Culture Flashcards
Culture
A way of life focusing on the beliefs and customs of a society or social group - it includes : fashion, knowledge, language, music, morals, laws, traditions, lifestyle etc
Status
Can be held by an individual or group based on social position or standing within society
Roles
A pattern of behaviours ur, routines or responses acted out in everyday life
Subculture
A minority part of a majority culture - a cultural sub group differentiated by status, ethnic background, residence, religion or other factors that functionally unify the group and act collectively on each member
Examples of subcultures
Punks Emo’s Skinheads Chavs Hippies
Consumer culture
Suggests that consumption (the act of buying goods or services) is a cultural activity one imbued with meaning driven not just by practical or economic factors.
Examples of consumer culture
People are spending more money
Debts are now acceptable
Shopping addictions
People are presented in a stereotypical way - for promotion
Taylor (consumer culture)
McDonaldisation - society is becoming more like a business where mass trends are produced (focused on American ideals)
Polemus (consumer culture)
Supermarket of style
The media is a tool which we can ‘shop for our style’ or tells us what is cool and what we should and shouldn’t buy
Williams (consumer culture)
Parents buy their children …
Gender stereotypical toys - due to advertising
Thornton (consumer culture)
The media is responsible for bringing about…
youth cultures and subcultures - they gain knowledge and experience subcultures through the media also they are told what style to buy into
Belk definition (consumer culture) It is defined as a culture in which the majority of consumers
Avidly desire goods and services that are valued for non utilitarian reasons eg status seeking , envy provocation and novelty seeking
Lury - features of a consumer culture
Availability of a wide range of consumer goods
Shopping a leisure pursuit
Different forms of shopping available
Dept accepted as a social norm
Packaging and promotion of good on a large scale business
Popular culture
Is the totality of ideas perspectives attitudes images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus with the mainstream of a culture it is often seen as trivial and dumbed down in order to find consensual acceptance through out mainstream
Examples of popular culture
Fast food
Cinema
Mainstream music
Football
McRobbie and Garber (popular culture)
Studied bedroom …
Culture of teenage girls - centred around ‘Jackie’ magazine
Mac and Gail study (pop culture)
Macho lads
Thornton (popular culture)
The media is largely …
Responsible for bringing about youth cultures and subcultures
High culture
A set of cultural products held in highest esteem the cultures of an elite such as aristocracy. It is contrasted with the low culture or pop culture of the less well educated
Polemus (popular culture)
In our postmodern society media provides …
Us with a tool to shop for our style
‘Supermarket of style’
Bourdieu (high culture)
Cultural …
Capital eg. Knowledge of classical music, literature and art is passed down from generation to generation
Berger (high culture)
Analysed oil…
Paintings and said that art is used to transmit ideas that possessions are important - materialistic
Goldman (high culture)
Analysed literature and said that
Class played a big part in the stories
Global culture
One world culture - the earths inhabitants will lose their cultural diversity and one culture will be experienced by all people
