POPULAR CULTURE

We are surrounded and invaded by popular culture through our daily activities like listening to music, watching a variety of programs, reading books, comics, sports, etc. This form of culture is a characteristic of industrial societies.

Before industrialization, we were familiar with high culture and folk culture. High culture mostly related to a small, literate, elite group, or the upper class. They and encouraged and sustained such a culture. High culture relates to the classics of literature, the great traditions of art and sculpture. Folk culture on the other hand, was seen among folk people in their expression of serious and significant matter of life like birth and death, man and woman, child and adult, seasons, justice, cruelty, fate and destiny. It was shared by everyone and everyone participated in it. The folk people entertained themselves through it, especially on ceremonial occasions like weddings, religious holidays, harvest celebrations, etc.

Industrialization brought about changes that affected industrial capitalism and human culture. It is due to mass production that we have a mass of consumer goods. Folk culture has receded and now it is the mass media which plays a very important role. Mass media promotes and distributes mass culture. Popular culture is a positive term for mass-produced or mass-disseminated cultural products.

According to some scholars, mass culture and popular culture are terms that can be used interchangeably but other scholars state that there are also differences between the two.

Popular culture relates to the culture which is shared, accepted and liked by people.

Mass culture is the culture which cuts across and includes a wide range of social classes and groups. E.g. TV series attract a varied audience.

Since the 1930s sociologists have contended that the characteristics of different social classes determine their cultural preferences. American sociologists have asserted that high culture and popular culture express different values and represent different aesthetic standards.  There is a distinct separation between high and popular culture, that the two are consumed by different classes, and that the prestige of each class is attached to its culture.

Some conservative critics claim that mass culture is profane and dehumanizing and it encroaches upon high cultural production.

Some radical critics agree with the conservative critics as they focus on the negative impact on those who consume it and upon the society as a whole rather just on the high culture upon which it encroaches.

Radical critics call for ‘cultural mobility’ i.e., raising the masses’ tastes through education, opportunity, and economic redistribution. Cultural mobility would free the people from the economic elite and provide opportunity to appreciate high culture.

Moderate or liberal critics take the position that popular culture is harmful neither to the people who consume it nor to the society as a whole. According to them, all cultures are equal in worth if they meet the needs of the people. These liberal sociologists therefore call for reinvigoration of various cultures or subcultures.

In the late 1980s, many sociologists and communication scholars began challenging the validity of class-based distinction between high culture and popular culture. Some critics claim that modern media, particularly television, create ‘media cultures’ accessible to multiple taste public. Thus media culture sets the standards for culture and shapes popular taste.