Theories of Popular Culture
Popular culture is relative present in almost every situation. Different theories of popular culture try to demonstrate the relationship between the people and how they establish certain cultures. This paper examines the mass culture theory of popular culture. According to the mass culture, people can only relate with one another like atoms of a chemical compound. People are usually susceptible to exploitation by the primary institutions of popular culture and mass media. Mass culture is a popular culture created by industrial techniques of mass production and marketed to the public consumers for profit.
The underlying factor of mass culture is the expected profit that both marketing and production can realize from the prospective mass market. One can easily determine the presence of popular culture by turning on to the internet (Gottlieb, 2016). In the contemporary world, popular culture refers to the cultural products including films, fashion, art, music, literature, social media, or the internet, radio, and television that are consumed by the largest population in the society. As such, the mass culture theory indicates that popular culture concerns the type of media that is acceptable and appeals to the mass population.
Actors and actresses, artists and other personalities develop popular cultures by the expression of their concepts and ideas, and how their production appeals to the mass market through the above-mentioned sources of popular culture including music and films. As such, anything that is appealing and acceptable to the largest population in society is popular culture. Sports, stimulations (Television, music, and films), news, and fashion are some of the widely acknowledged popular culture classes (Buhmann, Hellmueller & Bosshart, 2015). Throughout humanity’s history, the majority were affected by a single-sided kind of run and conventions administered by the culture of the neighborhood society. Most of the people spread out through the rural and small urban areas, conditions that were not favorable for the development of popular culture.
During the industrial era towards the end of the eighteenth century, masses in the rural areas began the mass movement to the small cities. The latter influenced urbanization of most social orders of the western world. Urbanization is therefore a critical player in the creation of popular culture. For instance, people who lived in the homogeneous small cities but moved to the urban areas separated by impressive socially assorted varieties (Gottlieb, 2016). These people came to consider themselves as a “collectivity” mainly because of the popular and usual kind of articulation. The researchers trace the start of the popular culture from the “white-color class” advanced by the industrial revolution. Both industrialization and commercialization greatly influenced the furtherance of popular culture.
Industrialization influenced mass movement and advanced commerce across America and beyond. For example, the introduction of a steamship, and steam train as well as the improvements in building innovations enhanced the proficiency and general wellbeing of the people. Businesses became more proficient with the introduction of the printing machine and organized mass broad communications through leaflets, magazines, and the penny press. These developments accelerated the development of popular culture. In the early days of the 20th century, print business printed and delivered mass periodicals, daily papers, and serialized books as well as criminologist narratives (Gottlieb, 2016). Daily newspapers spread out throughout the western world and become one of the widely accepted and appealing development to the public. The opinions and ideas printed and circulated using the newspapers formed common talks and debates among the majority in western society. The latter exemplified communication and marketing of movies and music hence developing particular popular culture.
There are important viewpoints discussed here that challenge the conventional image of the pop culture as philosophical inculcations. Firstly, a considerable section of the putative text presumes a powerful and degree of capability about the sources of the pop culture that may be questionable and precisely unfounded (Buhmann, Hellmueller & Bosshart, 2015). One way of understanding the association between cultural production and consumption is by insinuating that mass culture producers give an expression of being steered more by arbitrary and distracting efforts to gain some reasonable part of Zeitgeist than by compliance with a set code of standards or ideological code. Secondly, although it may appear to be unfounded to agree that social customers end up to administer culture significantly echoes their wants and tastes, and the world viewpoints, realizing the degree of buyers to reject or infer cultural products is critically remedial.
By observing these points, one can assert that the underlying best position of popular culture is its complete plainness mainly because of commercialization. Although might be controversial, another possible viewpoint would be that culture mostly employs the outcomes of high culture as the background. The latter leads partly to an advancement in the approval of the lately created standard but also introducing the enthusiasm of consumers to the initial high culture initially little understood gems. An uncertain investigation is to understand whether the high culture drops its international status when combined with the popular culture. Presumably, the high culture does not lose its international status. Nearly every aspect that emerged from the high culture and seen by different ages remain strong artistic culminations while the outcomes of their helpful association with the popular culture will mainly identify with the pop culture and not the high culture.
Mona Lisa of Leonardo da Vinci is perhaps unique amongst the widely used images in popular culture. Notably, Mona Lisa does not drop its distinctiveness and soul (Buhmann, Hellmueller & Bosshart, 2015). The publicizing efforts and images do not get overly incentivized from the initial painting. Also, the latter is a significant constituent of mainstream culture.
There are also apparent inadequacies. Some of the challenges have been highlighted at the beginning of the paper including the lack of ingenuity, low quality, and the weak moral aspect. Oftentimes, popular culture contradicts the social qualities while substituting nature with technological advancements that make a charming life perpetual joyful moments. This element makes the society to be profoundly bewildered and introduce misguided decisions on moral values while advancing the stereotyped lifestyle. The outcomes of popular culture have a limited life cycle. Popular culture praises a particular item through mass publicity and public relations while prompting over-reliance on the celebrity’s image and thus loss of independence and creativity.
Reference:
Buhmann, A., Hellmueller, L., & Bosshart, L. (2015). Popular culture and communication practice. Communication Research Trends, 34(3), 4-18. Retrieved from https://prx-herzing.lirn.net/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.prx-herzing.lirn.net/docview/1718903193?accountid=167104
Gottlieb, J. (2016). Cultural criticism in the late twentieth century — postmodernism and popular culture: A cultural history by john docker/postmodernism and popular culture by angela McRobbie. Contemporary Sociology, 25(1), 16. Retrieved from https://prx-herzing.lirn.net/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.prx-herzing.lirn.net/docview/233613686?accountid=167104
