High Culture Popular Culture Flashcards
(24 cards)
What is high culture traditionally associated with?
The elite or educated classes, including canonical works of art, literature, and classical music.
How do cultural studies challenge the distinction between high and popular culture?
They argue the distinction is socially constructed and tied to power and class.
What does popular culture represent?
Cultural products and practices consumed by the majority, such as TV, film, music, fashion, and sports.
What is the concept of hegemony as defined by Antonio Gramsci?
The dominance of one cultural group over others, maintained through acceptance and internalization of norms by subordinate groups.
How do the meanings of cultural products depend on context?
They are shaped by historical, social, and political contexts and audience interpretations.
What are Raymond Williams’ three categories of culture?
- Intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development.
- A particular way of life.
- Artistic and intellectual works and practices.
What are the three cultural forms identified by Raymond Williams?
Dominant: Main culture shaping current values and practices.
Residual: Older traditions still influencing society.
Emergent: New cultural ideas challenging the dominant culture.
How does Raymond Williams view culture?
As involving a push and pull between societal meanings and individual interpretations, constantly changing over time.
What does the jazz example illustrate about culture?
Cultural forms can transition from being considered lowbrow to being recognized as high culture over time.
How do New Historicists view high culture?
As a social construct shaped by dominant power structures, not a timeless collection of superior achievements.
What role does power play in shaping culture?
It maintains and evolves dominant cultural forms, influences divisions in society, and assigns meaning to differences like race, class, and gender.
How do personal experiences interact with societal norms in culture?
Personal interpretations of culture can clash with broad societal norms, creating dynamic and diverse cultural expressions.
What does the shift in the status of Impressionist paintings reveal about culture?
Cultural value and tastes change over time, with previously radical or rejected art forms gaining acceptance and prominence.
How does the hierarchy between high and popular culture reflect socio-economic power dynamics?
The distinction is a social construct tied to class and power, privileging the elite while framing popular culture as inferior or commercial.
What is the role of cultural hegemony in shaping societal norms, according to Gramsci?
It naturalizes the dominant group’s worldview, making it appear as common sense, thereby discouraging resistance from subordinate groups.
How does Raymond Williams’s definition of culture reveal its dynamic nature?
Culture is both the framework of societal meanings and the site of individual reinterpretation, fostering constant evolution and change.
What are the two aspects of culture according to Raymond Williams?
Culture has two dimensions: the known meanings and directions through which individuals are trained, AND the new observations and meanings that people propose and test. There is a tension between these dimensions because while culture shapes individuals, individuals also retain the ability to recognize and detect various cultural forms and meanings.
How does John Storey criticize Raymond Williams’ definition of culture?
Storey argues that Williams’ definition excludes certain activities and formations of popular culture. For example: Storey points out that everyday cultural practises such as holiday traditions or leisure activities, and markers like soap operas, pop music, and comic books, are not fully encompassed in Williams’ categories.
How does Pierre Bourdieu view the relationship between popular culture the cultural practices of subordinate classes?
For Bourdieu, popular culture reflects the everyday practices and experiences of subordinate or marginalized. These practices serve as a means of negotiating or resisting the values imposed by the dominant culture.
How does John Fiske describe popular culture as a domain of the powerless subordinate?
Fiske views popular culture as a space where the powerless and subordinate creatively express themselves while using resources provided by dominant systems. For example, soap operas can give women a platform to explore and negotiate their personal experiences and viewpoints. John Fiske, summarizing Pierre Bourdieu’s ideas, argues that popular culture is the domain where the powerless and compliant operate.
How does Michel de Certeau’s work provide a framework for understanding the culture and practices of everyday life?
De Certeau examines everyday life as a realm of resistance and creativity against dominant strategies. He highlights how marginalized groups subvert, reinterpret, and repurpose meanings imposed by dominant culture for their own purposes.
How does Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism explain the impact of diverse perspectives and discourses on cultural value?
It emphasizes the constant interaction between differing perspectives and discourses, where meaning emerges from these interactions rather than a single source. Determining cultural value reflects this negotiation among multiple voices and viewpoints.
Dialogism?
A concept introduced by Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin. It refers to the idea that language, thought, and meaning are inherently dialogic, meaning they arise from interaction and exchange between different voices, perspectives, and contexts. It emphasizes that no word or utterance exists in isolation, it is always shaped by its relationship to other words and voices.
Heteroglossia?
It describes the presence of multiple voices, languages, or perspectives within a single text or discourse. It highlights how language is not uniform but varies based on social class, culture, occupation, and individual identity. It illustrates that language carries diverse worldviews and cannot be reduced to a single, unified voice or meaning.
