Pop Culture: An Overview

[Philosophy Now]

Tim Delaney sets the scene for our philosophical consideration of popular stuff.

http://philosophynow.org/issues/64/Pop_ ... n_Overview

[Conde Lucanor]

The term ‘popular culture’ holds different meanings depending on who’s defining it and the context of use. It is generally recognized as the vernacular or people’s culture that predominates in a society at a point in time. As Brummett explains in Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture, pop culture involves the aspects of social life most actively involved in by the public. As the ‘culture of the people’, popular culture is determined by the interactions between people in their everyday activities: styles of dress, the use of slang, greeting rituals and the foods that people eat are all examples of popular culture.

What is "generally recognized" is certainly a misguided view of what popular culture really is, as it makes no distinctions of how culture is produced, transmitted and consumed in different historical contexts and the material conditions of each society. But the real problem arises when "vernacular culture" of past centuries, is equated with "popular culture" of our current days, which is more appropriately labeled when referred to as "mass culture". As Umberto Eco points out, it's not the same a culture that is genuinely created by the masses, than a culture created from above for the masses. Although there still can be found traces of vernacular culture, the absolute, overwhelming dominance of mass culture, which is based on the private ownership of mass media, hardly allows us to talk about "people's culture", as if it were their genuine collective expression. It is the collective consumption of the messages produced and transmitted by a few.