THE SOCIAL
ORGANIZATION OF
POPULAR CULTURE
LESSON 1
POPULAR CULTURE – SOCIOLOGY 86
ROBERT WONSER
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF POP
CULTURE LESSON OVERVIEW
The Sociological Imagination
Some notes about pop culture
What is popular culture?
• Popular?
• Culture?
Why culture is important
Pop culture as a collective activity
Interpretive communities
Producing and consuming popular culture
Three Approaches to the Sociology of Media and
Popular Culture
POPULAR CULTURE
DIFFERS FROM CULTURE
• Culture refers to a particular way of life,
whether of a people, period, a group, or
humanity in general.
• Culture ≠ popular culture (necessarily)
• Popular culture refers to the aesthetic
products created and sold by profitseeking firms operating in the global
entertainment market.
WHAT IS POPULAR
CULTURE?
Culture arises organically from what people do.
Popular culture does this too, but with products
produced by profit seeking firms.
Results in peculiar characteristics:
• Formulaic
• Appeals to ‘mass audiences’
• ‘lowest common denominator’
• Profit-driven
CULTURE
All Culture then is richly symbolic, invested
with meaning and significance.
The meanings attributed to culture are never
simply given but are the product of human
invention, socially constructed and agreed
upon among a demonstrably large number of
society’s members.
Finally, for culture to be sensibly understood it
must be embodied in some kind of
recognizable form.
SOCIALLY
CONSTRUCTED
All reality, including popular culture, is
socially constructed.
Individuals interact with one another in
patterned ways.
From these interactions meaning emerges.
This is the process of social construction.
The meanings become solidified in our
institutions.
SOCIAL
INSTITUTIONS
Social institutions are patterned and
predictable ways of interacting (statuses
and roles) that are the product of human
invention but once created, exist outside of
any individual.
‘The media’, as in the institutions which
create, coopt and produce popular cultural
content (like movies, tv and music) are
examples of an institution.
ART WORLDS
Art World is composed of all the people involved in
the production, commission, preservation, promotion,
criticism, and sale of art.
Howard S. Becker describes it as "the network of
people whose cooperative activity, organized via their
joint knowledge of conventional means of doing
things, produce(s) the kind of art works that art world
is noted for" (Becker, 1982).
Sarah Thornton describes it as "a loose network of
overlapping subcultures held together by a belief in
art. They span the globe but cluster in art capitals like
New York, London, Los Angeles, and Berlin."
POPULAR CULTURE AS
COLLECTIVE ACTIVITY
Artworlds are networks of participants whose
combined efforts create movies, novels, musical
compositions, comic books, advertising and so forth.
‘scenes’
• ‘When an artist creates they create with the
conventions and modalities of a scene in mind
• This is learned, sounds like a ‘generalized other’ in
Mead’s terms
• ex: jazz as improvisational
Division of labor
• Ex: closing credits on a movie
IT TAKES A
COLLECTIVE
Pop culture is never the product of a
solitary artist but always emerges from
a collective activity generated by
interlocking networks of cultural
creators.
Popular culture is produced,
consumed, and experienced within a
context of overlapping sets of social
relationships.
POP CULTURE IS
MICRO AND MACRO
Popular Culture is not just a macro level
phenomenon.
It is also comprised of micro level
interactions.
For example: you and your friends
INTERPRETATION
Audiences draw on their own social
circumstances when attributing meaning and
value to popular culture.
These meanings are patterned according to
persistent systems of social organization
structured by differences in socioeconomic
status, nationality, race, ethnicity, gender,
sexuality, religion, or age.
These are called interpretive communities
Though, often a dominant ideology reigns
SO, WHICH OPINION
IS CORRECT?
Bieber is Awesome! Nah, Bieber sucks!
Meaning, interpretation and value are not
ultimately decided by the creators of media
and popular culture (though they do have
some input), but by its consumers.
Cultural objects are multivocal because
they say different things to different people.
MEDIA, WITH OTHER
PEOPLE
Most media is consumed in the presence of
others as collective activities
Could you imagine a concert, movie, etc
with no one else present?
• Ex: book clubs, televised events,
MMORPGs, viewing parties.
PRODUCING AND CONSUMING
POPULAR CULTURE
Who does what?
Distinctions between cultural
consumption and production are
blurring (ex: youtube mashups)
The tools of pop culture making
are being democratized
The creator’s control of how
enterprising consumers actually
make use of cultural objects in
the real world is diminishing
1966: Adam
West’s
portrayal of
Batman was
intended to be
serious, not
campy.
THREE APPROACHES TO THE
SOCIOLOGY OF MEDIA AND
POPULAR CULTURE
Functionalist approach illustrates how culture
“functions” as the social glue that generates
solidarity and cohesion within human groups
and societies
Contemporary collective rituals—hs football
games, local parades and pep rallies, award
ceremonies—forge emotional bonds of
recognition, identity, trust, commonality within
communities and other social groups
Pop culture provides the source material for
consumers to communicate with strangers
• Band T-shirts
THREE APPROACHES TO THE
SOCIOLOGY OF MEDIA AND
POPULAR CULTURE
Critical approach maintains that
the ascendance of certain kinds
of popular culture can be
explained primarily in terms of
their ability to reflect and
reinforce the enormous
economic and cultural power of
the mass media industry (and
broadly capitalism itself).
A top-down form of domination
that we actively seek out and
enjoy in our subjugation
Have you ever
wondered why
movies or music
seem derivative
and predictable?
THREE APPROACHES TO THE
SOCIOLOGY OF MEDIA AND
POPULAR CULTURE
Interaction approach
emphasizes the power that
informal processes like
word-of-mouth and peer
influence enjoy in the
cultural marketplace
Consumer tastes are deeply
affected by those around us
Why were initial Friday
ticket sales high but low
later Friday and
Saturday?
THE SOCIOLOGICAL
APPROACH
The sociological imagination is a quality of the mind
that allows its possessor to think in critical manner about
the world with a particular emphasis on the intersection of
history and biography.
Would you be you if your society’s history was different?
Would you be you your biography was different?
• E.g. had you grown up elsewhere, different time or
place, hung around a different crowd
Think about whatever interests you (probably what
motivated you taking this course). How has it made you,
‘you’?
NOSTALGIA
Are you a ‘90’s kid?’
Take Buzzfeed’s quiz
and find out!
Why do we long for the
past?
What role does it play in
consumption today?
CONCLUSION AND
REFLECTION
Understanding pop culture is a way of
understanding society.
• For example, in what ways do your
musical choices highlight your social
position in terms of things like class, age,
race, gender, identity, etc.?