Exam 1 Flashcards
Theory that examines the way popular culture reflects the social world
Reflection theory
According to Stuart Hall’s communication theory, messages are created by media producers through a process of
encoding
What are the three modes of decoding a communication message?
- dominant/hegemonic
- Negotiation
- Oppositional
According to semiotics, what is the second order of signification?
Connotation
Name 2 out of the major 5 media conglomerates which own and control popular culture today.
Comcast, Walt Disney, National Amusements, News corporation, time warner
As part of the “cultural diamond” it refers to the totality of the community in which the cultural objects acts (America, Ventura, biker culture, high school, etc)
Social World
A group of two or more people receiving/consuming the same message or cultural object
Interpretative Community
The approach which analyzes America’s obsession with hamburgers as indication of bad taste and degraded cultural knowledge.
High culture approach
When individuals or groups appropriate an existing sign and create new meaning from the signifier
resignification
When the cultural industry is controlled by a small handful of corporations that are functionally no longer competing with each other
Oligopoly
What were the two major social forces behind the creation of popular culture by and for the masses during the mid-19th century?
industrialization and urbanization
What consist of the cultural diamond
social world (top) receiver (right) cultural object (down) creator (left)
What are the two main strategies for controlling and disciplining the popular pleasures of subordinate social groups?
repressive legislation, respectable appropriation
____ is powerful because it takes very simple ideas seriously, earnestly, and energetically
vulgarity
What are the three perspectives in Douglas Kellner’s multi-perspectival approach to media culture?
- political economy/production
- textual analysis
- audience reception/use of culture
The approach that sees popular culture as a”compromised equilibrium” between dominant and subordinate social groups over the major influential ideas in society
hegemony
which author/theorists argued that popular culture can only made by various social groups who are disempowered from the stratified social system
John Fiske
Which famous circus entertainment company that is still in existence was once known for exploiting non-normative people in their traveling ‘freak show’
Barnum and Bailey
The film Rocky (1976) was about a working class white male in the South Philadelphia. According to Kidd, what was this films overall “class theme”
The American Dream
__ referes to the structure of dispositions/tastes that we acquire from life, especially from our families, schools, and communities.
Habitus
Max Horkhiemer and Theodore Adorno argued that ____ is a capitalist system which produces art as a market commodity for profit and to mentally manipulate populations
Cultural industry
The approach that refers to the overlapping effects of race, gender, class and other identities that shape human experience within a system of stratification
intersectionality
Analysis which records key observations about how social issues are represented and discussed in cultural objects
Qualitative Content Analysis
According to the PBS documentary, The Merchants of Cool, which unique cultural figure was invented by Viacom corporation to engage young male audiences in the mid 1990s?
The Mook
According to Laura Grindstaff, TV shows like Jerry Springer and the Jersey show are what type of minstrelsy
White trash face minstrelsy
When a group of homeless people were observed watching the film Die Hard, they cheered as the villains destroyed police property. What form of decoding is this?
Oppositional
What is popular culture?
- is widely favored or well liked by many people. This approach is most dominant and obvious.
What is the second way popular culture is defined?
- is what is after ‘high” culture is defined
By what measure do you mark cultural ‘distinction’?
Cultural distinctions function to legitimate social differences an social classes (polo vs soccer, filet mignon vs burger, opera vs rap)
Who consumes this elevated culture and who doesn’t?
mass produced vs individual act of creation
How are cultural divisions defined?
they are transhistorical or temporally fixed
Is true or false– the borders of culture between high and low are always shifting/changing
true
What is the 3rd definition of popular culture
- popular culture is “mass culture”
- establish pop culture as helplessly commercial culture
What is culture?
is formulaic and manipulative, consumed with brain numbed and brain numbing passivity
What is the 4th definition of pop culture?
- popular culture originates from ‘the people’
- authentic culture of the people
What is the 5th definition of pop culture?
-Pop culture is the terrain of hegemony
what is hegemony? (Antonio Gramaci)
is the way in which dominant groups in society, through a process of ‘intellectual and moral leadership’ seek to win the consent of subordinate groups in society.
How is pop culture not an imposition of power or organically emerging from the people?
Rather an exchange and negotiation between the two: a terrain marked by resistance and incorporation
What is the 6th definition of pop culture?
- is postmodern
- no distinction between high and popular
How is culture commercial?
culture is commercial, commercial is cultural= no difference
What is popular culture?
the culture of the people that can refer either to folk culture or to commercial culture
What is commercial culture?
expressive styles and objects that are mass produced and sold for a profit. Often contrasted with folk and high culture
What is folk culture?
expressive styles and objects associated with local cultures and lower income groups. Often contrasted with high and commercial culture
What is culture?
a system of shared meanings embodied in social practices, social relations, and socially meaningful objects.
What is cultural object?
works of arts, pop culture, furniture, food, films, magazines, albums.
What is a receiver?
audiences and consumers of high, folk, commercial and pop culture
What is reception?
the process of consuming a cultural object
What is consumption?
the process of buying and making use of good and services
What is interpretation?
the process of determining the meaning of a cultural object like a book, film, tv show, or art work
What is tool kit?
Ann Swidler’s theory of how individuals make use of cultural experiences as resources and strategies that they utilize when making decisions about social action.
Who is the creator?
producers, writers, directors, artists, performers, technicians
What is cultural industry?
the web of corporations that produce commercial culture and the meanings that are embedded in commercial culture objects
what is production?
the process of creating and distributing good and services
What is political economy?
the complex relations of profit making and decisions making in the marketplace where goods and services are produced, distributed, sold, and bought
What is horizontal integration?
a cost-saving method for a business that involves controlling ever higher proportions of market production within a field.
What is vertical integration?
a cost saving method for business that involves controlling every aspect of the creation and distribution process
What is interlocks?
When a board member of a major media organization is also a board member of another corporation, it creates corporate interlock that may make the media organization more favorable to the interlocking corporation
What is culture industry?
cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. Promissory note with its plot and staging, draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged. Promise is actually all the spectacle consists of illusory .. all it confirms is that the real point will never be reached.