Assignment
Name:
Trivedi Disha Hiteshbhai
Paper no: 8
Topic:
Year:
2015-2017
M.A.Sem=2
Submitted
to: Smt. S.b.gardi department of English m. k. Bhavnagar University (Gujarat)
Assignment
Topic: popular culture v/s elite culture
Popular
culture:
There was a time before the 1960s when popular culture was
not studies by academics- when it was, well, just popular culture. But within
American studies programs a first and then later in many disciplines, including
semiotics, rhetoric, literary criticism, film studies anthropology, history,
woman’s studies, ethnic studies, and psychoanalytic approaches, critics examine
such culture media as pulp fiction, comic books, television, film, advertising,
popular music and computer cyberculture. They assess how such factors as
ethnicity, race, gender, class, age, region, and sexuality are shaped by and
reshaped in popular culture.
There are
four main types of popular culture analyses:
- pro-diction analysis
- textual analysis
- audience and
- historical analysis
These analyses
seek to get beneath the surface (denotative) meaning and examine more implicit
(connotative) social meanings. These approaches view culture as a narrative or
story – telling process in which particular texts or cultural artefacts.
For example: a hit song or a
television program
Consciously or unconsciously link
themselves to larger stories at play in the society. A key here is how texts
create subject positions or identities
for those who use them.
Popular culture or pop culture is the
entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and
the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early
21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society. The most common pop culture
categories are: entertainment (movies, music, TV), sports, news (as in
people/places in news), politics, fashion/clothes, technology, and slang.
Definition and history of popular culture:
The term "popular culture"
was coined in the 19th century or earlier. Traditionally, popular culture was
associated with poor education and the lower classes as opposed to the "official culture" and higher education of
the upper classes.
The stress in the distinction from
"official culture" became more pronounced towards the end of the 19th
century usage that became established by theinterbellum period.
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 those
of mass culture, media culture, image culture, consumer culture, and culture for mass
consumption. Social and cultural changes in the
United States were a pioneer in this with respect to other western countries.
The abbreviated form “pop" for
popular. As in pop music, dates from the late 1950s. Although terms "pop" and
"popular" are in some cases used interchangeably, and their meaning
partially overlap, the term "pop" is narrower. Pop is specific of
something containing qualities of mass appeal, while "popular" refers
to what has gained popularity, regardless of its style.
According to John
Storey, there are six
definitions of popular culture. The quantitative definition of culture has the problem that much "high culture"
(e.g., television dramatizations of Jane Austen) is also
"popular." "Pop culture" is also defined as the culture
that is "left over" when we have decided what high culture is.
However, many works straddle the boundaries, e.g., Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.
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. 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 because 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
emerges 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 ‘art for example).
Popular culture changes constantly
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 for 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.
Forms of popular culture:
·
film
·
fashion
·
music
·
television
·
toys
·
comic
books
·
cyber
culture
·
magazines
·
advertising
Issues in popular
culture:
·
Race
·
Ethnicity
·
Gender
·
Sexuality
·
Cultural
imperialism
Elite
culture:
"High culture" is a
term now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning
is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a
culture.
In more popular terms, it is the
culture of an upper
class such as an aristocracy or an intelligentsia, but it can also be defined as a
repository of a broad cultural knowledge, a way of transcending the class
system. It is contrasted with the low culture or popular
culture of, variously, the less
well-educated, barbarians, Philistines, or the masses. Still similarities can be noted
between high culture and folk culture as they can be all conceived as the
repository of shared and accumulated traditions functioning as a living
continuum between the past and present.
the Western tradition high culture has historical origins in the
intellectual and aesthetic ideals of ancient
Greece and Rome.
Within this classical ideal certain authors and their modes of language were
held up as models of an elevated style and good form as for instance the Attic
dialect of ancient Greek associated with the great philosophers and dramatists
of Periclean Athens, or Ciceronian Latin. Later, especially during the Renaissance, these
values were deeply imbibed by the cultural upper classes, and (as evinced in
works like The
Courtier by Baldasare Castiglione) knowledge of the classics became part of the aristocratic ideal.
Over time, the refined classicism of the Renaissance was expanded to embrace a
broader canon of authors in the modern languages that included figures such as Shakespeare, Goethe, Cervantes and Victor
Hugo.
In both the Western and some East Asian
traditions, art that demonstrates the imagination of the artist has been
accorded the highest status. In the West this tradition goes back to the
Ancient Greeks, and was reinforced in the Renaissance and by Romanticism, although the latter also did away with
the hierarchy of genres within the fine arts established in the Renaissance. In China there was a distinction
between the literati painting by the scholar-officials and the work produced by common artists, working in largely
different styles, or the decorative arts such as Chinese porcelain which were produced by unknown craftsmen working in large
factories. In both China and the West the distinction was especially clear in landscape painting, where for centuries imaginary views, produced from the imagination
of the artist, were considered superior works.
For centuries an immersion in high culture was deemed an
essential part of the proper education of the gentleman, and this ideal was transmitted
through high-status schools and institutions throughout Europe and the United
States. As it has evolved, Western notions of high culture have been associated
at various times with: The study of "humane letters" especially the
Greek and Latin classics and more broadly all works considered to be part of
"the canon"; the cultivation of refined etiquette and manners; an
appreciation of the fine arts – especially sculpture and painting; a knowledge
of such literature, drama, and poetry considered to be of high caliber;
enjoyment of European classical music and opera; religion and theology often
with a special focus on Europe's predominantly Christian tradition; rhetoric
and politics; the study of philosophy and history; a taste for gourmet cuisine
and wine; being well travelled and especially "The Grand
Tour of Europe"; certain sports
associated with the upper classes, such as polo, equestrianism, fencing, and yachting.
Thank you....
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