OUGD501 - Lecture 6 - Critical Positions on Popular Culture

My notes can be read by the determined, I found that using this tecnique I took a lot of the information in whilst concentrating on writing whilst listening rather than looking.

A few of the notes have been typed for convienience here.

Raymond Williams (1983) 'keywords'

4 definitions of 'popular

'Culture' very difficult to define.

What is the reality of a society - BASE

Marx - Everything else about society comes from the Base

Base determines the content and form of Superstructure ehich in turn reflects form of & legitimises the BasePop culture is a base version of culture made by masses, for masses.

Banksy for example poses a question of if grafitti become art when in a gallery

Class separations were very clear in the past.

Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane (2005) 'Folk Archive'

Work that wouldn't normally be displayed in a gallery to ask  why are these not classed as culture.

It was believed culture was shared but it was made by the elite

Aculture made by the workers for the workers which became a way of entrepenuring and breaking out of the lower class into the upper classes.  

Matthew Arnold (1867) 'Culture and Anarchy'

''the best that has been thought and said in the world'

Leavisism - F.R Leavis & Q.D Leavis

Similar views to Matthew Arnold and believes that culture is on the decline by being standardised.

Frankfurt School - Critical theory
Popular culture maintains and perpeuates a status quo because it recycles and argues that popular culture maintains the social order.

Says that pop culture doesn't present a challenge to anyone, but instead it strengthens the system that we live in

Reinterpreted Marx for the 20th Century - era of 'late capitalism'

All mass culture is identical

"as soon as the film begins, it is quite clear how it will end, and who will be rewarded, punished to forgotten"

people are fed a monotonous stream of easy to discect information.

Herbert Mercuse - Frankfurt school

Popular culture vs Affirmative culture

Adorno

Adorno notes that  popular music is standardised for easy sales, this can be argued now that the birth of various new music forms (Garage in the 90's, Dub Step recently etc) is a reaction to breaking the grid of music but eventually becomes a marketable commodity.

Further Research