Defining culture

• "One of the two or three most complicated words in the English language" (Williams, 1976)
  • Wide ranging through history, academic disciplines & systems of thought
• Etymology: to inhabit, cultivate, protect, honor with worship -- medieval processes reflected in definition
  • Originally, a process or tending of something, whether home, crop, individual or deity
  • Prior to the 1700s, "culture" acted in similar fashion to "civilization": contrasted with barbarism and part of a state of development
  • Modern scholars have criticized this approach as being West-centric and not applied the approach to so-called primitive cultures
• During the nineteenth century, culture moved from particular processes to more general understanding
  • Some were inclusionary...
    • Eg., Edward Burnett Tylor, a founder of ethnography, anthropology:
      • Definition (1871): Culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of the society"
  • ... others were exclusionary.
    • Eg., Matthew Arnold, a poet and cultural critic:
      • Definition (1860): Culture as the "the best that has been thought and said in the world"
  • Definitions still vary greatly.
• General summary: Very little in human society is not the product of some form of culture
  • Far-reaching & imprecise
  • Broadness of term requires modern subdefinitions by both type and academic discipline

Culture within academic fields

• Cultural anthropology
  • Within the larger study of human beings (anthropology), established during late 1800s (Tylor, etc.)
  • Through fieldwork, examine, collect and observe lived culture and its artifacts
    • Behavior, dance, language, relationships
    • Pottery, instruments, weapons
  • Nancy Franklin article: Audience as anthropologists "secretly observing a new tribe" -- the participants in reality shows like "Jersey Shore"
    • TV programmers present behavior foreign from our own for observation
    • Allows for satiricial perspective about participants: Onion News Network clip
  • Margaret Mead
    • Coming of Age in Samoa (1928)
    • Mead conceived culture as being the "learned behavior of a society or subgroup"
    • BBC clip: Samoan fieldwork and her lasting reputation
• Cultural studies
  • A twentieth-century concept that originated at the U of Birmingham in 1964 -- following introduction of electronic technologies (radio, TV, broadcast music, etc.)
  • Most often examines symbolic systems contained in cultural forms/texts
  • Borrows heavily from other disciplines, whether anthropology, psychology, literary criticism, musicology, linguistics, etc.
  • Methods of study include textual analysis, ethnography (study of specific human cultures), survey research, psychoanalysis
• Mass communication: naturally closer to the cultural studies model
  • Communication examined as series of symbols contained in language, image and sound
  • Communication institutions also studied, which may be closer to anthropological research (such as looking at the culture of a newsroom)

Classification of culture

High culture

• Historical (pre-20th century)
  • A definition that became necessary with relative widespread literacy during the 1700s
    • Considered the traditional understanding of "culture"
    • Prior to enlightenment, only aristocracy could understand or access what were considered cultural materials
      • Costs of culture, literacy prevented widespread understanding of "culture" (which was limited to high culture)
      • Culture = civilization; The civilized = the aristocracy
      • Culture was distinguished from folk art in form, participants
    • As general public became culturally literate, it was necessary to divide high culture from more common material
• Contemporary (20th century, onward)
  • Understood as "finer" art and culture -- eg. opera, classical music -- often found in "high-brow" institutions such as museums or symphonies
    • Some consider high art to have greater complexity and richness than "lower" cultural forms, both contemporarily and historically (esp. Arnold, The Leavisites)
    • Classical music, opera, ballet; some literature, film
  • Present in mass/pop culture, which "mines" high culture
    • Eg. Simpsons episode, "Mr. Plow"
      • Koyaanisqatsi reference (Godfrey Reggio / Philip Glass)
      • Casta Diva/Norma reference (1830s opera)
  • Cultural conservatives lament the movement toward popular culture and away from high culture
    • Criticism of use: Mass culture "'mines' High Culture ... extracting its riches and putting nothing back." (MacDonald)
    • Leavis (1930): Only a discerning minority are capable of judgment of high culture, which will be eventually replaced by mass/pop culture

Folk culture

• Characteristics
  • Community-based culture that is reliant on the oral tradition for transmission
    • As oral tradition, it evolves with time and lacks a "official" or often an original text
    • Through generations, story/song/art is modified by participants and creators
  • Physically localized with strong sense of place -- limited to geographic area, limited group of individuals
    • Traditionally, due to lack of technological means of transmission
    • Folk culture discourages media transmission (except in this classroom, where we examine folk culture through mass media)
  • Based on the small group, where individuals have roles
    • Music: everyone participates -- not the distinct performer/audience relationship our culture most often embraces
    • Stories: everyone tells, listens, contributes and passes on through time
    • Other examples: material goods (eg. quilts), dance (powwows), clothing (native tribal regalia), spiritual rites
  • Usually associated with common classes -- not the elite of the high culture -- often representative vernacular employed
• Informs popular culture
  • Folk culture produces replicable material for pop/mass culture
    • Stories (eg. Biblical)
    • Music
    • Other art: dance, craft, etc. (eg. Cost Plus World Market brand)
  • Consider: Roots of 50s/60s folk = Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music
    • Formerly obscure musicians recorded late 20s/early 30s; preserved by Smith
    • Shared by musicians in 50s/60s Greenwich Village, which eventually led to introduction in mass/popular culture
  • Example: Casey Jones
  • Initially a historical figure & engineer who dies in a trainwreck while saving another's life
  • In song, initially folk song based upon witness accounts
    • "Kassie Jones" (Furry Lewis) in the Anthology of American Folk Music
  • Moves to mass/pop culture via several means
    • TV show
    • Johnny Cash
    • Grateful Dead

Mass or popular culture

• Disagreement if same idea; many similarities exist though
  • Popular: decided by people?
  • Mass: determined by production, distribution?
• Origins with modernization, mass production and consumption of goods
  • Followed the industrial revolution
  • As with other goods, culture could replicated, more widely distributed
  • As technology progressed and progresses distribution becomes less difficult
• Mediated culture
  • Between producer and audience by media (and gatekeepers)
  • It is commodified, marketed, consumed
    • Commercial basis, impacts material: "Mass art is produced for profit and the pursuit of profit determines its form and content" (Frith)
    • Its product is meant to be appealing to the audience, and thus sell recordings or tickets
  • Technological mediation
• Other characteristics
  • Is is not geographically restricted
  • It often reflects identities of producers, consumers
  • It sometimes results in subcultures or segmented types of popular culture
  • Encompasses many methods of production and distribution: news, advertising, music, film, television, online, commercial goods

Not strict categorizations

• Three above categories not mutually exclusive
  • Folk culture can be reintroduced as popular culture
  • High culture can inform popular culture
  • With historical and technological advances, works redefined
• Consider Robin Hood -- the English folk subject later introduced in British and American popular culture through TV series, movies
  • Initially subject of English ballads, which remain primary material for studying RH
  • Through oral tradition, story changes through history from merciless outlaw to contemporary hero
  • Groups, communities adopt his legacy, reproduce material goods, recreate scenes
• During 1900s, RH moves to popular culture:
  • Trailers: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938); Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993)
• In-class material: History's Mysteries: The True Story of Robin Hood

Figures

Tylor

Mead

Williams