SOC 210SOCIOLOGY OF POPULAR CULTURE

WHAT IS POPULAR CULTURE?

What is Culture? As a means of organizing and stabilizing

communal life through specific beliefs, rituals, rites, performances, art forms, symbols,

language, clothing, food, music, dance and any other mode of human expressive, intellectual

and communicative behavior that is associated with a group of people at a particular period of

time.

• Popular culture concept’s spread is a result of media-technology-business

partnership.• It has played an important role in the overall evolution of American society and

virtually every other modern society.

• Franz BOAS ‘Culture Shapes how people perceive reality.’ (cultural relativism)

• Ruth BENEDICT ‘Every culture developed it canons of morality and lifestyle that largely influenced how individuals viewed themselves and the world.’

• In the history of human cultures, pop culture stands out as typical, since it is not tied to any particular folk or artistic traditions.

• It can ben produced at any time by anyone.• It is thus, populist, unpredictable,reflecting the

ever-changing tastes of one generation after another.

• It is not cathartic and empowering, allowing themselves, to gain recration through music, dance, stories and other forms of expressions.

POP CULTURE

• Pop art movement of 1950s.• Artists eventually started to create playful

works.• The unnamed leader of the pop art

movement- Andy Warhol.

ART OF ANDY WARHOL

POPULAR CULTURE AND COLLECTİVE ACTIVITY

• Sociologists as Howard Becker who works on the social organization of culture and the arts, believe that pop culture’s production is first and foremost a collective activity.

• Popular culture objects are produced by collaborative webs of interconnected individuals working together toward a common goal and eventually consumed and experienced by people who attach shared meanings to them.

POPULAR CULTURE AND COLLECTİVE ACTIVITY

• Given the collective nature of producing popular culture, it only makes sense that

in a complex society (like Turkey), networks of creative personnel are

organized according to a highly segmented division of labor.

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF POPULAR CULTURE

• People’s lifestyles, living habits, the physical and social structure of our cities and towns also determines the fate of popular culture as well.

• House types, television habits, transit systems usage,government involvment, local and national laws, etc.

AUDIENCES AND THE CONSUMPTION OF POPULAR CULTURE

• Since the audiences draw on their social circumstances when attributing meaning and value to popular culture, these meanings are often patterned according to persistent systems of social organization structured by differences in socio-economic status, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion or age.

• People’s social circumstances not only influence the kinds of meanings they attribute to cultural objects, events and experiences but also the kinds of pop culture they choose to consume in the first place.

AUDIENCES AND THE CONSUMPTION OF POPULAR CULTURE

• Pop cultural consumer habits and experiences are also shaped by the impact of outside social actors and structural forces.

• Cultural activities at one person’s town or city, media, tv programmes that one person watches, newspapers and magazines that one person chooses to read.