Culture 2

How are hearths of popular culture traits established?

• Typically begins with an idea/good and contagious diffusion.

• Companies can create/manufacture popular culture. (ie. MTV)

• Individuals can create/manufacture popular culture. (ie. Tony Hawk)-video games involving extreme sports popularized skateboarding and other sports.

The hearth of Phish concerts is in the northeastern United States, near where the band began in Vermont.

With Distance Decay, the likelihood of diffusion decreases as time and distance from the hearth increases.

With Time-Space Compression, the likelihood of diffusion depends upon the connectedness among places.

Which applies more to popular culture?

Why are popular culture traits usually diffused hierarchically?

How is fashion in popular culture an example of hierarchical diffusion?

• Reterritorialization of popular culture occurs when an aspect of popular culture is modified to adapt locally-e.g. Japanese baseball, European Hip Hop-MC Solaar-France, Die Fantastischen Vier-Germany, Jovanatti-Italy.

• Syncretism-a fusion of old and new to create a new cultural trait-this concept is similar to reterritorialization.

• The examples below are foreign foods that have been modified to fit American tastes.

• The influence of Europe, the US and Japan in global popular culture makes many people feel threatened.

• France’s govt. subsidizes the French film industry and sets limits on foreign music on the radio

Cultural Landscape• The imprint of people on

the land-how humans use, alter and manipulate the landscape to express their identity.

• Examples;– Architecture of buildings– Methods of tilling the soil– Means of transportation– Clothing and adornment– Sights, sounds and smells of

a place

Cultural Landscape

The visible human imprint on the landscape.

How have people changed the landscape?- What buildings, statues, and so forth have they erected?- How do landscapes reflect the values of a culture?

The cultural landscape is fashioned from a natural landscape by a cultural group. Culture is the agent, the natural area the medium, the cultural landscape is the result. Under the influence of a given culture, itself changing through time, the landscape undergoes development, passing through phases, and probably reaching ultimately the end of its cycle of development. With the introduction of a different-that-is alien culture, a rejuvenation of the cultural landscape sets in, or a new landscape is superimposed on remnants of an older one. Carl Sauer, 1925

• The widespread distribution of businesses and products creates distinctive landscape stamps around the world.

• What are some other examples of businesses that can be found around the world?

Convergence of Cultural Landscapes:

Convergence of Cultural Landscapes:

• Diffusion of architectural forms and planning ideas around the world.

• Borrowing of idealized landscape images blurs

place distinctiveness.-right Las Vegas, Nevada-below

Toronto, Canada

Convergence of Cultural Landscapes:

Placelessness: the loss of uniqueness in a cultural landscape – one place looks like the next.

House Types

• Kniffen’s traditional American house types:

New EnglandMid-AtlanticSouthern Tidewater

• The New England “Large” house is a modern adaptation of a Yankee folk house that added a wing as the style migrated westward. It is a 2 ½ story house built around a central chimney.

• The Georgian Style (1700-1800) used Renaissance inspired classical symmetry. Typically it was 2 rooms deep and 2 rooms high with end chimneys and pilasters around the door.

• The “Cape Cod” style dwelling from New England features a steep roof with side gables and a symmetrical layout with the door in the center.

• The Victorian or Queen Anne style of architecture was dominant in the United States from 1880 to 1900.

• The Tudor Revival (1910-1940) became popular in suburban areas in the 1920s. The style is loosely based on Medieval construction.

• The “bungalow” (1900-1920) was supposedly a modified version of an Indian rural vernacular form. The bungalow typically has a low-pitched roof with wide overhang eaves.

• This narrow home fits easily on small city lots. In the Midwest this version of the “bungalow” is known as the “Chicago bungalow” style.

• Commonly built in the 1950s and 1960s, this style of home is an good example of maladaptive diffusion since it was intended for the year round living of southern California.

• This “California Ranch” with all rooms on one level takes up a larger lot and has encouraged urban sprawl.

THE END