Elite, Popular and Mass Cultures: The Politics of Culture

"Academic work is too rigorous and profound, and popular culture is too trivial for the two to ever be compatible" (During, 1)

-Plausible to be valid as trends now a days tend to lack meaning

"A great deal of popular culture emerges from, and is addressed to, those who have no post compulsory education" (During, 2)

-An example of this would be rappers like Lil Wayne, who have typically either dropped out of highschool, or did not continue school after graduating.

The mass spread and production

The mass spread and production of books is one of the first examples of mass production. This came with the invention of the Gutenberg Press invented by Johannes Gutenberg approximately around 1440.

By 1500, the printing

presses in western Europe had produced more than 20 million copies of books. This was called The Printing Revolution.

Early examples:

The 1920s-30s were a very significant time in the study of popular culture because it ushered in a new wave of mass consumption... Cinema and Radio

What is mass culture?

Mass culture is essentially popular culture

produced using industrial techniques of mass

production.

http://www.streetfoodcinema.com/event/the-outsiders/

thefashionisto.com/elvis-presley-style-icon-fashion-pictures/

Popular Songs Today

Popular Song Influencing Popular Culture

Top 3 Artists for the Week of Oct. 17th:

source: www.billboard.com

Hotline Bling - Drake (2015)

These days, all I do is

Wonder if you're bendin' over backwards for someone else

Wonder if you're rolling up a Backwoods for someone else

Doing things I taught you, gettin' nasty for someone else

You don't need no one else

You don't need nobody else, no

The Weeknd - King of the Fall (2015)

1.) Drake

2.) The Weeknd

3.) Fetty Wap

Bitches that we came with got all of your bitches jealous

'Bout to leave the crib with a couple of my pirates

Driving by the streets we used to walk through like a triumph

Mix it in a potion like a science

That liquid G diet got a nigga so quiet

Cause the shit so strong, got me feeling like I'm dying

The shit so raw, nothing else can get me higher

Fetty Wap - Trap Queen (2015)

(PLAY 0:26 - 0:44)

In the 1930’s, the Nazi party in Germany was virtually able to establish their ideologies across all factions of culture and art (Strinati, 153). They heavily produced propaganda on the radio pertaining to their antisemitic agenda. This is an example of what can happen when one group (the elite) controls the dominant culture.

http://pulse.rte.ie/fetty-wap-announces-debut-album/

http://urbanislandz.com/2015/07/02/meek-mill-r-i-c-o-ft-drake-lyrics/

CD factory

https://thenewyuth.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/the-weeknd-tell-your-friends-prod-kanye-west-played-drais/

1950s: Television becomes a normative

materialistic household item

-Period of Rock n' Roll

-Rebellious culture: counterculture of

"greasers" iconized through popular

song

Strinati: Mass Culture and Popular Culture

Three Definitions of "the Popular"

(1/3)

• "because masses of people listen to them, buy them, need them, consume them" (Hall, 446)
• Hall decides definition not useful for his purpose
• Definition allows us to think about complexity of cultural relations, reality of cultural power and nature of cultural implantation (Hall, 447)
• "Cultural dopes" (Hall, 446)

"Notes on 'Deconstructing 'the Popular'" by Stuart Hall

- What is mass culture?

- Quick history of mass production

- Implications of mass culture

- How it can go wrong

Three Definitions of "the Popular"

(2/3)

• Autonomous "popular culture"
• "All those things that 'the people' do or have done (p. 448)
• Problem: infinite list - what is popular culture not?

• Culture - "reconstruction of capital and the rise of the collectivism and the formation of a new kind of 'educative' state [...] with recreation, dance and popular song. (Hall, 445)
• Popular culture studies = labour histories and its institutions (Hall, 445)
• Change in cultural relations b/w classes & relationship b/w people (Hall, 446)

Three Definitions of "the Popular"

(3/3)

Question

• Continuous unequal struggle by dominant culture (p. 447)
• Disorganises and reorganises popular culture (p. 447)
• Culture is a battlefield

What other examples of popular song, recreation and dance have influenced popular culture?

Elite, Popular and Mass Culture: The Politics of Culture

Popular Culture & The World

-Popular culture surrounds us, we live and breathe it

-Can range from television shows, sports, music etc.

"Popular culture draws national - and international - communities together, dotting conversations and private and communal memories" (During, 1)

-An example of popular culture that brings the world together would be the 2010 FIFA World Cup song "Waka Waka", sung by Shakira:

Popular Culture & Academics

The time of the elite controlling the culture regular people observed has passed... Although popular culture can be seen everywhere we go, it is the most lucrative forms of culture that dominate what we see today.

While it can be said that culture comes from the people freely as an expression of their interests, it can also be imposed from the higher powers as a type of social control (Strinati, 152). There are many people who believe that pop culture is being harnessed by the people in positions of power in order to get the masses to follow the ideas and values which keep them in those positions (spend money/follow trends). An example of this is radio programming that plays music with materialistic values all day…

Simon During,

"Value"

Cultural Taste:

Canonical vs. Non-canonical Culture

"Revolution is unimaginable in the USA because popular culture is so powerful" (During, 4)

-acts of popular culture that take part in this concept would be internet trends like "put em' in a coffin" and "hit my blunt challenge"

"Canon was counter-posed by a people's culture which was largely non-literate" (During, 2)

-Although an issue in the past, the academic community is more supportive of popular culture

ex. there is a popular culture course here at Ryerson

-Canonical culture consists of "prestige", which is:

"transferred onto the educated and/or rich, while at the same time the prestige of the educated and/or rich is transferred onto the canon" (During, 4)

Pierre Bourdieu

-analyzed the concept of "taste" within culture

He believes that:

"tastes are a key constituent of cultural capital" (During, 7)

"individuals from the dominant class inherit more cultural capital than those from the dominated class, just as they do more economic capital" (During, 7)

ex. When a low income artist starts off their career under a well known record label, such as Chief Keef when he signed with Interscope Records, under Jimmy Iovine.

Questions:

Canonical vs. Non-canonical Culture

"Canon was counter-posed by a people's culture which was largely non-literate" (During, 2)

-Although an issue in the past, the academic community is more supportive of popular culture

ex. there is a popular culture course here at Ryerson

-Canonical culture consists of "prestige", which is:

"transferred onto the educated and/or rich, while at the same time the prestige of the educated and/or rich is transferred onto the canon" (During, 4)

1) Do you believe that their is truly no way for North America to be revolutionized? If you do believe it is possible, explain why, as well as why you think popular culture wouldn't deteriorate this theory.

2) Can you name any other examples of when artists, musicians, rappers etc. have decided to postpone their work in order to maintain quality for cultural purposes?

ex. "Detox" by Dr. Dre

"Revolution is unimaginable in the USA because popular culture is so powerful" (During, 4)

-acts of popular culture that take part in this concept would be internet trends like "put em' in a coffin"

Cultural Value

"Value is the abstract worth of a cultural object or genre" (During, 6)

-use value vs. exchange value

"culture has neither use nor exchange value [...] quality is the worth of a cultural object " (During, 6)

-therefore, culture should heavily depend on the quality it omits

"producers constantly reject their own attempts on the way to finishing a piece" (During, 6)

Elite, Popular and Mass Cultures: The Politics of Culture

by: Meaghan McLellan, Aaron Fix, and Melville Orenstein