Theories of Popular Culture

Theories of Popular Culture

• Popular culture has multiple meanings: political systems run by the people, low/basic, or well-liked/favoured.
• Culture is defined in different ways: way of life (laws, customs, languages), creative/artistic activity (painting, music), or spiritual enlightenment and intellectual development.
• Cultural studies draw on the humanities and look at popular culture, identity, community, and struggles.
• The relationship between high culture and low culture rejects a strict division, viewing both as interconnected.

The Birmingham School

• Focused on popular culture, subcultures, and authoritarian politics and movements.
• Views culture as a site of resistance and negotiation, where different social groups struggle over meaning, identity, and power.
• Uses textual analysis to examine texts (words and images), viewing culture as a system of signs and meanings.

Audience Reception Studies

• Methods include ethnographic research, surveys, polls, and focus groups.
• View audiences as actively interpreting media, sometimes resisting dominant meanings.
• Criticisms include neglecting ownership and economics, over-focusing on textual analysis, and romanticizing the "active audience."

Political Economy

• Draws upon social sciences and looks at ownership, production, and labor.
• The Frankfurt School focuses on mass culture, fascism, the culture industry, and how culture is shaped by capitalist interests, used for ideological control.
• Pop culture commodities are non-rivalrous (not consumed by one person), intangible, non-excludable (available to anyone), have externalities (impact beyond buyers and sellers), and have a cultural use-value (emotional/experiential significance beyond monetary value.)
• Production, financing, distribution, and marketing are controlled by private corporations who seek profit.

Lecture 2: Film and Political Economy

• The Studio System (1920s-1960s) comprised major (MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, RKO) and minor (Universal, Columbia, United Artists) studios controlling the industry through theater chains and limited competition.
• Studios controlled costs using block booking (forcing theaters to buy packages of films) and long-term actor contracts.
• The Paramount Decree (1948) forced studios to sell off theaters and banned block booking.
• Rise of television and acquisition by conglomerates ended the system.

Lecture 3: TV and Technology

• Network Era (1950s-mid-1980s): Dominated by three major networks (NBC, ABC, CBS), limited channels, cheap sets, programming supported by sponsors and ads, passively consumed, family-oriented shows
• Later Network Era (Early 1980s-Late 1990s): "Quality" TV emerged, more networks and choices, continued episodic storytelling, family-friendly shows, relied on continuous programming, focus on flow
• Multichannel Transition (Late 1990s–2000s): Shift to non-linear viewing (time-shifting), audience fragmentation, premium cable (HBO), serialized storytelling, larger screens, improved sound, viewers can watch previous episodes, TV screens became larger with improved resolution
• Post-Network Era (2007-Present): Streaming platforms (Netflix, Apple, Amazon) emerged major producers, blur of lines between TV, film, and social media, streaming services dominate, shows are often available anywhere, anytime.