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In an earlier section we talked about the
principle of cultural relativism.
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In other words, the idea that different cultures
exist at the same time.
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Even though all of these cultural realities are
equally valid,
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some are more popular than others.
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Popular cultures are communicated on a large
scale and both through personal
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and mediated communication.
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The umbrella term for these types of cultures is
pop culture.
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Scientists are, for very different reasons,
interested in the study of pop culture.
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They study carriers of pop culture,
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like songs, movies, literature, game shows,
video games
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basically everything that is deemed popular and
communicates
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mainstream values, ideas and ‘truths’.
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Interest in the field of popculture has increased
since the sixties.
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I want to briefly discuss this research theme
with you.
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Why are we actually interested in pop culture?
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Well, for many different reasons.
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I’ll name a few without any particular order:
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Pop culture is often seen as a reflection of
mainstream society.
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The idea is, if we study pop culture we learn how
society works,
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which rules and truths are in place and where
power resides.
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Do you recognize the influence of social
constructionism here?
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To continue this line of thought,
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pop culture is considered a building block of a
shared social reality.
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Some scholars oppose to the reflection thesis.
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They argue that pop culture is actually artificially
created.
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It is in fact a fake culture, or a fake
consciousness.
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It is not a reflection of mass society but in fact
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something created by powerful members of the
elite,
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who control the media landscape.
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These powerful few created pop culture to keep
themselves in power.
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that’s – according to this theory - the main
function of pop culture,
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to maintain the current power structures.
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So pop culture is designed to keep the masses
ignorant.
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To distract the audience
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and keep their thoughts away from the unfair
distribution of wealth and power in the world.
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Pop culture is used to teach people to obey the
law and obey powerful institutions.
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It is used to screen us from reality, to keep
some knowledge from the public agenda
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and keep people’s mind on other
inconsequential things
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like scandals involving actors or rock stars,
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or what’s going to happen on tomorrow’s soap
opera.
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This also explains why pop culture according to
many scholars
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does not provoke thought, is unoriginal and of
low quality.
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This theory was first developed by members of
the Frankfurter School.
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A group of loosely affiliated scientists
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that were particularly active in the nineteen
twenties, forties and sixties.
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They were not only scientists but also very
politically active.
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Their theories and findings were often used to
show the need
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for social change and emancipation.
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Frankfurter scholars were often accused of being
Marxist.
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And not without reason.
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Indeed, the Frankfurter School tried to explain
why the revolution that Marx had predicted,
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where labourers of the world would revolt, hadn’t
happened.
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Their answer in a nutshell:
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because pop culture, communicated through
mass media, is specifically created to prevent it.
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To keep us docile.
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In a way, the media serve as ‘opium for the
people’,
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creating a passive audience that is unlikely to
start a revolution.
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If you want to connect theories, this Frankfurter
approach actually fitted nicely
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with the old mass audience paradigm that we
covered in week 3.
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This traditional audience paradigm saw the
masses as
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passive and unable to select and block
messages.
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Even though the Frankfurter School does not
have many supporters today,
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their negative views on popular culture are often
seen as somewhat elitist.
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It is historically important because
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they were the first to focus their questions on
how pop culture was created
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and how it related to a larger societal context.
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We’ll talk about several more modern
approaches to pop culture in our next section.