lecture three.

Critical positions on the media and popular culture (mass media/culture)


Aims.

• Critically define popular culture.
• Contrast ideas of culture with popular culture and mass culture.
• iintroduce cultural studies and critical theory
• discuss culture as ideology.
• Interrogate the social function of popular culture.

What is culture?

• One of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.
• General process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development of a partticualr society at a particular time.
• A particular way of life. - Sense of a subculture certain ways of thinking about the world.
• A works of intellectual and especially artistic significance.

Culture can be described as a cannon of really important art works or works of literature.

Popular culture is often talked about -
4 definitions of popular culture all of which are different.
the first is the idea of pupular culture quantitatively measured - Loads of people like dr who so it counts as popular culture.
Leads to confused results - Shakespeare is well liked by many people but it would be strange to call it popular culture.
Common - popular culture is the inferior form of real culture - arts and philosophy.
Works that aspiure to be important but for reasons, fail.

3rd definiton - Work deliberatly setting out to win favour with the people -Anything that aims to be popularist. Work that seems to be not understandbale is somehow high cultured yet work that is understood seems to be inferior.

MONK BY THE SEA.
supposed to make you reflect on the power of nature all those grand things make you question the insignificance of human life.

Sea and sky in watercolour - High culture.
Doenst seem to make peopel ask anything.

Inferior or residual culture
Popular press vs quality press.
Popular cinema vs art cinema
popular entertainment vs art culture.

The latter speaks to the elitists
the former speaks to the masses.

Jeremy deller and alan kane 2005
basically went round teh country looking for authentic examples of real genuine creativity. Eggs with humorous faces painted on them. Photographs of gurning competitions.

The interesting thing about the exhibition is when you walk around, the first thing you do is laugh and then you question why you are laughing.

You are laughing because of the poor attempts by the working class of making something arty. We begun to judge and start to think we can do better. we are coded into thinking what looks good and what doesn't.
to judge by our ashtetics codes is flawed.

What happens when a popular culture is made by the poeple?
What happens when that culture enetrs the spears of high culture?
Graffiti - expression of hard life in the bronx in the 70's.
What happens when that is translated into galleries - is that selling out.
Banksys wall bought and becomes a work of art.

not only diff lelevs to pop culture but the dynamics between what you would call culture or popular culture is very complex

pripor to modernity - Broadly speaking society had a common culture. which on top of the shared commomn culture there was a tiny stareter of ellit.
the first time this changes is with industrialsation and urbanization.
The first time people are condensed together but also physically separated
the working cclass is condensed in factories but sepereated by the bosses.

Physical distinction between the rich and the poor.
This separation starts to create a culture seperation so what the working class begins to do is create their own culture.
they still need things to do etc.
They create their own cultural activities such as going to pubs and getting drunk
own forms of music and lit. Late 19th cent the emergance of a working class culture
that is very seperate to the higher class culture.

Matthre arnold.
culture and anarchy
firs tbooks written about culutre as a disipline itself.
He tried to define what culture was. Arnoldism.

The first thing is define what culture is to him.
"The best that has been thought and said in the world..."Study of perfection

deceased spirit of our times the opp to culutre which is anarchy
emerging working class culture which seeks to have its own voice heard
the culture of the raw and uncultivated masses.

Once hidden and now coming up to march where they like.
Definite class division.
these theories emegere where the

taste makers defend upper class culture as better than lower class culture.
this pattern can still be seen today.Attack and patronise the working class culture.

This continues with someone called F.R Leavis.A cult figure.

This leavism is simular to Arnoldism (an extension)
people talk about popular culture in this way.

throughout the 20th century what we've seen is a dumbing down of culture.
he said culture was perfect. We could just get on with it uncontested.
20th cneture culture decline. Culture has always been in minority keeping.

Defend culutre against this dumbing down.
"The minority.."
For him this is bad because it means culture is coming down.