Introduction to Communication Science week 5: 5.4 Popular Culture: Reflection or Illusion?

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Transcript of all Week 5 videos: https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/commscience/transcripts%2FTranscript_Week_5%20Coursera.pdf

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Subtitle text: https://class.coursera.org/commscience-001/lecture/subtitles?q=81_en&format=txt

Video mp4: https://class.coursera.org/commscience-001/lecture/download.mp4?lecture_id=81
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Week 5 description:
Communication as a social and cultural force
In the fifth week we cover theoretical approaches that understand communication processes as social and cultural forces, as building blocks of reality, and a binding element of power in society.

In an earlier section we talked about the
principle of cultural relativism.

In other words, the idea that different cultures
exist at the same time.

Even though all of these cultural realities are
equally valid,

some are more popular than others.

Popular cultures are communicated on a large
scale and both through personal

and mediated communication.

The umbrella term for these types of cultures is
pop culture.

Scientists are, for very different reasons,
interested in the study of pop culture.

They study carriers of pop culture,

like songs, movies, literature, game shows,
video games

basically everything that is deemed popular and
communicates

mainstream values, ideas and ‘truths’.

Interest in the field of popculture has increased
since the sixties.

I want to briefly discuss this research theme
with you.

Why are we actually interested in pop culture?

Well, for many different reasons.

I’ll name a few without any particular order:

Pop culture is often seen as a reflection of
mainstream society.

The idea is, if we study pop culture we learn how
society works,

which rules and truths are in place and where
power resides.

Do you recognize the influence of social
constructionism here?

To continue this line of thought,

pop culture is considered a building block of a
shared social reality.

Some scholars oppose to the reflection thesis.

They argue that pop culture is actually artificially
created.

It is in fact a fake culture, or a fake
consciousness.

It is not a reflection of mass society but in fact

something created by powerful members of the
elite,

who control the media landscape.

These powerful few created pop culture to keep
themselves in power.

that’s – according to this theory - the main
function of pop culture,

to maintain the current power structures.

So pop culture is designed to keep the masses
ignorant.

To distract the audience

and keep their thoughts away from the unfair
distribution of wealth and power in the world.

Pop culture is used to teach people to obey the
law and obey powerful institutions.

It is used to screen us from reality, to keep
some knowledge from the public agenda

and keep people’s mind on other
inconsequential things

like scandals involving actors or rock stars,

or what’s going to happen on tomorrow’s soap
opera.

This also explains why pop culture according to
many scholars

does not provoke thought, is unoriginal and of
low quality.

This theory was first developed by members of
the Frankfurter School.

A group of loosely affiliated scientists

that were particularly active in the nineteen
twenties, forties and sixties.

They were not only scientists but also very
politically active.

Their theories and findings were often used to
show the need

for social change and emancipation.

Frankfurter scholars were often accused of being
Marxist.

And not without reason.

Indeed, the Frankfurter School tried to explain
why the revolution that Marx had predicted,

where labourers of the world would revolt, hadn’t
happened.

Their answer in a nutshell:

because pop culture, communicated through
mass media, is specifically created to prevent it.

To keep us docile.

In a way, the media serve as ‘opium for the
people’,

creating a passive audience that is unlikely to
start a revolution.

If you want to connect theories, this Frankfurter
approach actually fitted nicely

with the old mass audience paradigm that we
covered in week 3.

This traditional audience paradigm saw the
masses as

passive and unable to select and block
messages.

Even though the Frankfurter School does not
have many supporters today,

their negative views on popular culture are often
seen as somewhat elitist.

It is historically important because

they were the first to focus their questions on
how pop culture was created

and how it related to a larger societal context.

We’ll talk about several more modern
approaches to pop culture in our next section.