MEDIA CULTURE
LES 1: INTRODUCTION
LEARNING GOALS
By completing this course, students:
Have insight in diverse aspects and theories in media culture.
Can critically analyze, evaluate and position themselves in the academic debate
on media culture.
Can apply theories of media culture on an empirical case.
Are able to express their selves in the spoken and written standard language.
EXAM AND EVALUATION
Written exam about literature/lectures
3 open-ended questions (75%)
o Knowledge question (reproduction theories)
o Evaluation question (positioning in debate)
o Application question (applying theory to example)
10 closed multiple-choice questions (25%) giscorrectie
THIS LECTURE
1) What is culture? (general definition)
2) High(brow) culture versus low(brow) culture – a short history
3) 20th century: mass media culture in academia – denying or rejecting
4) The social meaning and academic relevance of (empirically) studying media culture
5) Outline of this course
Take the role of media in account when we look at society
WHAT IS CULTURE? SOCIOLOGICAL ROOTS
CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY OF EMILE DURKHEIM AND MAX WEBER
General definition of culture:
The shared beliefs, values, norms and social actions that provide collective
meaning in a (otherwise) meaningless world
o Without culture there is no meaning, culture provides norms/social
actions/…
The human condition: in contrast with other animals (instinct); Homo Sapiens
are a culture creating animal
o We are well developed animals
o Without culture we are something like animals: it is in people to create
meaning and culture
o Our brains are big what makes that we think and are reflexive, we think
about consequences
The social function: create order, meaning in/to the contingent/meaningless
world (e.g. religion)
o Different religious cultures, with different values, culture is shared and
provides meaning
Durkheim: being ‘outside’ culture = anomie/madness
o Very pessimistic: We are not embedded anymore, he warns that individual
people will become depressed. We are not part of a community, there is no
cultural shared system of meaning.
Culture= a social construction
o We shape culture/culture shapes us!
We create/shape society/language, BUT it also shapes us we use
it
1
, If you don’t participate in culture/language, you will fall out of
society
o Culture liberates OR culture limits us
Culture differs in time, place and varies per social group
o Culture differs in places (China vs America,…)
Cultures provide in-group cohesion and out-group conflict
o Your friends for example share the same interesses, fashion, music – it’s in
all the details
o ‘We’ vs ‘They’ we are this group and exclude people who do not belong
in here
o Culture is also on the basis of many political discussions
o Media culture is important because of tradition
Study of cultural meaning is not about taking sides or determining what is really
‘true’
Researcher is neutral/value-free/agnostic
o Researchers are not deciding what is good/bad, they are just studying what
people belief = core of cultural sociology
HIGH CULTURE VERSUS POPULAR CULTURE
A SHORT CULTURAL HISTORY
Norbert Elias – The civilizing process (1939)
Analysis: how the cultural elite/aristocracy in Western Europe has defined the
standard of culture
o E.g. values, manners, taste and style since the Middle ages
o There are people who determine what culture is, what the standard of taste
is – no longer the elite now it is increasingly the media celebrities
Looking down on ‘popular culture’ as uncivilized, simplistic, vulgar,
uncontrolled and potentially anarchistic (and non-western cultures!)
o Always been a superior view on the lower classes
Pierre Bourdieu would call it “distinction”; culture elite distinguishes themselves not
because they have more money, but because they have more taste
Distinction through high art, refined manners and controlling emotions
(sexual impulses/violence)= regime of civilization on the other hand the ‘lower
class people’
o Showing emotion is seen as low class
o High class has it under control
Trickling down: over time ordinary people take over the cultural standards of
elite
o Trends van de elite worden uiteindelijk door gewone mensen overgenomen
o Essentially: trends and styles start in the upper class → become desirable →
eventually lower or middle classes adopt them.
o Example: Designer clothing, fine dining, or luxury brands—once exclusive,
later more widely imitated or accessible.
Spiraling up: over time civilization level (e.g., control over emotions, refined
taste) increases
o Mensen ontwikkelen zich langzaam naar meer verfijning en beschaving.
o People become civilized
o = the dynamic
TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE
Culture:
Always conflict between different cultures
Before the rise of mass media, there was already the struggle between two groups
of people
2
, It’s a cultural divide not economic (Marx)
o CULTURAL divide: those with art, taste, those who choose what is right and
wrong
CULTURAL ELITE
High-brow: art/abstract
Civilized: refined/cognitive
There is always a dynamic that the cultural elite looks down at the ordinary people
o (symbolic) power struggle
ORDINARY PEOPLE
Low-brow: folklore/realistic
Uncivilized: raw/emotional
More wild emotionally and expressive
Suppressed by the high
HIGH CULTURE VERSUS ‘MASS (MEDIA) CULTURE’
20 T H CENTURY: THE RISE, POPULARITY AND INFLUENCE OF MASS MEDIA
1920: “Golden Age of Hollywood”
Mass consumption film, radio, advertising, celebrities
o Role models of how to dress
o Created a culture that were not generally based on tradition, but
dominated by film, radio and celebs
Cultural elite: moral concerns about the influence on Culture (ART) and culture,
high values, norms socialization and life-style
o Until now concerns
Now we talk about influencers, things we see on Instagram, generated content
o These new forms of media shape tastes, trends, and norms quickly, often
outside traditional elite control
There has been a cultural conflict between high culture (art, reading, museum,
cinema…) and low culture
o This conflict highlights tensions between traditional cultural authority and
popular or mass culture, showing shifts in society.
CRITICAL THEORY ABOUT THE ‘CULTURE INDUSTRY’ ( HORKHEIMER AND
ADORNO, 1944)
Elitist theory:
o The standardization and commodification of culture?
It is entertainment, standardized and not real art and it is for money
(commodified)
Capitalistic enterprise
o Passive consuming audiences?
Fears/worries of the media effects= echo
o The decline of high culture (classical music, art, literature, philosophy) and
civilization?
IN ACADEMIA…
3
, In academia ‘mass (media) culture’ has been neglected (trivial/ not serious topic) or
explicitly considered as indicating a decline of (high) culture – “dumbing down-
thesis”
Walter Benjamin: ‘The work of Art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ (1935): the
loss of authenticity, originality, aura
He is making the point that not just film/radio but photography made that art
became less valuable
Art loses his aura because you can just make photos
Loss of high culture under the influence of mass media
Herbert Marcuse: ‘One-Dimensional Man (1968): capitalism and media entertainment
reduce humans in a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior” (26-27)
Complaining against capitalism and culture industry, people are no longer
reflecting they are bombarded with advertising, film and radio from Hollywood
Neal Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death (1984): “when cultural life is redefined as a
perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of
baby talk (..) then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility” (p. 156)
How we come from a culture where we analyzed articles talked about it in coffee
house, where people were smart now we are just consumers, politics become
entertainment
o Television: we used to talk about things and it made people smarter
o But now we watch tv and makes us stupid bv. Kennedy and Nixon
= The idea in all these high cost theories, people become more serious – they are no
longer consuming high art – they are addicted to films, TikTok, advertising,…
BASHING FILM AND ENTERTAINMENT
Neal Gabler – Life: The movie: How entertainment conquered Reality (1998)
It’s not mediatized anymore, it is not filtered, life is threatened by film and their
narratives
BASHING THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Andrew Keen (2007) The cult of the Amateur: How today’s internet is killing our culture
Amateurs on the internet are producing things on the internet
Amateur journalists are not contributing culture but undermining it because you
have to let real people/workers be (elite people, scientist)
o BUT everybody is equal and everybody should have free say
o BUT is also destroying our culture
There is a conflict; media culture is seen as something bad/standardized
o It is a way of looking: there is a long way of tradition
o We should study what meaning it has: definition to what culture is: the
values, norms
Our media consumption gives meaning to our life because we share it with other
people and we live together in a world with media culture
o Meaning to our identities
THE RELEVANCE OF STUDYING MEDIA CULTURE
Elitist exclusion of popular culture / mass media culture in academia and culture (e.g.,
Bourdieu on cultural capital; cultural distinction and cultural inequality)
Studying media and popular culture since the 1970s/ 1980s
4
LES 1: INTRODUCTION
LEARNING GOALS
By completing this course, students:
Have insight in diverse aspects and theories in media culture.
Can critically analyze, evaluate and position themselves in the academic debate
on media culture.
Can apply theories of media culture on an empirical case.
Are able to express their selves in the spoken and written standard language.
EXAM AND EVALUATION
Written exam about literature/lectures
3 open-ended questions (75%)
o Knowledge question (reproduction theories)
o Evaluation question (positioning in debate)
o Application question (applying theory to example)
10 closed multiple-choice questions (25%) giscorrectie
THIS LECTURE
1) What is culture? (general definition)
2) High(brow) culture versus low(brow) culture – a short history
3) 20th century: mass media culture in academia – denying or rejecting
4) The social meaning and academic relevance of (empirically) studying media culture
5) Outline of this course
Take the role of media in account when we look at society
WHAT IS CULTURE? SOCIOLOGICAL ROOTS
CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY OF EMILE DURKHEIM AND MAX WEBER
General definition of culture:
The shared beliefs, values, norms and social actions that provide collective
meaning in a (otherwise) meaningless world
o Without culture there is no meaning, culture provides norms/social
actions/…
The human condition: in contrast with other animals (instinct); Homo Sapiens
are a culture creating animal
o We are well developed animals
o Without culture we are something like animals: it is in people to create
meaning and culture
o Our brains are big what makes that we think and are reflexive, we think
about consequences
The social function: create order, meaning in/to the contingent/meaningless
world (e.g. religion)
o Different religious cultures, with different values, culture is shared and
provides meaning
Durkheim: being ‘outside’ culture = anomie/madness
o Very pessimistic: We are not embedded anymore, he warns that individual
people will become depressed. We are not part of a community, there is no
cultural shared system of meaning.
Culture= a social construction
o We shape culture/culture shapes us!
We create/shape society/language, BUT it also shapes us we use
it
1
, If you don’t participate in culture/language, you will fall out of
society
o Culture liberates OR culture limits us
Culture differs in time, place and varies per social group
o Culture differs in places (China vs America,…)
Cultures provide in-group cohesion and out-group conflict
o Your friends for example share the same interesses, fashion, music – it’s in
all the details
o ‘We’ vs ‘They’ we are this group and exclude people who do not belong
in here
o Culture is also on the basis of many political discussions
o Media culture is important because of tradition
Study of cultural meaning is not about taking sides or determining what is really
‘true’
Researcher is neutral/value-free/agnostic
o Researchers are not deciding what is good/bad, they are just studying what
people belief = core of cultural sociology
HIGH CULTURE VERSUS POPULAR CULTURE
A SHORT CULTURAL HISTORY
Norbert Elias – The civilizing process (1939)
Analysis: how the cultural elite/aristocracy in Western Europe has defined the
standard of culture
o E.g. values, manners, taste and style since the Middle ages
o There are people who determine what culture is, what the standard of taste
is – no longer the elite now it is increasingly the media celebrities
Looking down on ‘popular culture’ as uncivilized, simplistic, vulgar,
uncontrolled and potentially anarchistic (and non-western cultures!)
o Always been a superior view on the lower classes
Pierre Bourdieu would call it “distinction”; culture elite distinguishes themselves not
because they have more money, but because they have more taste
Distinction through high art, refined manners and controlling emotions
(sexual impulses/violence)= regime of civilization on the other hand the ‘lower
class people’
o Showing emotion is seen as low class
o High class has it under control
Trickling down: over time ordinary people take over the cultural standards of
elite
o Trends van de elite worden uiteindelijk door gewone mensen overgenomen
o Essentially: trends and styles start in the upper class → become desirable →
eventually lower or middle classes adopt them.
o Example: Designer clothing, fine dining, or luxury brands—once exclusive,
later more widely imitated or accessible.
Spiraling up: over time civilization level (e.g., control over emotions, refined
taste) increases
o Mensen ontwikkelen zich langzaam naar meer verfijning en beschaving.
o People become civilized
o = the dynamic
TWO GROUPS OF PEOPLE
Culture:
Always conflict between different cultures
Before the rise of mass media, there was already the struggle between two groups
of people
2
, It’s a cultural divide not economic (Marx)
o CULTURAL divide: those with art, taste, those who choose what is right and
wrong
CULTURAL ELITE
High-brow: art/abstract
Civilized: refined/cognitive
There is always a dynamic that the cultural elite looks down at the ordinary people
o (symbolic) power struggle
ORDINARY PEOPLE
Low-brow: folklore/realistic
Uncivilized: raw/emotional
More wild emotionally and expressive
Suppressed by the high
HIGH CULTURE VERSUS ‘MASS (MEDIA) CULTURE’
20 T H CENTURY: THE RISE, POPULARITY AND INFLUENCE OF MASS MEDIA
1920: “Golden Age of Hollywood”
Mass consumption film, radio, advertising, celebrities
o Role models of how to dress
o Created a culture that were not generally based on tradition, but
dominated by film, radio and celebs
Cultural elite: moral concerns about the influence on Culture (ART) and culture,
high values, norms socialization and life-style
o Until now concerns
Now we talk about influencers, things we see on Instagram, generated content
o These new forms of media shape tastes, trends, and norms quickly, often
outside traditional elite control
There has been a cultural conflict between high culture (art, reading, museum,
cinema…) and low culture
o This conflict highlights tensions between traditional cultural authority and
popular or mass culture, showing shifts in society.
CRITICAL THEORY ABOUT THE ‘CULTURE INDUSTRY’ ( HORKHEIMER AND
ADORNO, 1944)
Elitist theory:
o The standardization and commodification of culture?
It is entertainment, standardized and not real art and it is for money
(commodified)
Capitalistic enterprise
o Passive consuming audiences?
Fears/worries of the media effects= echo
o The decline of high culture (classical music, art, literature, philosophy) and
civilization?
IN ACADEMIA…
3
, In academia ‘mass (media) culture’ has been neglected (trivial/ not serious topic) or
explicitly considered as indicating a decline of (high) culture – “dumbing down-
thesis”
Walter Benjamin: ‘The work of Art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ (1935): the
loss of authenticity, originality, aura
He is making the point that not just film/radio but photography made that art
became less valuable
Art loses his aura because you can just make photos
Loss of high culture under the influence of mass media
Herbert Marcuse: ‘One-Dimensional Man (1968): capitalism and media entertainment
reduce humans in a pattern of one-dimensional thought and behavior” (26-27)
Complaining against capitalism and culture industry, people are no longer
reflecting they are bombarded with advertising, film and radio from Hollywood
Neal Postman: Amusing Ourselves to Death (1984): “when cultural life is redefined as a
perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of
baby talk (..) then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility” (p. 156)
How we come from a culture where we analyzed articles talked about it in coffee
house, where people were smart now we are just consumers, politics become
entertainment
o Television: we used to talk about things and it made people smarter
o But now we watch tv and makes us stupid bv. Kennedy and Nixon
= The idea in all these high cost theories, people become more serious – they are no
longer consuming high art – they are addicted to films, TikTok, advertising,…
BASHING FILM AND ENTERTAINMENT
Neal Gabler – Life: The movie: How entertainment conquered Reality (1998)
It’s not mediatized anymore, it is not filtered, life is threatened by film and their
narratives
BASHING THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Andrew Keen (2007) The cult of the Amateur: How today’s internet is killing our culture
Amateurs on the internet are producing things on the internet
Amateur journalists are not contributing culture but undermining it because you
have to let real people/workers be (elite people, scientist)
o BUT everybody is equal and everybody should have free say
o BUT is also destroying our culture
There is a conflict; media culture is seen as something bad/standardized
o It is a way of looking: there is a long way of tradition
o We should study what meaning it has: definition to what culture is: the
values, norms
Our media consumption gives meaning to our life because we share it with other
people and we live together in a world with media culture
o Meaning to our identities
THE RELEVANCE OF STUDYING MEDIA CULTURE
Elitist exclusion of popular culture / mass media culture in academia and culture (e.g.,
Bourdieu on cultural capital; cultural distinction and cultural inequality)
Studying media and popular culture since the 1970s/ 1980s
4
