Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art [cf. pop art] or mass art, sometimes contrasted with fine art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. Mass media, marketing, and the imperatives of mass appeal within capitalism constitute the primary engines of Western popular culture—a system philosopher Theodor Adorno critically termed the 'culture industry'.
Heavily influenced in modern times (after World War Two) by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of people in a given society. Therefore, popular culture exerts a significant influence on an individual's attitudes towards certain topics.McGaha, Julie. "Popular Culture & Globalization". Multicultural Education 23.1 (2015): 32–37. SocINDEX with Full Text. Web. 5 Aug. 2016. However, there are various ways to define pop culture.Strinati, D. (2004). An introduction to theories of popular culture. Routledge. Because of this, popular culture is something that can be defined in a variety of conflicting ways by different people across different contexts.Storey, J. (2018). Cultural theory and popular culture: An introduction. Routledge. It is generally viewed in contrast to other forms of culture, such as folk culture, working-class culture, or high culture, and also from different academic perspectives, including psychoanalysis, structuralism, postmodernism, and more. The common pop-culture categories are entertainment (e.g., film, music, television, literature, video games), sports, news (as in people and places in the news), politics, fashion, technology and slang.
History
In the past, folk culture functioned analogously to the popular culture of the masses and of the nations.
The phrase popular culture was coined in the 19th century or earlier.Although the Oxford English Dictionary lists the first use as 1854, it appears in an address by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi in 1818: Traditionally, popular culture was associated with poor education and with the lower classes,, The educational institutions of the United States, their character and organization, J. Chapman, 1853, p. 243: "Influence of European emigration on the state of civilization in the United States: Statistics of popular culture in America". John Morley presented an address On Popular Culture at the Birmingham Town Hall in 1876, dealing with the education of the lower classes. as opposed to the "official culture" and higher education of the upper classes.
With the rise of the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Britain experienced social changes that resulted in increased literacy rates, and with the rise of capitalism and industrialization, people began to spend more money on entertainment, such as (commercialised) public houses and sports. Reading also gained traction. Labeling penny dreadfuls the Victorian equivalent of video games, The Guardian in 2016 described penny fiction as "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young". A growing consumer culture and an increased capacity for travel via the newly invented railway (the first public railway, Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in north-east England in 1825) created both a market for cheap popular literature and the ability for its distribution on a large scale. The first penny serials were published in the 1830s to meet the growing demand.
The stress on the distinction from "official culture" became more pronounced towards the end of the 19th century,"Learning is dishonored when she stoops to attract," cited in a section "Popular Culture and True Education" in University extension, Issue 4, The American society for the extension of university teaching, 1894. a usage that became established by the interbellum period.e.g. "the making of popular culture plays [in post-revolutionary Russian theater]", Huntly Carter, The new spirit in the Russian theatre, 1917–28: And a sketch of the Russian kinema and radio, 1919–28, showing the new communal relationship between the three, Ayer Publishing, 1929, p. 166.
From the end of World War II, following major cultural and social changes brought by mass media innovations, the meaning of popular culture began to overlap with the connotations of mass culture, media culture, image culture, consumer culture, and culture for mass consumption."one look at the sheer mass and volume of what we euphemistically call our popular culture suffices", from Winthrop Sargeant, 'In Defense of the High-Brow', an article from LIFE magazine, 11 April 1949, p. 102.
The abbreviated form pop, as in pop music, dates from the late 1950s.The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, volume 15, p. 85 entry Pop music Although the terms pop and popular are in some cases used interchangeably, and their meaning partially overlap, the term pop is narrower. Pop is specific to something containing qualities of mass appeal, while popular refers to what has gained popularity, regardless of its style.Steinem, Gloria. Outs of pop culture , in LIFE magazine, 20 August 1965, p. 73 quotations: Bill Lamb, "What Is Pop Music? A Definition" , About.com, retrieved 8 March 2012 quotation:
Global pop culture influences
Japanese pop culture influence In the 1970s, Japan's post-World War II "liberated" nationalism yielded a cultural shift that started a movement towards technological and financial innovation. Over time, this techno-nationalism produced global phenomena such as Sony and Matsushita (now Panasonic)'s software in Hollywood Studios, the Walkman, large-scale advertisements, and more.
This movement also created the kawaii culture. Kawaii was first introduced into popular vernacular in 1914 by Tamaki Kishi in an advertisement for her feminine, chic boutique. Since then, it has slowly taken on a life of its own as the word used to describe all things cute, adorable, or lovable and is widely intertwined with aspects of Japanese culture, especially characters such as manga icons, Pokémon, and, most notably, Hello Kitty. This "cult of cute", fronted by companies such as Sanrio and Nintendo, appealed to large audiences that spread to East Asia and the West. Today, kawaii culture has a major impact on popular culture worldwide.
Definition According to author John Storey, there are various definitions of popular culture.John Storey. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, pp. 4–8. The quantitative definition of culture has the problem that too much "high culture" (e.g., television dramatizations of Jane Austen) is also "popular". "Pop culture" is also defined as the culture that is "leftover" when we have decided what high culture is. However, many works straddle the boundaries, e.g., William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, and George Orwell.
A third definition equates pop culture with "mass culture" and ideas. This is seen as a commercial culture, mass-produced for mass consumption by mass media.Sérgio Campos Gonçalves, "Cultura e Sociedade de Consumo: um olhar em retrospecto", InRevista – Núcleo de Produção Científica em Comunicação – UNAERP (Ribeirão Preto), vol. 3, pp. 18–28, 2008, . From a Western European perspective, this may be compared to American culture. Alternatively, "pop culture" can be defined as an "authentic" culture of the people, but this can be problematic as there are many ways of defining the "people". Storey argued that there is a political dimension to popular culture; neo-Gramscian hegemony theory "sees popular culture as a site of struggle between the 'resistance' of subordinate groups in society and the forces of 'incorporation' operating in the interests of dominant groups in society". A postmodernist approach to popular culture would "no longer recognize the distinction between high and popular culture".
Storey claims that popular culture emerged from the urbanization of the Industrial Revolution. Studies of Shakespeare (by Weimann, Barber, or Bristol, for example) locate much of the characteristic vitality of his drama in its participation in Renaissance popular culture, while contemporary practitioners like Dario Fo and John McGrath use popular culture in its Gramscian sense that includes ancient folk traditions (the commedia dell'arte for example)., Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition (1967)Robert Shaughnessy, The Cambridge companion to Shakespeare and popular culture (2007) p. 24.
Popular culture is constantly evolving and occurs uniquely in place and time. It forms currents and eddies, and represents a complex of mutually interdependent perspectives and values that influence society and its institutions in various ways. For example, certain currents of pop culture may originate from, (or diverge into) a subculture, representing perspectives with which the mainstream popular culture has only limited familiarity. Items of popular culture most typically appeal to a broad spectrum of the public. Important contemporary contributions to understanding what popular culture means have been given by the German researcher Ronald Daus, who studies the impact of extra-European cultures in North America, Asia, and especially in Latin America.
Levels Within the realm of popular culture, there exists an organizational culture. From its beginning, popular culture has revolved around classes in society and the push-back between them. Within popular culture, there are two levels that have emerged, high and low. High culture can be described as art and works considered of superior value, historically, aesthetically and socially. Low culture is regarded by some as that of the lower classes, historically.
Folklore
Adaptations based on traditional folklore provide a source of popular culture.On the Ambiguity of the Three Wise Monkeys A. W. Smith Folklore, Vol. 104, No. 1/2 (1993), pp. 144–150. This early layer of cultural mainstream still persists today, in a form separate from mass-produced popular culture, propagating by word of mouth rather than via mass media, e.g. in the form of jokes or urban legends. With the widespread use of the Internet from the 1990s, the distinction between mass media and word-of-mouth has become blurred.
Although the folkloric element of popular culture engages heavily with the commercial element, communities amongst the public have their own tastes and they may not always embrace every cultural or subcultural item sold. Moreover, certain beliefs and opinions about the products of commercial culture may spread by word-of-mouth, and become modified in the process and in the same manner that folklore evolves.
Criticism
Western popular culture stands persistently accused of functioning as a vast engine of commercialism. This system, critics argue, is designed to privilege products selected and mass-marketed by capitalists. Such criticisms find articulation in the works of Marxist theorists—including luminaries like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, bell hooks, Antonio Gramsci, Guy Debord, Fredric Jameson, Terry Eagleton—as well as postmodern philosophers such as Jean-François Lyotard (who dissected the commercialization of information under capitalism).Lyotard, Jean-François (1979). La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir. Paris: Minuit.
Frankfurt School