Paper 2:
Culture & Identity
> Topic 1:
=> The meaning & importance of culture
> Topic 2:
=> The concept of identity
> Topic 3:
=> Socialisation & resocialisation, Primary & secondary socialisation, Agencies of
secondary socialisation
> Topic 4:
=> Social class & identity, Gender & identity ,Sexuality & I dentity, Ethnicity &
identity, Nationality & identity, Disability & identity ,Young people & identity
> Topic 5:
=> Production & identity, Consumption & identity, Globalisation & identity
,> Topic 1:
=> The meaning & importance of culture; Dominant culture; Subculture; Folk culture; High culture;
Mass, popular & low culture; The changing distinction betw een high culture & popular culture;
The globalisation of culture: Global culture
The meaning & importance of culture:
Term 'culture' - used by sociologists to refer to the language, beliefs, values & norms,
customs, dress, diet, roles, knowledge & skills, and all other things that people learn
which make up their 'way of life' in any society.
Wide differences between the cultures of societies.
Culture – passed on from one generation to the next through socialisation which allows
individuals to fit into the society in which they live; acts as a link between individual &
society. Many aspects of everyday life are shared by most members of society. Range of different
aspects of culture within this general concept of culture, such as subculture and dominant, folk, high,
low, popular, mass & global cultures.
Dominant culture:
Dominant culture of a society refers to the main culture in a society, Dominant Culture – refers to the
which is shared (or accepted without opposition) by majority of
main culture in a society, which is
people. E.g., it might be argued that the main features of British
culture include it being white, patriarchal & unequal, with those who
shared, or accepted without
are white & male having things they regard as worthwhile as more opposition, by majority of people.
important than those who are female or from a minority ethnic
group. Similarly, the rich & powerful (mainly white & male) are in a position to have their views of
what is valuable & worthwhile in a culture regarded as more important & given higher status than
others.
Subculture:
Subculture – smaller culture held by
Small societies (such as small villages) may share a common culture
a group of people within the main or way of life. However, in larger & more complicated societies –
culture of society, in some ways numerous smaller groups may emerge within the larger society, with
different from the main culture but, some differences in beliefs, values, norms & way of life. Each group
in many aspects, common. having these differences = subculture. A few subcultures may be
Examples – Travelers, gay people, different from the dominant culture in some ways as well as in
different social class & minority active opposition to it. In such cases, they may be called subcultures
ethnic groups. of resistance. For example, Willis (1977) found an anti-school
subculture in his study of a group of working-class lads, in which
Subculture of resistance is one that resistance to schooling & the culture of the school was highly valued.
not only has some differences from Among younger South Asians & African Caribbeans, ethnic subcultures
may form as a way of resisting racism & disadvantage. Hall &
the dominant culture, but also is in
Jefferson (1976) saw particular youth subcultural styles (mods,
active opposition to it.
skinheads, punks) as forms of resistance to dominant culture.
Folk Culture:
Folk culture – culture created by local communities & is rooted in the Folk culture – the culture created
experiences, customs & beliefs of the everyday life of ordinary people. by local communities & is rooted in
It is 'authentic' rather than manufactured – it is actively created by the experiences, customs & beliefs
ordinary people themselves. Often involves the active participation & of the everyday life of ordinary
involvement of people, rather than simply being something produced people.
by others for passive consumption. Examples – traditional folk music,
folk songs, storytelling & folk dances which are passed on from one generation to the next by
socialisation & often by direct experience. Folk culture – generally associated with pre-industrial or
early industrial societies. Still lingers on today among enthusiasts in the form of folk music & folk
clubs, & the Morris dancing which features in many rural events.
High culture refers to cultural High Culture:
products seen to be of lasting High culture – generally seen as being superior to other forms of
culture. Refers to aspects of culture that are seen as of lasting
artistic or literary value, which are
artistic or literary value, aimed at small, intellectual elites,
particularly admired & approved predominantly upper-class & middle-class groups, interested in new
of by elites & predominantly the ideas, critical discussion & analysis, & who have what some regard as
upper & the upper-middle classes. 'good taste'. High culture – seen as something set apart from
everyday life, something special, to be treated with respect &
An elite is a small group holding reverence, involving things of lasting value & part of a heritage which
great power & privilege in society. is worth preserving. High culture products often found in special
places like art galleries, museums, concert halls & theatres.
Examples of high culture products include serious news programmes & documentaries, classical music
like that of Mozart or Beethoven, the theatre, opera, ballet, jazz, foreign language or specialist 'art'
films & what has become established literature – work of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen or Shakespeare
& visual art – such as Monet, Gauguin, Picasso or Van Gogh.
,Mass, Popular & Low Culture:
Mass/popular/low culture – generally contrasted with high culture. Mass culture (popular/low culture)
Term 'low culture' - derogatory to describe popular culture; usage refers to commercially produced
suggests popular/mass culture is of inferior quality to the 'high' culture, involving cultural products
culture of the elite. Term 'popular culture' - often used as an produced for sale to the mass of
alternative, suggesting it is culture liked & enjoyed by ordinary ordinary people. These involve
people, worthy of study, & avoiding & rejecting the suggestion that it mass-produced, standardised,
is somehow of an inferior quality or of lower value than short-lived products, which many
higher culture. Mass/popular culture = product of see as of little lasting value, & which
industrial societies. It is commercially produced culture, demand little critical thought,
spread on a wide scale throughout society, & aimed at
analysis or discussion.
the mass of ordinary people. It lacks roots in their daily
experiences and is commercially manufactured by businesses for
profit rather than created by the community itself & reflecting its
Popular culture refers to the cultural
own experiences of daily life. Often produced for passive consumption products liked & enjoyed by the
rather than active involvement. Strinati (1995) sees mass culture as mass of ordinary people. It is
popular culture involving cultural products for profit by mass - sometimes referred to as mass
production industrial techniques, for sale to & consumption by the culture/low culture.
mass of ordinary people. These mass-produced, standardised products
are generally short-lived & regarded by many as inferior to high culture. Rather than something 'set
apart' & 'special', mass culture – seen as consisting of trivial products, dumbed down to appeal to as
many people as possible, which demand little critical thought, analysis or discussion & are of no lasting
artistic value. Mass culture – everyday popular culture – simple, undemanding, easy-to-understand
entertainment. Often produced on a global scale, appealing to millions of people across local
communities & national divisions, with the media spreading a common mass culture across the globe.
Largely concerned with making money for large corporations, especially the media.
Popular culture – include mass-circulation magazines, with extensive coverage of celebrities &
lifestyles, 'red top' tabloid newspapers (Sun or the Mirror), television soaps & reality TV shows, dramas &
thrillers, popular music, video games, blockbuster feature films for the mass market, romances &
thrillers bought for reading on the beach & websites like Facebook. Such culture – largely seen as
passive & unchallenging, often mindless entertainment, aimed at the largest number of people possible.
Evaluation of popular/mass culture: Low culture is a derogatory term
Popular culture, in the form of mass culture, is often attacked for used to describe mass
diverting people away from more useful activities, for driving down culture/popular culture, suggesting
cultural standards & for harmful effects on mass audiences. Frank &
these are of inferior quality to the
Queenie Leavis (writing between the 1930s & 1960s) had nothing but
contempt for mass culture, which they saw as processed, packaged, high culture of the elite.
trivial & mindless escapist fantasy & inferior to the lasting artistic &
literary value found in high culture. They saw it as ruining the proper use of language, exploiting
people's emotional needs & fears, & encouraging greed & mindless social conformity.
Marxists like Bourdieu (1971) argue that high culture is allegedly superior compared to mass/popular
culture because the dominant class has the power to impose on the rest of society its own cultural
ideas about what counts as good/bad taste, worthwhile knowledge, good books, music, art, films etc.
The rest of society are socialised into accepting the continuing superiority of high culture, although
they themselves are more likely to participate in mass/popular culture, which is regarded by the
dominant class as an inferior & worthless low culture. Some Marxists & critical theorists of the
Frankfurt School also seem to accept the lower status of mass culture. They see mass culture as
simply mass-produced manufactured products imposed on the masses by global businesses for
financial profit. Culture industries produce mass cultural products of little artistic merit to make a
profit & manipulate people into wanting & consuming them through advertising & the media.
MacDonald (1965) - another critic of mass culture. Unlike folk culture, which he saw as authentic &
generated by ordinary people, & high culture, which expressed serious & long -established authentic
cultural values, he saw mass culture as trivial & inauthentic.
Hegemony refers to the acceptance
Those with such views regard popular mass culture as a form of social of the dominant ideology by the rest
control, giving an illusion of choice between a range of similar
of society, as a result of the power of
dumbed-down, standardised, trivial & uncritical media info-
entertainment (information wrapped up to entertain) & escapist the ruling class to persuade others to
fantasy, which maintains the ideological hegemony (or the dominance accept & consent to its ideas.
of a set of ideas) & power of the dominant social class in society. This is because consumers are lulled
into an uncritical, undemanding passivity & mindless social conformity, making them less likely to
challenge the dominant ideas, groups & interests in society. Marcuse (2002 [1964]) suggested
consumption of media-generated mass culture, with its emphasis on relaxation, fun, entertainment &
consumption through advertising, undermined people's ability to think critically about the world. He
saw this as a form of social repression – a means of locking people into the present system,
promoting conformity & a passive acceptance of the way things are, & undermining the potential for
revolutionary action to change society.
, Strinati (1995), a postmodernist, rejects the view of mass/popular culture that sees it diverting people
away from more useful activities, driving down cultural standards & having harmful effects on
consumers. Strinati sees mass culture as popular culture; as having value & as worthy of study. He
doesn't accept the suggestion that there is a single mass culture, which people passively & uncritically
consume & points to a wide diversity & choice within popular culture – which people select from &
critically respond to.
Livingstone (1988) found that the writers & producers of TV soap operas, a form of
popular culture watched by millions, saw them as having positive benefits for society.
They saw them as educating & informing the public about important or controversial
social issues, presenting a range of political opinions, generating public controversies &
discussion, & giving insights into the tough & grim lives of others. Rather than killing off
public debate & lulling mass audiences into uncritical passivity, contemporary soap
operas like Hollyoaks, Eastenders & Coronation Street have generated widespread
critical discussion about issues that might otherwise rarely get aired in public, or only in crude media
stereotypes. E.g., In recent years, the public has been encouraged through soap stories to discuss
issues like child rape, incest, homelessness, false imprisonment, lesbianism, child abuse, domestic
violence, eating disorders, homophobia, racism, bisexuality, religious cults, paedophilia, drug addiction
& relationship breakdown. The controversies surrounding these soap stories have frequently dominated
the headlines of the red-top tabloid press, promoting public discussions that might never otherwise
have happened.
Many of those who consume & enjoy popular culture suggest its critics are basically elitist snobs, who
rank cultural preferences on a 'snob-to-snob' scale based on their own cultural preferences. These
snobs simply prefer high culture & have contempt for what they regard as the slob culture of the
masses.
The Changing Distinction between High Culture & Popular Culture:
Strinati (1995) & other postmodernists argue that the distinction between high culture & popular
culture is weakening.
Mass-communication technology:
- the internet; music downloads; cable, satellite & digital television; film & radio; printing for both
mass production & personal use in the home; the global reach of contemporary media; the mass
production of goods on a world-wide scale; mass consumption; global tourism; & easier international
transportation
All the above make a huge range of media & cultural products available to everyone. Such changes &
technology in industrial societies make cultural products of all kinds almost infinitely reproducible &
enable original music & art & other cultural products to be consumed by the mass of people in their
own homes without visiting specialised institutions such as theatres or art galleries.
High culture is no longer simply the preserve of cultural elites. People now have a wider diversity of
cultural choices & products available to them & can pick 'n' mix from either popular or high culture.
High culture art galleries (like Tate Modern in London) are now attracting huge numbers of visitors,
from very diverse backgrounds. Live opera is not available to the masses, through popular figures like
the OperaBabes, or concerts in the park
Marxists suggest high culture has increasingly become popularised & commercialised as it is forced to
earn its keep (taxpayers' subsidies) by mass consumption & attracting tourists. It has been forced into
becoming fun & inclusive for everyone, not just the middle & upper classes. It is driven to attract
ordinary people to galleries & other temples of high culture for art, theatre & music, with new galleries
often funded by the National Lottery spending of the mass of the population. high culture is now a
commodity, for sale like any of the products of popular culture, with high culture paintings routinely
selling for many millions of pounds to (for most people) hang on the walls of wealthy corporations or
rich private individuals.
Changes have been accompanied by a huge expansion of the media-based creative & cultural industries
– like advertising, television, film, music & web-publishing, which makes the distinction between high
& popular culture meaningless. Elements of high culture have now become part of popular culture.
Elements of popular culture have been incorporated into high culture. There is no longer a real
distinction between high culture & popular culture. Strinati argues there is no longer any agreement
on what distinguishes high culture from popular culture & it is ever more difficult for any one set of
ideas of what is worthwhile culture, as Bourdieu suggested, to dominate in society.
Storey (2003) points out that what is also changing is that members of the dominant class are no
longer only consuming high culture. They now consume much of what they had previously dismissed as
mass culture, and the masses themselves are now consuming high culture through mass production.
E.g., Banksy is a graffiti street artist, but his works of popular culture now change hands for
thousands of pounds, bought by those from higher social classes who can afford such sums.
Culture & Identity
> Topic 1:
=> The meaning & importance of culture
> Topic 2:
=> The concept of identity
> Topic 3:
=> Socialisation & resocialisation, Primary & secondary socialisation, Agencies of
secondary socialisation
> Topic 4:
=> Social class & identity, Gender & identity ,Sexuality & I dentity, Ethnicity &
identity, Nationality & identity, Disability & identity ,Young people & identity
> Topic 5:
=> Production & identity, Consumption & identity, Globalisation & identity
,> Topic 1:
=> The meaning & importance of culture; Dominant culture; Subculture; Folk culture; High culture;
Mass, popular & low culture; The changing distinction betw een high culture & popular culture;
The globalisation of culture: Global culture
The meaning & importance of culture:
Term 'culture' - used by sociologists to refer to the language, beliefs, values & norms,
customs, dress, diet, roles, knowledge & skills, and all other things that people learn
which make up their 'way of life' in any society.
Wide differences between the cultures of societies.
Culture – passed on from one generation to the next through socialisation which allows
individuals to fit into the society in which they live; acts as a link between individual &
society. Many aspects of everyday life are shared by most members of society. Range of different
aspects of culture within this general concept of culture, such as subculture and dominant, folk, high,
low, popular, mass & global cultures.
Dominant culture:
Dominant culture of a society refers to the main culture in a society, Dominant Culture – refers to the
which is shared (or accepted without opposition) by majority of
main culture in a society, which is
people. E.g., it might be argued that the main features of British
culture include it being white, patriarchal & unequal, with those who
shared, or accepted without
are white & male having things they regard as worthwhile as more opposition, by majority of people.
important than those who are female or from a minority ethnic
group. Similarly, the rich & powerful (mainly white & male) are in a position to have their views of
what is valuable & worthwhile in a culture regarded as more important & given higher status than
others.
Subculture:
Subculture – smaller culture held by
Small societies (such as small villages) may share a common culture
a group of people within the main or way of life. However, in larger & more complicated societies –
culture of society, in some ways numerous smaller groups may emerge within the larger society, with
different from the main culture but, some differences in beliefs, values, norms & way of life. Each group
in many aspects, common. having these differences = subculture. A few subcultures may be
Examples – Travelers, gay people, different from the dominant culture in some ways as well as in
different social class & minority active opposition to it. In such cases, they may be called subcultures
ethnic groups. of resistance. For example, Willis (1977) found an anti-school
subculture in his study of a group of working-class lads, in which
Subculture of resistance is one that resistance to schooling & the culture of the school was highly valued.
not only has some differences from Among younger South Asians & African Caribbeans, ethnic subcultures
may form as a way of resisting racism & disadvantage. Hall &
the dominant culture, but also is in
Jefferson (1976) saw particular youth subcultural styles (mods,
active opposition to it.
skinheads, punks) as forms of resistance to dominant culture.
Folk Culture:
Folk culture – culture created by local communities & is rooted in the Folk culture – the culture created
experiences, customs & beliefs of the everyday life of ordinary people. by local communities & is rooted in
It is 'authentic' rather than manufactured – it is actively created by the experiences, customs & beliefs
ordinary people themselves. Often involves the active participation & of the everyday life of ordinary
involvement of people, rather than simply being something produced people.
by others for passive consumption. Examples – traditional folk music,
folk songs, storytelling & folk dances which are passed on from one generation to the next by
socialisation & often by direct experience. Folk culture – generally associated with pre-industrial or
early industrial societies. Still lingers on today among enthusiasts in the form of folk music & folk
clubs, & the Morris dancing which features in many rural events.
High culture refers to cultural High Culture:
products seen to be of lasting High culture – generally seen as being superior to other forms of
culture. Refers to aspects of culture that are seen as of lasting
artistic or literary value, which are
artistic or literary value, aimed at small, intellectual elites,
particularly admired & approved predominantly upper-class & middle-class groups, interested in new
of by elites & predominantly the ideas, critical discussion & analysis, & who have what some regard as
upper & the upper-middle classes. 'good taste'. High culture – seen as something set apart from
everyday life, something special, to be treated with respect &
An elite is a small group holding reverence, involving things of lasting value & part of a heritage which
great power & privilege in society. is worth preserving. High culture products often found in special
places like art galleries, museums, concert halls & theatres.
Examples of high culture products include serious news programmes & documentaries, classical music
like that of Mozart or Beethoven, the theatre, opera, ballet, jazz, foreign language or specialist 'art'
films & what has become established literature – work of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen or Shakespeare
& visual art – such as Monet, Gauguin, Picasso or Van Gogh.
,Mass, Popular & Low Culture:
Mass/popular/low culture – generally contrasted with high culture. Mass culture (popular/low culture)
Term 'low culture' - derogatory to describe popular culture; usage refers to commercially produced
suggests popular/mass culture is of inferior quality to the 'high' culture, involving cultural products
culture of the elite. Term 'popular culture' - often used as an produced for sale to the mass of
alternative, suggesting it is culture liked & enjoyed by ordinary ordinary people. These involve
people, worthy of study, & avoiding & rejecting the suggestion that it mass-produced, standardised,
is somehow of an inferior quality or of lower value than short-lived products, which many
higher culture. Mass/popular culture = product of see as of little lasting value, & which
industrial societies. It is commercially produced culture, demand little critical thought,
spread on a wide scale throughout society, & aimed at
analysis or discussion.
the mass of ordinary people. It lacks roots in their daily
experiences and is commercially manufactured by businesses for
profit rather than created by the community itself & reflecting its
Popular culture refers to the cultural
own experiences of daily life. Often produced for passive consumption products liked & enjoyed by the
rather than active involvement. Strinati (1995) sees mass culture as mass of ordinary people. It is
popular culture involving cultural products for profit by mass - sometimes referred to as mass
production industrial techniques, for sale to & consumption by the culture/low culture.
mass of ordinary people. These mass-produced, standardised products
are generally short-lived & regarded by many as inferior to high culture. Rather than something 'set
apart' & 'special', mass culture – seen as consisting of trivial products, dumbed down to appeal to as
many people as possible, which demand little critical thought, analysis or discussion & are of no lasting
artistic value. Mass culture – everyday popular culture – simple, undemanding, easy-to-understand
entertainment. Often produced on a global scale, appealing to millions of people across local
communities & national divisions, with the media spreading a common mass culture across the globe.
Largely concerned with making money for large corporations, especially the media.
Popular culture – include mass-circulation magazines, with extensive coverage of celebrities &
lifestyles, 'red top' tabloid newspapers (Sun or the Mirror), television soaps & reality TV shows, dramas &
thrillers, popular music, video games, blockbuster feature films for the mass market, romances &
thrillers bought for reading on the beach & websites like Facebook. Such culture – largely seen as
passive & unchallenging, often mindless entertainment, aimed at the largest number of people possible.
Evaluation of popular/mass culture: Low culture is a derogatory term
Popular culture, in the form of mass culture, is often attacked for used to describe mass
diverting people away from more useful activities, for driving down culture/popular culture, suggesting
cultural standards & for harmful effects on mass audiences. Frank &
these are of inferior quality to the
Queenie Leavis (writing between the 1930s & 1960s) had nothing but
contempt for mass culture, which they saw as processed, packaged, high culture of the elite.
trivial & mindless escapist fantasy & inferior to the lasting artistic &
literary value found in high culture. They saw it as ruining the proper use of language, exploiting
people's emotional needs & fears, & encouraging greed & mindless social conformity.
Marxists like Bourdieu (1971) argue that high culture is allegedly superior compared to mass/popular
culture because the dominant class has the power to impose on the rest of society its own cultural
ideas about what counts as good/bad taste, worthwhile knowledge, good books, music, art, films etc.
The rest of society are socialised into accepting the continuing superiority of high culture, although
they themselves are more likely to participate in mass/popular culture, which is regarded by the
dominant class as an inferior & worthless low culture. Some Marxists & critical theorists of the
Frankfurt School also seem to accept the lower status of mass culture. They see mass culture as
simply mass-produced manufactured products imposed on the masses by global businesses for
financial profit. Culture industries produce mass cultural products of little artistic merit to make a
profit & manipulate people into wanting & consuming them through advertising & the media.
MacDonald (1965) - another critic of mass culture. Unlike folk culture, which he saw as authentic &
generated by ordinary people, & high culture, which expressed serious & long -established authentic
cultural values, he saw mass culture as trivial & inauthentic.
Hegemony refers to the acceptance
Those with such views regard popular mass culture as a form of social of the dominant ideology by the rest
control, giving an illusion of choice between a range of similar
of society, as a result of the power of
dumbed-down, standardised, trivial & uncritical media info-
entertainment (information wrapped up to entertain) & escapist the ruling class to persuade others to
fantasy, which maintains the ideological hegemony (or the dominance accept & consent to its ideas.
of a set of ideas) & power of the dominant social class in society. This is because consumers are lulled
into an uncritical, undemanding passivity & mindless social conformity, making them less likely to
challenge the dominant ideas, groups & interests in society. Marcuse (2002 [1964]) suggested
consumption of media-generated mass culture, with its emphasis on relaxation, fun, entertainment &
consumption through advertising, undermined people's ability to think critically about the world. He
saw this as a form of social repression – a means of locking people into the present system,
promoting conformity & a passive acceptance of the way things are, & undermining the potential for
revolutionary action to change society.
, Strinati (1995), a postmodernist, rejects the view of mass/popular culture that sees it diverting people
away from more useful activities, driving down cultural standards & having harmful effects on
consumers. Strinati sees mass culture as popular culture; as having value & as worthy of study. He
doesn't accept the suggestion that there is a single mass culture, which people passively & uncritically
consume & points to a wide diversity & choice within popular culture – which people select from &
critically respond to.
Livingstone (1988) found that the writers & producers of TV soap operas, a form of
popular culture watched by millions, saw them as having positive benefits for society.
They saw them as educating & informing the public about important or controversial
social issues, presenting a range of political opinions, generating public controversies &
discussion, & giving insights into the tough & grim lives of others. Rather than killing off
public debate & lulling mass audiences into uncritical passivity, contemporary soap
operas like Hollyoaks, Eastenders & Coronation Street have generated widespread
critical discussion about issues that might otherwise rarely get aired in public, or only in crude media
stereotypes. E.g., In recent years, the public has been encouraged through soap stories to discuss
issues like child rape, incest, homelessness, false imprisonment, lesbianism, child abuse, domestic
violence, eating disorders, homophobia, racism, bisexuality, religious cults, paedophilia, drug addiction
& relationship breakdown. The controversies surrounding these soap stories have frequently dominated
the headlines of the red-top tabloid press, promoting public discussions that might never otherwise
have happened.
Many of those who consume & enjoy popular culture suggest its critics are basically elitist snobs, who
rank cultural preferences on a 'snob-to-snob' scale based on their own cultural preferences. These
snobs simply prefer high culture & have contempt for what they regard as the slob culture of the
masses.
The Changing Distinction between High Culture & Popular Culture:
Strinati (1995) & other postmodernists argue that the distinction between high culture & popular
culture is weakening.
Mass-communication technology:
- the internet; music downloads; cable, satellite & digital television; film & radio; printing for both
mass production & personal use in the home; the global reach of contemporary media; the mass
production of goods on a world-wide scale; mass consumption; global tourism; & easier international
transportation
All the above make a huge range of media & cultural products available to everyone. Such changes &
technology in industrial societies make cultural products of all kinds almost infinitely reproducible &
enable original music & art & other cultural products to be consumed by the mass of people in their
own homes without visiting specialised institutions such as theatres or art galleries.
High culture is no longer simply the preserve of cultural elites. People now have a wider diversity of
cultural choices & products available to them & can pick 'n' mix from either popular or high culture.
High culture art galleries (like Tate Modern in London) are now attracting huge numbers of visitors,
from very diverse backgrounds. Live opera is not available to the masses, through popular figures like
the OperaBabes, or concerts in the park
Marxists suggest high culture has increasingly become popularised & commercialised as it is forced to
earn its keep (taxpayers' subsidies) by mass consumption & attracting tourists. It has been forced into
becoming fun & inclusive for everyone, not just the middle & upper classes. It is driven to attract
ordinary people to galleries & other temples of high culture for art, theatre & music, with new galleries
often funded by the National Lottery spending of the mass of the population. high culture is now a
commodity, for sale like any of the products of popular culture, with high culture paintings routinely
selling for many millions of pounds to (for most people) hang on the walls of wealthy corporations or
rich private individuals.
Changes have been accompanied by a huge expansion of the media-based creative & cultural industries
– like advertising, television, film, music & web-publishing, which makes the distinction between high
& popular culture meaningless. Elements of high culture have now become part of popular culture.
Elements of popular culture have been incorporated into high culture. There is no longer a real
distinction between high culture & popular culture. Strinati argues there is no longer any agreement
on what distinguishes high culture from popular culture & it is ever more difficult for any one set of
ideas of what is worthwhile culture, as Bourdieu suggested, to dominate in society.
Storey (2003) points out that what is also changing is that members of the dominant class are no
longer only consuming high culture. They now consume much of what they had previously dismissed as
mass culture, and the masses themselves are now consuming high culture through mass production.
E.g., Banksy is a graffiti street artist, but his works of popular culture now change hands for
thousands of pounds, bought by those from higher social classes who can afford such sums.
