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Pop Culture

Pop Culture: An Overview

Tim Delaney sets the scene for our philosophical consideration of pop stuff.

The term 'popular culture' holds different meanings depending on who's defining it and the context of use. It is generally recognized equally the vernacular or people'due south civilization that predominates in a society at a point in time. As Brummett explains in Rhetorical Dimensions of Pop Culture, pop culture involves the aspects of social life most actively involved in by the public. As the 'culture of the people', pop civilization is determined by the interactions betwixt people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people swallow are all examples of pop civilisation. Popular culture is likewise informed by the mass media.

There are a number of generally agreed elements comprising popular culture. For example, popular culture encompasses the well-nigh immediate and contemporary aspects of our lives. These aspects are often subject to rapid change, peculiarly in a highly technological world in which people are brought closer and closer by omnipresent media. Certain standards and commonly held beliefs are reflected in popular culture. Because of its commonality, pop civilization both reflects and influences people's everyday life (see eg Petracca and Sorapure, Mutual Culture). Furthermore, brands tin attain pop iconic condition (eg the Nike swoosh or McDonald'south golden arches). Nonetheless, iconic brands, as other aspects of popular culture, may rise and fall.

With these central aspects in heed, popular culture may be defined every bit the products and forms of expression and identity that are frequently encountered or widely accepted, unremarkably liked or approved, and characteristic of a detail order at a given time. Ray Browne in his essay 'Sociology to Populore' offers a like definition: "Popular civilisation consists of the aspects of attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, customs, and tastes that define the people of any social club. Pop civilization is, in the historic apply of term, the civilization of the people."

Popular culture allows large heterogeneous masses of people to identify collectively. Information technology serves an inclusionary role in social club every bit it unites the masses on ideals of acceptable forms of behavior. Along with forging a sense of identity which binds individuals to the greater guild, consuming pop civilisation items oft enhances an individual's prestige in their peer group. Further, popular culture, dissimilar folk or high culture, provides individuals with a chance to change the prevailing sentiments and norms of beliefs, every bit we shall see. So popular culture appeals to people because it provides opportunities for both private happiness and communal bonding.

Examples of Popular Civilisation

Examples of popular civilisation come from a broad array of genres, including pop music, impress, cyber culture, sports, entertainment, leisure, fads, advertisement and television receiver. Sports and idiot box are arguably two of the almost widely consumed examples of popular civilisation, and they also represent two examples of popular culture with peachy staying power.

Sports are played and watched by members of all social classes, but (tautologously) the masses are responsible for the huge popularity of sports. Some sporting events, such as the World Cup and the Olympics, are consumed by a world customs. Sports are pervasive in most societies and correspond a major office of many people'south lives. Showing allegiance to a squad as a means of self-identification is a mutual beliefs. Further, cheering for a sports team or a favorite athlete is a way any individual can become role of popular culture, equally I and Tim Madigan explain in our new book The Folklore of Sport.

Many people watch numerous hours of television receiver everyday. It is such a prevalent aspect of contemporary culture it is hard to imagine life without information technology. There are those who believe Telly is responsible for the dumbing downwards of social club; that children watch likewise much television set; and that the couch murphy syndrome has contributed to the epidemic of babyhood obesity. The globally popular Television show The Simpsons provides us with an interesting perspective on boob tube. In the episode 'Sideshow Bob'southward Terminal Gleaming' (#137), while doing time in prison house, Sideshow Bob becomes a critic of idiot box. Although he was once a regular on The Krusty the Clown Show, Bob has go obsessed by television'due south harmful effect on society. Bob argues that anybody's lives would be much richer if Tv set were done abroad with. As a result, he devises a scheme to detonate a nuclear bomb unless all television is abolished in Springfield. Unable to locate Bob, Springfield'south city officials meet to talk over Bob'due south demands of abolishing Tv set. A panicky Krusty proclaims, "Would it really be worth living in a world without television receiver? I think the survivors would green-eyed the expressionless." Although at that place are people who agree with Sideshow Bob, the masses would more likely concur with Krusty: that living in a globe without goggle box is non really living. Information technology is even more than difficult to imagine a world without popular culture.

Folk and High Culture

Pop civilisation is usually distinguished from folk and high culture. In some ways, folk culture is similar to popular culture because of the mass participation involved. Folk culture, however, represents the traditional manner of doing things. Consequently, it is non as amendable to change and is much more than static than popular civilization.

Folk culture represents a simpler lifestyle, that is generally conservative, largely self-sufficient, and often feature of rural life. Radical innovation is generally discouraged. Group members are expected to suit to traditional modes of behavior adopted past the customs. Folk civilisation is local in orientation, and non-commercial. In short, folk culture promises stability, whereas popular culture is generally looking for something new or fresh. Because of this, popular culture often represents an intrusion and a claiming to folk culture. Conversely, folk culture rarely intrudes upon popular civilization. There are times when certain elements of folk civilization (eg Turkish rugs, Mexican blankets and Irish fairy tales) notice their way into the globe of popular civilisation. Generally, when items of folk culture are appropriated and marketed by the popular civilization, the folk items gradually lose their original class.

A primal characteristic of popular culture is its accessibility to the masses. It is, afterward all, the culture of the people. High culture, on the other hand, is not mass produced, nor meant for mass consumption. It belongs to the social aristocracy; the fine arts, opera, theatre, and loftier intellectualism are associated with the upper socioeconomic classes. Items of high civilization often require extensive experience, preparation, or reflection to be appreciated. Such items seldom cross over to the pop culture domain. Consequently, popular culture is generally looked (down) upon as being superficial when compared to the composure of loftier civilisation. (This does not mean that social elites do not participate in popular civilisation or that members of the masses do non participate in high civilization.)

The Formation of Popular Civilization

Through well-nigh of human history, the masses were influenced past dogmatic forms of rule and traditions dictated by local folk civilisation. Most people were spread throughout pocket-sized cities and rural areas – atmospheric condition that were not conducive to a 'popular' culture. With the first of the Industrial era (late eighteenth century), the rural masses began to drift to cities, leading to the urbanization of most Western societies.

Urbanization is a key ingredient in the formation of pop culture. People who in one case lived in homogeneous small villages or farms found themselves in crowded cities marked by corking cultural multifariousness. These various people would come up to meet themselves equally a 'collectivity' as a result of common, or popular, forms of expression. Thus, many scholars trace the beginning of the pop culture miracle to the rising of the middle class brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

Industrialization as well brought with information technology mass production; developments in transportation, such as the steam locomotive and the steamship; advancements in building engineering; increased literacy; improvements in teaching and public health; and the emergence of efficient forms of commercial press, representing the first stride in the formation of a mass media (eg the penny press, magazines, and pamphlets). All of these factors contributed to the blossoming of popular culture. Past the start of the twentieth century, the print industry mass-produced illustrated newspapers and periodicals, likewise as serialized novels and detective stories. Newspapers served equally the best source of information for a public with a growing involvement in social and economic affairs. The ideas expressed in impress provided a starting point for popular soapbox on all sorts of topics. Fueled by further technological growth, popular culture was greatly impacted by the emerging forms of mass media throughout the twentieth century. Films, broadcast radio and television all had a profound influence on culture.

And so urbanization, industrialization, the mass media and the continuous growth in applied science since the tardily 1700s, have all been significant factors in the germination of popular culture. These continue to exist factors shaping pop culture today.

Sources of Popular Civilisation

There are numerous sources of popular civilization. As implied above, a main source is the mass media, especially popular music, picture, television, radio, video games, books and the internet. In addition, advances in communication allows for the greater transmission of ideas by word of oral cavity, especially via cell phones. Many TV programs, such every bit American Idol and the Concluding Comic Standing, provide viewers with a phone number so that they tin vote for a contestant. This combining of popular civilization sources represents a novel style of increasing public interest, and farther fuels the mass product of commodities.

Popular culture is also influenced by professional entities that provide the public with information. These sources include the news media, scientific and scholarly publications, and 'expert' stance from people considered an authority in their field. For instance, a news station reporting on a specific topic, say the effects of playing violent video games, will seek a noted psychologist or sociologist who has published in this area. This strategy is a useful way of influencing the public and may shape their commonage opinions on a particular subject. At the very least, it provides a starting betoken for public soapbox and differing opinions. News stations ofttimes let viewers to phone call or email in their opinions, which may be shared with the public.

A seemingly contradictory source of popular civilisation is individualism. Urban culture has not merely provided a mutual footing for the masses, information technology has inspired ethics of individualistic aspirations. In the U.s., a society formed on the premise of private rights, in that location are theoretically no limitations to what an individual might accomplish. An individual may choose to participate in all that is 'popular' for popularity'southward sake; or they may choose a course of action off the browbeaten runway. At times, these 'pathfinders' affect popular civilization by their individuality. Of grade, once a unique fashion becomes adopted by others, it ceases to remain unique. Information technology becomes, popular.

© Tim Delaney 2007

Tim Delaney is a sociology professor at the State University of New York at Oswego. A fellow member of the Popular Culture Association and the American Culture Association, Delaney is the author of Seinology: The Sociology of Seinfeld and is currently writing a book on The Simpsons that is scheduled for publication in February, 2008. Visit his website at www.booksbytimdelaney.com.

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Source: https://philosophynow.org/issues/64/Pop_Culture_An_Overview

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