Distinctions Between High and Popular Cultures
Culture, in sociology, is the beliefs, behaviour, language, and entire way of life of a particular group of people at a particular time. Culture includes traditions, ceremonies, and works of art, inventions, technology, and habits.
Culture distinguishes human beings from other animals, in that humans are able to make patterns of behaviour for themselves, and are able to transmit these from person to person and through generations.
Sociologists are interested in how cultures emerge and develop, looking into the social conditions behind different cultures, and in doing so they examine the way standards and values operate as guides to behaviour.
…show more content…
Due to the technological developments in transportation and telecommunications, popular culture is, to an extent, a function of the commercialisation of modernity. The modern producer of popular culture is able to target a market place much smaller than a producer prior to the beginning of these technologies. Popular culture is governed by the needs of the market place and reproduces the desires of the self. Commodities are imposed upon the popular culture, taking away freedom of choice and individuality. Instead of being linked to one another as members of a community, the relation is formed with a system of industrial production, which is something intangible and untouchable.
In a way popular culture encourages impatience as most things rely on instant accessibility. For example, fast food chains allow us to have satisfying, however unhealthy, food instantly. Some may argue that flat pack furniture is of the popular culture industry as it is all mass produced. Whereas, the high culture population would prefer an original, unique or antique piece of furniture. It is made clear from studying the high culture that they focus on the timeless.
H Hawkins (1990) believed that high and popular cultures do often share similar themes. For example a particular piece of music could be seen as high culture at one point, and popular culture at
Because my neighbor is considered suburban it often gets a bad rep. A lot of people think that suburbs are boring and aren't interesting. As this suggests, the problem is also cultural. For the most part, American culture and opinion are still created, even in the Internet age, in cities at either edge of the continent. If intellectuals do deign to look at the suburbs they assume that so much banality must be hiding something deeply
Chapter 3 of The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology explains to the reader what culture is and goes into depth of the different concepts within culture. It defines culture as “the entire way of life for a group of people” (Ferris & Stein, 2010, p. 77). Culture is described as a “lens” through which one views the world and is passed from one generation to the next. This “entire way of life”, according to sociologists, consists of two major categories: material and symbolic culture. Material culture involves the entities associated with a cultural group, such as tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and artwork. When examining material culture, it can convey a great deal about a particular group or society. Symbolic culture embraces ways
The diversity of culture is an incredible notion. It is unfathomable how the anatomy of the human race is so similar, yet so different in the behaviors and ideas that take place. The two primary cultures I am focusing on throughout this essay are the differentiation between popular culture, and indigenous culture. I will also make the point of folk culture, and how it has slowly transformed itself from its self sufficiency, to relying more on the ways of popular culture.
Cultural differences are apparent from one group of people to another. Culture is based on many things that are passed on from one generation to the next. Most of the time people take for granted their language, beliefs, and values. When it comes the cultural differences of people there is no right or wrong. People should be aware of others culture and respect the differences that are between them. The United States and China are two very large countries that have cultures that are well known through out the world. There are many differences between the United States and China, but there are many contributing factors that shape the cultures of these two countries.
In ours’, it’s everything from MTV hits, to Breaking Bad to Miley Cyrus. But historically, pop culture derived from the lower classes and the “low” culture, the exiled counterpart to “high” culture. High culture was considered to compose of art, literature, and classical music created by and for the most prestige. Over time “pop culture” slowly began to replace the phrase “ low culture,” pop culture or low culture was defined by what it wasn’t; elegant, refined, high culture, than rather by what it was. Mass culture. The masses looked for entertainment and distraction, soon enough it was assumed for pop culture to simply just amuse. However, pop culture can never be dismissed as being “just” entertainment or for “only” amusement.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni highlights the differences between Indian and American culture in her collection of short stories, Arranged Marriage. Each tale utilizes a different narrator, whether it is first or third person narration, to highlight the struggles women face in all arranged marriages. Many of these women live in America, yet India’s strict moral code still burdens them. In “Doors”, Preeti struggles to balance her American beliefs with the Indian beliefs of her husband, similarly to Anju, who wonders if her life and pregnancy would be different if she lived in India throughout “The Ultrasound”. In “The Word Love”, a woman must confront her situation and push her boundaries. Divakaruni shows the highs and lows of arranged marriages, proving that I would not thrive in a commitment made without my input.
Anderson, K. (2013). The Difference Between Macro and Microeconomics | Mint.com. Retrieved October 13, 2013, from https://www.mint.com/the-difference-between-macro-and-microeconomics/
Over the past 100 years, the United States has changed the way it views other cultures including more respect, equality, and freedom for all people. As much as America has grown, has America really changed that drastically? Across the nation and world, cultural differences still exist, misunderstandings continue, and fighting persists. Recent attacks within the United States that are similar to the conflicts between the Japanese and Americans in the early 1900’s include the 9/11 attack, the bombing at the Boston Marathon, and the mass shooting in Orlando.
From the fighting styles of the Japanese and the way American culture differed from the Japanese culture, readers can infer that the two battling countries had many different beliefs and values. These beliefs and values were put on display even before the warriors were flying to Pearl Harbor and ruthlessly fighting battles on the islands in the Pacific. The Japanese were taught as young kids about the weak and inferior westerns, and the militarism of Imperial Japan was introduced into schools with the political views and military lessons implemented into schools teachings for kids and teens. After being taught of these weak westerners who were inferior to them, the males at the age of 17 were drafted to go fight the Americans or Chinese, or some even in Europe. John Bradley shows readers the brutality of the
The study of culture is very important to our society, as we have been studying our past and identities for as long as we can recall. Studying our cultures allows us to understand each other as a people, so we can comprehend what we have done, and possibly, what we may do. As we study American popular culture, we see something that began as almost nothing, to a group of patterns that has captured the minds of not only the American people themselves, but the whole world, as well.
When comparing cultures, one must form a definition of what culture is. Culture can be easily defined as the social behavior and normality’s found in human societies. It can also be easily made up of a composed arrangement of educated conduct and thought designs. Culture is a sorted out framework since it includes many parts. Throughout the world, there are many cultures that are both very different and also very similar. "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at table, how we greet visitors, how we behave and one million other things." (Cristina De Rossi.)
Everybody has their own definition of Culture – and when this word is used generally, most audiences have a rough idea of its meaning. Culture usually refers to the beliefs, ideas, languages, rituals and traditions by certain communities, that are passed from generation to generations continuously over the past many centuries. In society, two cultures cannot be same if one is located on the west coast and the other one is all the way to the East. As we compare, the American and Indian cultures have very vast differentiation between them. While the culture of America is a mixture of different cultures since each immigrant internally packed his or her previously
Cultural differences effect many aspects of our daily lives. With the many different cultures embedded in the United States, it is important that everyone has an understanding and respect for the melting pot that is encountered daily in our communities, workplaces and schools.
Since we have been in the era of information, we are exposed to and absorb many various information resources. The ubiquity of information has made people feel it is hard to see the differences between popular and academic culture. Hence, the accuracy of the definitions of the two cultures has been hard to distinguish. This study is going to talk about two issuespopular and academic culture. The purpose of this paper is to show some of the differentiations between popular and academic culture, and how these work in the processing and evaluation of information. Moreover, this paper will focus on using analysis toolspurpose, audience, evidence, style &
Every society and culture has different ways of interpreting and defining occurrences by the way their own culture or society functions. “A society’s culture, consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members”(Geertz 242). The rituals, customs, ethics and morals that are attributed to the cultures have caused these differences. To understand how the people of one culture interpret a situation or event, one must evaluate the attributes that a culture has. The criteria that an event is based on changes as one culture applies their own ideas to the given situation. Heroism and violation are two concepts that are easily misinterpreted depending on culture’s ideals. Since cultures