What Is Culture?

Ethnography

• the scientific description of the customs of individual peoples and cultures.

Your Task

• Auto-Ethnography• Put me in your culture• Jargon• Conflict?• Explain your sub-culture• Rituals?• Multi-Genre: writing, artwork, speaking,

artifacts, documents, photographs

Culture Definition

• the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.

Culture

• Sociologists consider culture as the formation of traditions and trends that link humans in a common group.

• Human culture existed even in prehistoric societies; however, those prehistoric societies' tradition and arts (things that are created, such as cave paintings and decorated pottery) are generally considered as folk art and folkways.

Popular Culture

• Popular culture, by definition, requires that the masses—that's us, folks—be engaged in practicing and consuming it, thereby making it popular,

Popular Culture

• modern popular culture transmitted via mass media and aimed particularly at younger people.

• Agree/Disagree?

Popular Culture

• Popular culture (or pop culture) is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images, and other phenomena that are within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century.

What Does Pop Culture Entail?

• styles of dress• the use of slang• greeting rituals • The foods that people eat• Other Examples?• Learned Via Mass Media

Where Does Pop Culture Come From?

• 3 Early Pop Culture Mileposts• 1. Wedding Ceremonies• 2. music performed from written scores• 3. establishment of fashion styles

Where Does Pop Culture Come From?

• Wedding ceremonies, predating even Biblical accounts, began traditions based on religious tenets and quickly became engrained in society.

• During the Renaissance composers began committing notes to paper and thus created the opportunity for music to be shared beyond first-person familiarity. For the first time, a piece of music could be performed by someone who had never heard it.

Where Does Pop Culture Come From?

• Fashion styles that took clothing beyond mere functionality were initially set by royalty and aristocracy, but societal changes like the emergence of the French bourgeois class and simple technological advances in clothing manufacture such as the sewing machine gave style a broader "popular" appeal. Thus, in a couple hundred years we went from tights and lace cuffs for European aristocracy to modern teenagers wearing their pants around their knees.

Initial Pop Culture SuperStars• The Western world's first pop culture "superstar" was

probably William Shakespeare. • He wrote for a mass audience, thus fulfilling pop

culture's requirement of art that is meant to be enjoyed by the masses. They still are enjoyed by many.

• Bridged the gap between popular and fine art in 16th century England.

• Several of his plays were set elsewhere in Europe, which exposed the common Englishman to wedding and courtship traditions of different classes and cultures, potentially influencing those of England.

Pop Culture Become Global• Popular culture didn't require

satellite television and the Internet to become global.

• Explorers took to the seas or traveled overland routes to distant places, they were influenced by, and returned with, examples of other cultures' popular art, artifacts and customs, such as drinking coffee.

• If that hadn't caught on, Starbucks would be stuck trying to sell cups of hot, frothy milk for three bucks a pop.

Industrialization

• In the case of popular arts especially (theater, dance, music and more recently movies and television), the masses must have sufficient time and resources to enjoy these arts. Technology is the catalyst that made this possible.

Industrialization

• Industrial Laborers – free time, money in pocket• Life had become more than family, survival and

religion• The concentration of people in urban areas,

attracted by jobs in the factories, also gave rise to more and different kinds of popular art forms by concentrating potential audiences.

Industrialization

• This enabled them to enjoy entertainment venues and engage in hobbies, crafts and recreation outside their work lives.

Technology• Technology also created new kinds of arts and

items and made them available to everyone, not just the wealthy elite.

• Radio, television, motion pictures, amplified music, computers and the Internet.

• Social Media• Other technological advances resulted in such

diverse things as silk-screen printing (Express your opinion on your T-shirt!), bowling alleys' automatic pinsetters, and Wii.

Opinion

• An important aspect in the study of pop culture is opinion.

• What makes some elements of pop culture forgettable while others become timeless?

• What do you regard as some of the most important—or maybe just memorable—contributions of pop culture in history?