Topic 1- The Meaning& Impotance Of Culture Flashcards
Subculture
A smaller culture held by a group of people within the main culture. They share many of the same norms and values from the main culture but also have their own norms and values
Dominant culture
Refers to the main culture in a society, which is shared or accepted without opposition by the majority of people
Subculture of resistance
Does not only have some different norms and values from dominant culture, but is also in active opposition to it
Paul Willis (1997) (subculture of resistance)
Found an anti-school subculture in his study of a group of working class lads, which resistance of schooling and the culture of the school was highly valued
Haul and Jefferson (1976): (subculture of resistance)
Saw particular youth subcultural groups (such as the teddy boys, mods, punks and skinheads) as forms of resistance to dominant culture
Folk culture definition
Is the culture created by local communities and is rooted in the experiences, customs and beliefs of the everyday life of ordinary people. It is authentic rather than manufactured as it is created by ordinary people
Factors of folk culture
- examples
- associations
- why it hasn’t completely eroded
- e.g folk music, folk dancing, story telling and folk songs traditionally passed down from generation to generation through socialisation
- generally associated with pre-industrialisation or early industrialisation societies
- still not completely gone because it still carries on today among enthusiasts in the form of folk music,folk clubs and Morris dancing
High culture
- Refers to cultural products seen to be of lasting artistic literary value, which are particularly admired and approved of by elites and the upper middle class
- superior to other forms of culture
Elite
A small group holding great power and privilege in society
Factors of high culture
- examples
- where high cultural products can be found
- social class
- upper class and middle class
- seen as different to everyday life, something special and to be treated with respect
- high culture products are found in special places e.g art galleries, museums and theatres
- examples of high culture products: documentaries, classical music(Mozart), theatre, opera, ballet, jazz,foreign language , literature e.g work of Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, visual art(piccaso,Van Gogh)
Mass/popular/low culture definition
Refers to commercially produced culture, involving culture products produced for sale/ profit to the mass of ordinary people
Factors of mass culture
- difference between this and high culture
- examples
- involve mass-produced, standardised products seen as little lasting value
- products regarded as inferior to high culture
- mass culture is everyday popular culture dumbdown, undemanding, easy to understand entertainment
- produced on a global scale appealing to millions of people across local communities and national divisions with mass media spreading a common mass culture across the world
- e.g red top tabloid newspapers e.g the sun or the mirror, television soaps and reality tv shows, dramas,rock&pop music, video games
Strinati (1995) postmodernist:
- what it is attacked for
- what has it done to high culture art and literature
- what suggests does he not accept
- attacked for diverting people from more useful activities, for driving down cultural standards(high culture art and literature)
- sees mass culture as worthy of study
- doesn’t accept suggestion:there is a single mass culture and mass audience which people uncritically consume>points to a wide diversity and choice of pop culture which people select from&critically respond t
Macdonald (1965)
-how he saw folk culture and high culture in comparison to mass culture
- saw folk culture: as authentic and generated by ordinary people, high culture: expressed serious and long-established authentic cultural values
- saw mass culture: as trial and unauthentic, saw it as simply mass-produced manufactured products imposed on the masses by businesses for financial profit
Macondalds view is also shared by Marxists:
- What do they believe mass culture is a form of?
- what are the consumers of mass culture led into?
- what do culture industries produce
- how do they manipulate people to buy and consume these products?
- Social control, which maintains the ideological hegemony and the power of the dominant social class in society
- into an uncritical, undemanding passively which makes them less likely to challenge the dominant ideas in society
- mass cultural products with little artistic merit to make profits
- manipulating through advertising& the media
Living stone(1988) What did he find about the writers and producers of TV soap operas What type of culture is this
- popular culture watched by millions
- saw them as having benefits for society
- saw them as educating and informing in the public by raising and commenting on important controversial social issues
Hegemony
The acceptance of the dominant ideology by the working class as a result of the power of the ruling class to persuade others to accept and consent to their ideas
Why it is harder to distinguish high and mass culture?
- post modernists argument
- examples of the expansion of the creative and cultural industries
- That mass markets&consumption now make the distinction between high and popular culture meaningless
- expansion of the creative and cultural industries such as advertising,television, film,music and magazine publishing>there are now a huge range of media and cultural products available to all
- technology in industrial societies make cultural products of all kinds reproducible
- people now have a wider diversity of cultural choices and products available>can pick n mix from popular culture or high culture e.g opera in concerts
Strinati(1995):
Why it’s more difficult to distinguish high and mass culture
- argues that the elements of high culture have now become pRt of popular culture
- elements of popular culture have been incorporated into high culture
- therefore no real distinction between high and popular culture
Storey(2003):
- what do members of the dominant class now consume
- what are masses consuming now
- examples
- points out that members of the dominant class are not only consuming products from high culture but from mass culture
- masses are now consuming high culture products through mass produ
- e.g: Andy Warhol painted 30 pictures of leanardo Da vinci’s Mona Lisa
- This turns high culture art into popular culture
- high culture art is being turned into products for sale in the mass market for consumption by the mass of ordinary people&this means that there is no longer anything special about art as its incorporated into everyday life
Giddings (2010)
How are forms of high culture used to produce mass culture products?
Used to produce mass culture products e.g video games(mass culture) often bring together art, architecture, classical music, actors and writers(high culture)
What has technology meant for mass culture?
Where can the originals of pictures be found in comparison to where they are now able to be found
- means that the mass audiences can see and study high culture products such as painting by artists like Van Gogh on the Internet, on TV and have their own framed print
- originals=art galleries, museums
- identical copies= available to everyone e.g moan Lisa or Van Gogh’s (high culture)> reproduced on everything including t-shirt, mugs(mass)
- classical music(high culture)>used for adverts on TV(mass culture)
- literature(high) turned into tv series&major mass movies
Global culture
Refers to the way culture, in different countries of the world have become more alike, sharing increasingly similar consumer products and ways of life this has arisen as globalisation has diminished national and local cultures
Globalisation
Is the growing interdependencies of societies across the world, with the spread of the same culture, consumer goods and economic interests across the world
Factors of globalisation:
how has globalisation changed the way cultural and consumer products are sold
What does globalisation of culture mean for people’s access to things
examples
Symbols
- same cultural &consumer products now sold across the world inspired by media advertising and a shared mass culture spread through media and have became a way of our life
- want that people now have access to a wide diversity of global media, religions, music,food and clothing across the world e.g TV programmes big brother, X factor, who wants to be a millionaire
- popular symbols recognised around the whole world e.g McDonald’s
What is the process of mcdonaldization
Takes a task&breaks it down into smaller tasks and is repeated until tasks have been broken down to the smallest level. The resulting tasks are then rationalised to find the single most efficient method for completing the task
Ritzer (mcdonaldization)
What did he believe fast food outlets were doing to the rest of the world
Example that Ritzer uses to explain his view
What has changed with what food you are able to purchase in countries? What has this done to local and global culture
- dominating the rest of the world
- uses the example of the American food industry companies and brands now operate on a global scale e.g McDonald’s is global
- now possible to buy an identical food product nearly anywhere in the world>increasing global culture and weakening local culture
- local food outlets are forced to close because of the competition with global companies
Norms
Unwritten rule. A specific guideline to behaviour
Value
Is the belief behind the norm and what is important to us
Mores
A moral aspect and are about upholding standards of behaviour that are felt to be the right thing to do. More of a punishment for mores rather than norms
Rules
Stronger than norms and mores. Will get a formal punishment if they are broken. Rules that are written down are laws
Attitudes
Are not as important as values. A society can tolerate attitudes but not rules
Status
Position in society
Roles
With each status there is s set of expectations-norms that the person with that status is expected to follow
Cultural diversity
Cultures vary from one society to another by having different norms, values and languages
Deviance
Breaking the norms
How did the industrial revolution change society?
_the family no longer a unit of production
- people moved to the cities(urbanised)
- products started becoming mass produced
- growth in science, technology and rational thoughts
- decline in agricultural societies (farming)
Main features of modernism
- industrialisation -living
- status
- national identity
- religion
- family
- Growth in factories&production line
- was achieved through your occupation&social class
- clear cut nations&astronaut sense of national identities where people had distinctive cultural traditions, dress, language
- religion was replaced with science
- moved from countryside to cities
Main features of pre-industrialisation
- status
- work
- family
- living
- status= ascribed
- work=self-employed
- extended network
- mainly in one place
Features of postmodernism
- status
- work
- family
- living
- globalisation
- technology &media
- what you own
- variety, no jobs for life always changing jobs
- family is what ever suits a person-no marriage for life
- living=wherever you want to live
- beginning of globalisation
- more electronic&digital media
- more symbols becoming global through global advertising&immediately
Fragmentation
Individualistic
Media saturation
The world is do,instead by media images and communication of messages
(Postmodernists see it as this)
Post modernist view on society
- pick and mix
- interconnected
- globalisation
- media saturated
- hyper reality
- people are free to pick and mix to create their own identities
- world is becoming more interconnected through globalisation
- media saturated society creates a sense of hyper reality (where boundaries between virtual and real work collide)
