In Fiske's essay, "Popular Culture," he makes a very astute observation in that there is a distinction between popular culture and other cultures such as "high" culture and "mass" culture. Contrary to mass culture which is the saturation of a society by industry's products and ideals, popular culture is the use of mass culture to satisfy the individual wants of that specific person. It usually takes the form of a piece of mass culture and then redefined in terms that relates to that specific indivual or collective group. Thus, certain works of mass culture will relate differently to different classes of individuals and groups.
Likewise, "high" culture is also different from "popular" culture, according to Fiske, in that high culture usually is a work that embodies some universal truth. It transcends the popular and "low" class of work and is able to be assimilated through many different cultures because it is universal. This is contrary to popular culture, because popular culture deals only with the specific. It can only be made upon the "mundane" because it is only when built upon the mundane can popular culture be made to matter. As Fiske elaborates, "culture is ordinary, and the ordinary is highly significant" (335).
No comments:
Post a Comment