Key Concepts Lecture and Seminar #2

LECTURE
The second lecture from the Key Concepts module was, in short, asking the question "what is 'Mass Culture' and why is it important?"

First off we looked at some very basic representation where we were shown images of Audrey Hepburn and Katie Price wearing similar clothing, yet the opinions formed were different. Was this because of context, because I know who they are? Not neccesarily, Audrey Hepburn's make up was very natural and understated, whereas on the other hand Katie Price was bright orange and incredibly artificial. Hepburn adopted a very elegant look in her tiara, whereas Price looked as if she would rather have it hanging out of a wheelie bin down a dark alley as a 'Do Not Disturb' sign.

The issue of 'taste' is an interesting one- one one hand it is considered as natural and seen as an expression of individuality that offers group status and identity, yet on the other people try to pick out what is good or bad, high quality or low quality. To be considered of a high quality, something has to be informative, it has to drive the brain to greater achievements instead of making you dribble your brains away in a gormless state. An example of what would be considered high quality would be the current series of documentaries about the armed forces on BBC 4; these are seen as informative and eye opening. Low quality television would be Big Brother where watching mindless idiots argue and sleeze around is somehow considered entertaining, but it's this sort of thing that has mass appeal - it draws attention because it's easy to watch and occassionally controversial.

Pier Bourieu asks how logic and preference work and he challenges innate taste and 'authentic' sensibility. He suggests that tastes and notions of quality are socially constructed by groups to gain status. For example, you may find that every Saturday night a group of friends will suddenly adapt the title 'X FACTOR 4 LYF' and watch the show together. This cultural preference works through cultural distinction, the idea that knowledge and competence are displayed through consumer taste.

Bourieu continues and introduces the idea of 'Cultral Capital' - how much is this cultural knowledge worth? It's almost implying that capitalism is not just money related, but also what can be adapted to be money, be it culture or knowledge of the apes in the BB house. This is the symbolic capital of power; people who know more about these things are considered more interesting and entertaining than the squares who watch the Parliament channel. This leads on to my next point: cultural hierarchy. This is where, like society, the quality of taste is labelled by who watches it and inhales it. Legitimate taste is linked to the upper classes, this could be anything from polo to water polo. Middle brow taste is generally considered to be the middle class daily mail readers who enjoy Lois Theroux documentaries more than I'm a Massive Dipshit, GET ME OUT OF HERE. It's popular culture, such as Dipshit, that is chained to the working classes. Cultural value can decline over time and it's not uncommon for yesterdays popular cultural knowledge to be deemed as useless today, purely because the world of culture is advancing at a rapid pace. People can get left behind and that's what inspires them to watch more of this crap to try to keep up. They have to prove that they really are X Factor 4 lyf.

It's important to note that these cultural values can shift and the lines are much more blurred now than they ever have been: a football fan can be a hooligan by day but enjoy the theatre by night. Take the example of Paul Potts, the Britain's Got Talent star who took opera into popular: did he tread the boards of the stage by day? No, he plodded around on the laminate flooring of a mobile phone shop. He is not considered to be of a high class, yet he listened to opera, and in an even worse turn of events for the upper classes, he took it to the masses by appearing on a popular TV show and winning it.

Shock value has changed over the years. A painting by Manet depicting a prostitute was seen as garish in the 19th Century, yet now we consider it a work of art. In modern times, photographic nudity is considered much more vile and disgusting, although I don't understand it as everyone embraces it at some point in their lives.

Cultural capital can be gained and the best example of this is the Beatles. We all know them as a legendary band who revolutionised music, yet they started off as a mere garage band who were getting rejected by record labels who thought that guitar music was going out of date. 50 years later and Martin Scorsese is making a film about George Harrison, the drummer. Scorsese is viewed as an 'elite' member of the public and the cultural significance of the Beatles is further enhanced by having his name taped to the film.

Music fans are an example of discourses of mass culture as they might not abide to mass culture because they want to stand out more. They revel in their lack of cultural capital. Instead they gain subcultural capital. An example of this would be goths. They aren't cool. They aren't hip. They don't care. They're more than happy to walk around in black and look 'different'. It's this subcultural capital that I feel is far more important than mass cultural capital as it represents individuality, they aren't joining the crowd, they're embracing how different they are.

Recognising that culture is political is of high importance. In WW2 there were two agencies that protected culture to make sure that people weren't getting bored, CEMA for the elite forms of art that the higher classes enjoyed, and ENSA to entertain the troops with low-brow entertainment that is considered low in quality.

After the war however, it seemed that the upper classes got their way: ENSA was dropped and CEMA became the Art Council of Britain. However, these seem to provide more for everyone now as theatre, ballet and art has become more accessible for the lower classes. A review by Hall states that culture is "struggled over and not imposed from above," although the above contradicts it. He could mean that people fight for their culture when the government try to cut it.

SEMINAR

A very relevant point I made in the seminar is the popular culture is driven by capital gain. Using the example of X Factor, Simon Cowell makes his money through people phoning up and voting for certain acts to stay in the competition. On top of this he gets money for the ratings the show produces and more importantly still, the show continues to bring him considerable income after it has finished because people will go out and buy the album and the single of the winner. The single is usually Christmas number 1, although one year it was beaten off by a mass rebellion which started on Facebook, making Raging Against the Machine's Killing in the Name Of number one over the festive period instead.

Mass culture tends to swamp smaller cultures with big money. Record labels for example are offered large sums of money to sell themselves to the big boys, as it were. Although they have a choice and don't have to "sell out" it is usually in their best interests to due to the money involved.

Americanisation is a key term in mass culture. This is the idea that everything culturally significant derives from America and is implemented into the cultures of other countries and societies. There are clear examples of such standardisation in the likes of McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, brands that are known worldwide not just by name, but by logos and slogans too. It's obviously hard for Britain not to be influenced by America - we both speak the same language and Britain colonised the States. The advancement of American culture on the rest of Europe and indeed, the world, is down to the power and size of the U.S.A. and it's involvements in many worldly affairs, be it war or peace, starvation or genocide. The country has large opinions and even larger actions that American superstars such as Kanye West, Beyonce and Rhianna can ride on to access the rest of the world. This leads them to make more money, stimulating the link between capitalism and mass culture.

T.S Elliot and McDonald argue that mass culture has no intellectual worth, that it's engulfed by the brain-dead and there's no effort required to consume it. I can see where they're coming on here, especially in relation to Big Brother. In my opinion, anyone who wants to be on Big Brother should be taken to a remote area, let's say the moon, and nuked. I don't understand why people would subject themselves to such ridicule. Money is a huge factor and that, again, shows how mass culture is driven by the capitalist world.

Such critics also say that audiences are passive and that they'll swallow anything that's thrown at them. Others would argue that people use this form of entertainment as escapism, getting away from their crummy lives for ninety minutes every Saturday night. Critics would retort that this is seen as giving in.

In Strinati's book 'An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture' he places the growth of mass culture in the context of the industrial revolution. He suggests that people lose the close relationships they had in rural communities (small culture) when they get sucked into the big cities for work (mass culture). He states that people become atomized and lonely, in other words, they become nobodies in a sprawling world of consumers and capital gain. He also says that art and culture become industrialised. Using modern examples, it's very easy to see his point. Taking the Beatles again, it is so easy and to download an mp3 on iTunes for 99p, but the original works of art, the tapes, would now be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

McDonald states that folk culture is diminishing. However, it is easy to argue this as the gypsy culture remains strong, although they are fighting vigorously to defend their folk roots. The likes of morris dancing and authentic folk music are also being engulfed by mass culture through events such as village fetes. People in the modern era are more interested in their roots now than they used to be. Maybe they feel that they owe it to themselves to find out how their ancestors spent their time.

We were split into groups to discuss how we could critique the critics of mass culture, here's what we came up with:

Stereotypes are created that aren't always applicable. Just because a footballer is considered 'stupid' it doesn't mean he can't embrace higher culture such as theatre and art work. There are increasingly more footballers now with a degree, although there are some classic examples of thugs and rapists within the game. I feel that they should be kicked out the game for good once convicted as they are constantly in the public eye and admired by kids everywhere.

We used My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding as an example too. This is a TV show that follows gypsy families and their weddings, which draw significant amounts of attention due to the size of the brides dress. People are interested in this, but I feel that this is only becaus it is being thrown at them in a reality TV style show. If it was a 'true' documentary it would not get half as many viewers. It does however, show how folk culture can be incorporated into the masses to keep it alive.

Mass culture can give people a sense of hope. The best example of this is X Factor, which picks out incredible singing talent and opens doors to them if they're good enough. This shows that audiences may be more clever than they are given credit for as they know that this could be their big break. It's such an easy opportunity to grasp. Critics would argue back that this makes them lazy, but they can't be as it takes so much practise to train your voice to sing.

Critics tend to ignore the relationship between gender, taste and power. This is a big mistake as the powerful people are more likely to have been brought up on opera and theatre, than FIFA and drugs. It is what is considered good in your upbringing that should stand dominant. A monarch would think that a shipment of Class A drugs is bad, but Sid on the council estate and his friends may love the idea. Social power differs within each group and what is important also differs.

Finally, mass culture theory assumes that good and bad are definitively fixed and there is no changing them. However, this isn't the case, jazz music for example used to be considered 'black' and working class in the 1920's, but nowadays it is considered as a high art form. If anything, this demonstrates how mass culture has helped form our multi-cultural society and in turn how it could have played a part in erasing the racial issues that have blighted much of history.