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Pop Culture

Popular Culture: An Overview

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

The term 'popular civilisation' holds different meanings depending on who'due south defining it and the context of apply. It is generally recognized as the colloquial or people's civilisation that predominates in a gild at a betoken in time. Every bit Brummett explains in Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture, pop culture involves the aspects of social life well-nigh actively involved in by the public. Every bit the 'culture of the people', popular civilization is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also informed by the mass media.

There are a number of by and large agreed elements comprising popular culture. For example, popular culture encompasses the most firsthand and gimmicky aspects of our lives. These aspects are ofttimes subject to rapid change, especially in a highly technological world in which people are brought closer and closer past omnipresent media. Certain standards and commonly held beliefs are reflected in popular culture. Considering of its commonality, pop civilisation both reflects and influences people's everyday life (come across eg Petracca and Sorapure, Mutual Culture). Furthermore, brands can attain pop iconic condition (eg the Nike swoosh or McDonald'due south aureate arches). However, iconic brands, every bit other aspects of popular culture, may rise and fall.

With these fundamental aspects in mind, popular culture may be defined as the products and forms of expression and identity that are ofttimes encountered or widely accepted, commonly liked or approved, and characteristic of a particular society at a given fourth dimension. Ray Browne in his essay 'Folklore to Populore' offers a similar definition: "Popular culture consists of the aspects of attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, customs, and tastes that ascertain the people of whatsoever social club. Popular civilisation is, in the celebrated use of term, the culture of the people."

Popular culture allows large heterogeneous masses of people to identify collectively. Information technology serves an inclusionary role in order as it unites the masses on ideals of adequate forms of behavior. Along with forging a sense of identity which binds individuals to the greater society, consuming pop culture items often enhances an individual's prestige in their peer grouping. Farther, pop civilisation, dissimilar folk or high culture, provides individuals with a chance to alter the prevailing sentiments and norms of behavior, every bit nosotros shall run across. So popular culture appeals to people because it provides opportunities for both individual happiness and communal bonding.

Examples of Popular Culture

Examples of popular civilization come from a wide array of genres, including popular music, print, cyber culture, sports, amusement, leisure, fads, advertizing and television. Sports and goggle box are arguably 2 of the virtually widely consumed examples of popular culture, and they also represent ii 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 every bit the World Cup and the Olympics, are consumed by a world customs. Sports are pervasive in virtually societies and represent a major part of many people'southward lives. Showing fidelity to a team equally a means of cocky-identification is a mutual behavior. Further, cheering for a sports team or a favorite athlete is a style any individual can become part of popular civilisation, as I and Tim Madigan explain in our new book The Sociology of Sport.

Many people watch numerous hours of boob tube everyday. It is such a prevalent attribute of contemporary civilisation information technology is hard to imagine life without it. There are those who believe Goggle box is responsible for the dumbing down of society; that children sentry likewise much goggle box; and that the couch potato syndrome has contributed to the epidemic of childhood obesity. The globally popular Tv set show The Simpsons provides us with an interesting perspective on television. In the episode 'Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming' (#137), while doing time in prison, Sideshow Bob becomes a critic of goggle box. Although he was once a regular on The Krusty the Clown Show, Bob has get obsessed past television's harmful effect on social club. Bob argues that everyone's lives would be much richer if Tv set were done away 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's city officials meet to discuss Bob's demands of abolishing Tv set. A panicky Krusty proclaims, "Would it really be worth living in a world without tv set? I recall the survivors would green-eyed the expressionless." Although there are people who agree with Sideshow Bob, the masses would more likely hold with Krusty: that living in a globe without television is not really living. It is even more than hard to imagine a earth without popular culture.

Folk and High Culture

Pop culture is usually distinguished from folk and loftier culture. In some ways, folk culture is similar to popular civilisation because of the mass participation involved. Folk civilisation, nonetheless, represents the traditional style of doing things. Consequently, it is not as amendable to change and is much more than static than popular culture.

Folk culture represents a simpler lifestyle, that is more often than not bourgeois, largely self-sufficient, and oftentimes characteristic of rural life. Radical innovation is generally discouraged. Group members are expected to conform to traditional modes of behavior adopted by the community. Folk civilization is local in orientation, and not-commercial. In short, folk civilisation promises stability, whereas popular civilisation is generally looking for something new or fresh. Because of this, popular culture often represents an intrusion and a challenge to folk culture. Conversely, folk culture rarely intrudes upon popular civilization. There are times when sure elements of folk civilisation (eg Turkish rugs, Mexican blankets and Irish fairy tales) notice their mode into the world of pop culture. Generally, when items of folk culture are appropriated and marketed by the popular culture, the folk items gradually lose their original grade.

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

The Formation of Popular Culture

Through most of human history, the masses were influenced past dogmatic forms of rule and traditions dictated by local folk culture. Near people were spread throughout small cities and rural areas – conditions that were not conducive to a 'popular' culture. With the beginning of the Industrial era (late eighteenth century), the rural masses began to migrate to cities, leading to the urbanization of most Western societies.

Urbanization is a key ingredient in the germination of popular culture. People who once lived in homogeneous small villages or farms found themselves in crowded cities marked past keen cultural diversity. These diverse people would come to see themselves as a 'collectivity' as a result of mutual, or pop, forms of expression. Thus, many scholars trace the first of the popular culture phenomenon to the rise of the centre course brought on by the Industrial Revolution.

Industrialization also brought with information technology mass production; developments in transportation, such equally the steam locomotive and the steamship; advancements in edifice technology; increased literacy; improvements in education and public health; and the emergence of efficient forms of commercial press, representing the first step in the formation of a mass media (eg the penny press, magazines, and pamphlets). All of these factors contributed to the blossoming of popular civilization. By the starting time of the twentieth century, the impress industry mass-produced illustrated newspapers and periodicals, as well as serialized novels and detective stories. Newspapers served as the best source of information for a public with a growing involvement in social and economical diplomacy. The ideas expressed in print provided a starting signal for popular discourse 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 tv all had a profound influence on culture.

So urbanization, industrialization, the mass media and the continuous growth in technology since the late 1700s, have all been pregnant factors in the formation of popular civilisation. These continue to be factors shaping popular civilisation today.

Sources of Popular Culture

At that place are numerous sources of pop culture. As implied above, a main source is the mass media, especially popular music, film, television, radio, video games, books and the internet. In add-on, advances in communication allows for the greater transmission of ideas past word of mouth, peculiarly via cell phones. Many Tv programs, such equally American Idol and the Last Comic Continuing, provide viewers with a telephone number so that they tin can vote for a contestant. This combining of pop culture sources represents a novel mode of increasing public interest, and further fuels the mass production of commodities.

Popular culture is too influenced by professional entities that provide the public with information. These sources include the news media, scientific and scholarly publications, and 'good' opinion from people considered an authority in their field. For example, a news station reporting on a specific topic, say the effects of playing violent video games, volition seek a noted psychologist or sociologist who has published in this surface area. This strategy is a useful manner of influencing the public and may shape their commonage opinions on a particular discipline. At the very least, it provides a starting point for public soapbox and differing opinions. News stations often let viewers to call or electronic mail in their opinions, which may be shared with the public.

A seemingly contradictory source of popular culture is individualism. Urban culture has non only provided a common ground for the masses, information technology has inspired ethics of individualistic aspirations. In the United States, a guild formed on the premise of individual rights, there are theoretically no limitations to what an private might accomplish. An individual may choose to participate in all that is 'pop' for popularity's sake; or they may choose a course of action off the beaten track. At times, these 'pathfinders' bear upon popular culture by their individuality. Of class, once a unique style becomes adopted by others, information technology 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 member of the Popular Civilisation Clan 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 Feb, 2008. Visit his website at www.booksbytimdelaney.com.

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