What is Popular Culture?

• A series of commodities, material items, demands some kind of cash relationship (materialistic economy).
• Amounts to something more than entertainment leisure.
• Popular culture –> ideological attachment.
• Inseparable from our society, but not the culture; hence, it shapes society’s character.
• Influences the way we look at the world; hence leading to academic interest.
• 1950s, social scientists define popular culture (PCu)

Problems with  the “Folk”/ “Popular” [distinction]

• Nostalgic view of the past
• Assumes that traditional/modern are unproblematic terms
• Equates “Folk Culture” with creativity & mass culture with passivity

Problems of High and Low Culture [distinction]

• Elitist ideas made about “high” culture.
• Unclear division between ‘high” and “low/popular” culture
• Culture and ideology conceptually linked
• Culture/ideology landscape marked by relations of power and politics.