CULTURE
personalities and lifestyles– of individuals and groups– That are either accepted or taboo in a society – Based on their similarity (to) or difference
(from) the dominant ideologies of that society
Who’s culture is Popular Culture?
– PC was not about what's popular
– PC is has an agenda
– It reproduces a very particular type of culture as normal (dominant culture)
– That culture/ideology in America is:
white, middle class, male, heterosexual
Popular Culture as “contested space”
– The place where economic difference:• was made real• legitimated• crystallized
– This is the making, marking, and maintaining of social difference (Bourdieu)
Inventing Popular Culture
Scholars talk about popular culture in 8 ways:
1. PC as folk culture
2. PC as mass culture
3. PC as the “other” of high culture
4. PC as an arena of hegemony
5. PC as postmodernism
6. PC as the “root” and “routes” of cultural identities
7. PC as popular and mass art
8. PC as globalization
• the critique here is that: – art has become a fetish
• use value replaces exchange value – Before its fetishization:
• art was political • art worked to ACTIVATE the political citizen.
– After its fetishization, • art is entertainment• art works to DE-ACTIVATE the political citizen.
Political Economy and British Cultural Studies
Political Economy• Focus:
– System of production– who is producing?
• The Big Question :– Who gets represented?
• Representation = – Access (to the system of
production)• Meaning Gets Made
– System of production• Therefore:
– we are sheep• Type of PC
– mass
British Cultural Studies Focus:
– Consumption– how do we consume and what
are we consuming?• The Big Question :
– Who gets represented?• Representation =
– Voice • Meaning Gets Made
– Us • Therefore:
– we have agency • Type of PC
– hegemony
The Postmodern Condition
Which can be seen by•the perpetual circulation of images, signs, and texts•changes in audience competence and narrative techniques•change in what is considered entertainment and cultural literacy
Often described as:Negatively
•Schizophrenic
•Pastiche
•Flatness
Positively•Bricolage
•Empowering
•accessible
• For Benjamin, mechanical reproduction has removed aura from art. • Benjamin doesn’t see this as such a bad thing
– if there is aura- • it has a natural, intrinsic value• one that some people get and others don’t• we are back to the high/low distinction argument.
– if there is no aura to the film, • the viewer is free to make and mark their own meanings to
the film (agency)
• Benjamin argues for films to be more educational to ENGAGE and ACTIVATE the viewer as political citizen.
Globalization – lets define it!
• 1.) the 4 C’s; commodities/capital/communication/culture
• -there is a global flow with all of this across borders
• 2.) Time and space are displaced • 3.) The Global Village:
– Hybridization (mixing cultures) OR– Homogenization (sameness of culture-American culture
• 4.) People are moving!