Popular Culture
AP Human Geography
Popular Culture:
A wide-ranging group
of heterogeneous
people, who stretch
across identities and
across the world, and
who embrace cultural
traits such as music,
dance, clothing, and
food preference that
change frequently and
are part of the cultural
landscape.
Madonna wearing a red
string Kabbalah bracelet.
How is Pop Culture Determined?
 By everyday interactions, needs and desires,
the “cultural moments” that make up our daily
lives
Forms of Pop Culture
 Television
 Toys
 Music
 Comic books
 Fashion
 Film
 Food
 Advertising
 Sports
 Cyberspace
Characteristics of popular culture
 Constantly changing
 Based in large, heterogeneous groups of
people
 Based mainly in urban areas
 Material goods mass-produced by machines
in factories
 Prevailing money economy
Characteristics of popular culture
 More numerous individual relationships, but
less personal
 Weaker family structure
 Distinct division of labor with highly
specialized professions and jobs
 Considerable leisure time available to most
people
 Police, army, and courts take the place of
family and church in maintaining order
Popular culture
 If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it
is change

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Words such as growth, progress, fad, and
trend crop up frequently in newspapers and
conversations
Vast majority of people in developed countries
belong to the popular culture
Popular culture
 If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it
is change

Contributions to the spread of popular culture
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Industrialization
Urbanization
Rise of formal education
Increase in leisure time
Increase in technology
Cyberspace
 Perhaps the personal computer and Internet
access have created another new type of
place
 Certain words we use imply it has a
geography—”Cyberspace”
 The information superhighway connects not
two points, but all points, creating a new sort
of place
 Encourages and speeds cultural diffusion
Internet Connections
Food and drink
 What we eat and drink differs markedly from one part
of the country and world to another
 Difference in alcoholic drink consumption in the
United States

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Beer has highest per capita consumption levels in the
West
Least beer is sold in the Lower South and Utah
Whiskey, both legal and illegal, has been a traditional
southern beverage
Californians place more importance on wine
Food and drink
 Foods vary across North America

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In the South, barbecued pork and beef, fried
chicken, and hamburgers have greater than
average popularity
More pizza is consumed in the North

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Focus of Italian immigration
Pizza diffused to the southern states only in the
mid-1950s
Food and drink
 Importance of fast food restaurants varies
greatly within the United States

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Stronghold is in the South — 57 percent in
Mississippi
Northeast has lowest rate of such eateries —
27 percent in New York and Vermont
Popular music
 The many different styles of popular music all reveal
geographic patterning in levels of acceptance
 Elvis Presley, a generation after his death retains an
important place in American popular culture
Sports
 Abundant leisure time has allowed North Americans
to devote time watching or participating in sports
 Few aspects of popular culture are as widely
publicized as our games
 From Little League through professional contests,
athletics receive almost daily attention from members
of popular culture
 Even fantasy sports now are increasingly important in
pop culture
Sports
 The nineteenth century gave us football, ice
hockey, baseball, soccer, and basketball—
our major spectator sports
 Our folk ancestors played games, but most
were limited to children and little time was
spent on them
 Concept of professional athletes and
admission-paying spectators is not found in
folk culture
Advertising
 Most effective device for popular culture
diffusion
 Commercial advertising of retail products
bombards us visually and orally
 Using psychology, we are sold products we
do not need
Advertising
 Modern advertising is very place-conscious

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Products and services are linked to popular,
admired places
Example of the “Marlboro Man” and the
romanticized American West
Communication barriers to
diffusion
 Spread can be greatly reduced if access to the media is denied
 To control programming of radio and television is to control
much of the diffusion of popular culture
 Government censorship can also provide barriers to diffusion
 Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran during 1995

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Long opposed Western popular culture as a corrupting
influence
Outlawed television satellite dishes to try and prevent citizens
from watching programs broadcast in foreign countries
Consumerism and the link to Pop
Culture
 Consumerism propels the insatiable belief
that we need what we do not have
 A fundamental frame of reference for relating
to oneself, to others, to the environment as a
whole
Consumerism and the link to Pop Culture
 Ideas propelled by the culture industry:
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Last season’s fashions are so last season
Shopping completes us
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Average adult – 48 new pieces of clothing a year,
child – 70 new toys
We can all live like celebrities
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We evaluate our consumption in reference to groups that
live financially beyond our own means (rather than our
neighbors)
Average household credit card debt is $15,799
Beauty and the link to Pop Culture
 Our self-worth is determined by
our looks and cultural norms of
sexual attractiveness
 Airbrushed images of perfected
bodies normalize an
unattainable expectation of
beauty.
Brands and the link to Pop Culture
 Brands matter
 McDonald’s coffee beats Starbuck in
unbiased Consumer Reports taste tests.
 Ramones t-shirts have outsold their cds and
records 10 to 1
 People just want to be cool
Folk Culture
 Refers to cultural traits that are traditional, no
longer widely practiced by a large amount of
people and generally isolated in small, often
rural areas
“TV and the Cloning of Culture”
Close Reading Activity
 You will have the next 12 minutes to close
read and annotate this text.
“TV and the Cloning of Culture”
Close Reading Activity
In Elbow Partners, answer the following questions in your notebooks:
• 1. In what ways did the arrival of the television hurt the culture of the
Inuit?
• 2. Why did the Canadian government want the Inuit to be exposed to
television?
• 3. How did men and women appear to be affected differently by the
arrival of television and other aspects of “modernization”?
• 4. What does Jerry Mander think should be done about the destruction
of indigenous culture?
• 5. What do you think should be done?
• 6. Mander attributes the decline of traditional culture to the arrival of
television. What other factors could it be?
• 7. Mander discusses the values that people learn from tv. Think about
the last time you watched tv (with commercials) and write down what it
is that people on TV appear to value.