular way of life (connected to place, time and communities)
▪ Usually referred to as lived cultures or practices
o Products and practices of intellectual and artistic activity
▪ Usually referred to as texts
• Ideology (5 definitions)
o Systematic body of ideas and justification of ideas of any social group
o Indicates how texts and practices present distorted images of reality
▪ Masking, distortion or concealment
▪ Produce ‘false consciousness’
▪ supports the powerful to maintain worldviews
▪ subordinate classes do not see themselves as oppressed
o ‘ideological forms’ draw attention to the way in which texts present an image of the world
▪ Society as conflictual rather than consensual
▪ Texts consciously or unconsciously take sides in this conflict
o Ideology operates mainly at the level of connotations
▪ Attempt to make universal and legitimate what is in fact partial and particular
▪ Attempt to pass of cultural as natural
o Not simply a body of ideas, but a material practice
▪ Practices of everyday life (rituals, customs… binding us to the social order)
> Popular culture is political, because it is a continuous struggle over ideology
Popular culture (6 definitions)
• Culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people
o Quantitative index (necessary but not enough)
o Useless as a conceptual definition
• Left over after we have decided what is high culture
o Popular culture as residual category
o Texts &practices that fail to meet required standards to qualify as high culture
o Difficulty = exclusive status and high culture legitimates social differences
o Popular culture as mass-produced commercial culture
o Division is thought to be clear, trans-historical and fixed for all time
• As mass culture
o Produced for mass consumption
o Taken our dreams, packaged them and sold them back to us (Maltby)
• Originates from ‘the people’
o Instead of imposed on the people
o Romanticised concept of working-class culture
o Who qualifies as the people?
o Ignores commercial nature > people do not spontaneously produce culture from
raw materials of their own making, materials are commercially provided
• Site of struggle between the ‘resistance’ of subordinate groups and the forces of
‘incorporation’ operating in the interests of dominant groups
o Terrain of ideological struggle between dominant and subordinate classes
, o Area of negotiation
o Theory of reading positions (Hall)
▪ Subordinate
▪ Dominant
▪ Negotiated
o Theories of popular culture are really about the constitution of ‘the people’
• Postmodern culture no longer recognizes distinction between high and popular culture
> popular culture only emerged following industrialization and urbanization
> idea of culture depends on a capitalist market economy
Popular culture
• The art of making do (Fiske)
o The culture of everyday life lies in the creative discriminating use of the recourses
that capitalism provides
o people need not to be seen as passive dupes of a commercial popular culture, we need
to distinguish between a financial and cultural economy
▪ in a cultural economy, the circulation is not money, but meanings and pleasures
• Shapes our identities
o People attach to popular culture’s meanings, finding subject positions with which they
can identify with (or resist)
• not a historically fixed set of popular texts and practices, nor a historically fixed category.
Culture is plural 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 or cultural practices
Media in popular culture
• 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
• asking questions about power, ideology and media are becoming increasingly important, but
also complex
• Roger Silverstone
o major voice in the study of media culture, in particular on thinking about media,
morality and ethics
o how does media culture contribute to the exercise of power in society
▪ within politics
▪ within society
▪ within our everyday life
o responsibility of those studying media culture is taking a position
▪ ‘Understanding cannot be morally neutral because understanding is based
in identification of common humanity and the rights of others’
The ‘culture and civilization’ tradition
The ‘culture and civilization tradition’ characteristics
• Situated mainly in Britain, but some ideas expanded to U.S., Western Europe
, • 19th C until 1950’s – but ideas still persist today
o A period of important social change (industrialization and urbanization)
o ‘The masses’ are organising themselves, a meaningful popular culture of the working
class comes into being, which functions not only as a means for cohesion and pleasure,
but also to express political agitation
• Cultural critics/intellectuals
o Popular culture as an uncontrolled form of leisure: danger to society
▪ Threatens religion, morals and social order
> threatening “culture and civilization”
• Binary thinking about culture: High vs low
• Elite Minority vs majority/masses
• Culture vs anarchy
• Conservative and nostalgic: Pre-industrial society
• Top down: social order
Matthew Arnold: start cultural criticism
• Cultural critic, poet, educator
• Victorian England
o time of economic prosperity, strong conservative morals
• Culture begins by meaning 2 things
o Body of knowledge
▪ “the best that has been thought and said”
o To make reason and the will of God prevail
▪ Moral, social and beneficial character of culture becomes manifest
▪ “culture being a pursuit of our total perfection”
• Attain culture by active use of reading, reflection and observation
• Culture is now
o The ability to know what is best
o What is best
o The mental and spiritual application of what is best
o The pursuit of what is best
• Cultural criticism
o Normative: defense of the dominant order
o Victorian, bourgeois morality and values
• Culture as having a ‘social function’
o Policing the ‘raw and uncultivated masses’
• Division of society
o Barbarians (aristocracy)
o Philistines (middle class)
o Populace (working class)
> under all class divisions, there is a common basis of human nature
• The role of the state
o A strong state that claims cultural authority to overcome anarchy
• The role of education
o The ‘road to culture’
o The civilization of the middle and working class through ‘culture’
• Upward mobility
o Trough culture/art
o Yet limited for the working class
Communicatiewetenschappen
What is popular culture?
Popular culture defined by what it is not
• Culture (Raymond Williams: 3 definitions)
o A general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development
o A particular way of life (connected to place, time and communities)
▪ Usually referred to as lived cultures or practices
o Products and practices of intellectual and artistic activity
▪ Usually referred to as texts
• Ideology (5 definitions)
o Systematic body of ideas and justification of ideas of any social group
o Indicates how texts and practices present distorted images of reality
▪ Masking, distortion or concealment
▪ Produce ‘false consciousness’
▪ supports the powerful to maintain worldviews
▪ subordinate classes do not see themselves as oppressed
o ‘ideological forms’ draw attention to the way in which texts present an image of the world
▪ Society as conflictual rather than consensual
▪ Texts consciously or unconsciously take sides in this conflict
o Ideology operates mainly at the level of connotations
▪ Attempt to make universal and legitimate what is in fact partial and particular
▪ Attempt to pass of cultural as natural
o Not simply a body of ideas, but a material practice
▪ Practices of everyday life (rituals, customs… binding us to the social order)
> Popular culture is political, because it is a continuous struggle over ideology
Popular culture (6 definitions)
• Culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people
o Quantitative index (necessary but not enough)
o Useless as a conceptual definition
• Left over after we have decided what is high culture
o Popular culture as residual category
o Texts &practices that fail to meet required standards to qualify as high culture
o Difficulty = exclusive status and high culture legitimates social differences
o Popular culture as mass-produced commercial culture
o Division is thought to be clear, trans-historical and fixed for all time
• As mass culture
o Produced for mass consumption
o Taken our dreams, packaged them and sold them back to us (Maltby)
• Originates from ‘the people’
o Instead of imposed on the people
o Romanticised concept of working-class culture
o Who qualifies as the people?
o Ignores commercial nature > people do not spontaneously produce culture from
raw materials of their own making, materials are commercially provided
• Site of struggle between the ‘resistance’ of subordinate groups and the forces of
‘incorporation’ operating in the interests of dominant groups
o Terrain of ideological struggle between dominant and subordinate classes
, o Area of negotiation
o Theory of reading positions (Hall)
▪ Subordinate
▪ Dominant
▪ Negotiated
o Theories of popular culture are really about the constitution of ‘the people’
• Postmodern culture no longer recognizes distinction between high and popular culture
> popular culture only emerged following industrialization and urbanization
> idea of culture depends on a capitalist market economy
Popular culture
• The art of making do (Fiske)
o The culture of everyday life lies in the creative discriminating use of the recourses
that capitalism provides
o people need not to be seen as passive dupes of a commercial popular culture, we need
to distinguish between a financial and cultural economy
▪ in a cultural economy, the circulation is not money, but meanings and pleasures
• Shapes our identities
o People attach to popular culture’s meanings, finding subject positions with which they
can identify with (or resist)
• not a historically fixed set of popular texts and practices, nor a historically fixed category.
Culture is plural 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 or cultural practices
Media in popular culture
• 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
• asking questions about power, ideology and media are becoming increasingly important, but
also complex
• Roger Silverstone
o major voice in the study of media culture, in particular on thinking about media,
morality and ethics
o how does media culture contribute to the exercise of power in society
▪ within politics
▪ within society
▪ within our everyday life
o responsibility of those studying media culture is taking a position
▪ ‘Understanding cannot be morally neutral because understanding is based
in identification of common humanity and the rights of others’
The ‘culture and civilization’ tradition
The ‘culture and civilization tradition’ characteristics
• Situated mainly in Britain, but some ideas expanded to U.S., Western Europe
, • 19th C until 1950’s – but ideas still persist today
o A period of important social change (industrialization and urbanization)
o ‘The masses’ are organising themselves, a meaningful popular culture of the working
class comes into being, which functions not only as a means for cohesion and pleasure,
but also to express political agitation
• Cultural critics/intellectuals
o Popular culture as an uncontrolled form of leisure: danger to society
▪ Threatens religion, morals and social order
> threatening “culture and civilization”
• Binary thinking about culture: High vs low
• Elite Minority vs majority/masses
• Culture vs anarchy
• Conservative and nostalgic: Pre-industrial society
• Top down: social order
Matthew Arnold: start cultural criticism
• Cultural critic, poet, educator
• Victorian England
o time of economic prosperity, strong conservative morals
• Culture begins by meaning 2 things
o Body of knowledge
▪ “the best that has been thought and said”
o To make reason and the will of God prevail
▪ Moral, social and beneficial character of culture becomes manifest
▪ “culture being a pursuit of our total perfection”
• Attain culture by active use of reading, reflection and observation
• Culture is now
o The ability to know what is best
o What is best
o The mental and spiritual application of what is best
o The pursuit of what is best
• Cultural criticism
o Normative: defense of the dominant order
o Victorian, bourgeois morality and values
• Culture as having a ‘social function’
o Policing the ‘raw and uncultivated masses’
• Division of society
o Barbarians (aristocracy)
o Philistines (middle class)
o Populace (working class)
> under all class divisions, there is a common basis of human nature
• The role of the state
o A strong state that claims cultural authority to overcome anarchy
• The role of education
o The ‘road to culture’
o The civilization of the middle and working class through ‘culture’
• Upward mobility
o Trough culture/art
o Yet limited for the working class
