popular culture

John Storey captures the defini on of popular culture from several perspec ves. Generally, popular
culture incorporates itself in many walks of life or conceptual categories, for example, in ‘common’,
‘folk’, and ‘mass’ cultures. It has spread across many centuries in terms of history, commerce, media,
art, drama, and the movie industry. In this detailed cri cal approach, Storey incorporates different
defini ons of terms like culture and ideology to clearly define popular culture. In his defini on and
approach makes me accept his defini on of popular culture in different ways that are discussed in
this paper.

To cri cally analyze the basic defini on of popular culture, let’s examine Storey’s defini ons in detail.
Popular culture is constantly defined in contrast to the conceptual categories named above like folk
culture (Storey 1). He argues that the term ‘popular’ is faced with certain difficul es in terms of
theore cal and analy cal defini ons. Storey (1) therefore notes that popular culture can effec vely
be represented as an empty conceptual category that can be sa sfactory about a variety of
contextual references. These contextual references can be associated with great philosophers,
ar sts, poets, and aesthe c factors. Also, the second noun ‘culture’ is used to denote; a way of life,
works and prac ces of great ar sts, and the skill of producing ‘signifying prac ces’ like poetry and
pop music. Therefore, Storey observes that the incorpora on of the true meaning of the word
culture as a way of life and culture should be in the form of ‘signifying prac ces’ named above.

Cri cal analysis of popular culture

Defini on of ideology

To clearly understand the true meaning of popular culture, Storey was indebted to incorporate the
term Ideology in his approach to defining popular culture. He notable uses five ways in defining
ideology. In his first approach he defines ideology as an organized structure of ideas expressed by
various iden es of people. This refers to different collec ons like poli cal affilia on manifestos,
professional groups’ terms and condi ons, e.g., marke ng industries, and social ideas of a poli cal
party. Secondly, ideology is a certain distor on of texts and images that show the reality that evokes
wrong awareness. These distor ons perform well when the powerful oppress the powerless. This
brings dominance where the powerful do not see the magnitude of their exploita on, thus
concealing reality, e.g., capitalist ideology. A third explana on of ideology is defined in rela on to
Marx’s approach to ideological forms. This focus on pop songs, films, and novels, from the society’s
point of view rather than a consensual approach. Thus, he defines popular culture as a site where
well-understood and combined social concepts are formed. These concepts are meant to win the
hearts of people in their percep on of the world (Storey 4).

The fourth descrip on of ideology according to Roland Barthes is based on the meaning of various
texts and different prac ces they carry based on the level of connota on. Lastly, ideology is defined
as a material prac ce that entails everyday errands in a social order and not as a body of ideas, as
observed by Louis Althusser. Therefore we found the similarity and differences between the two
words. Both culture and ideology focus on the conceptual arena of ideas. While the difference is,
ideology offers a broad perspec ve of poli cal dimension and culture generalizes. Hence, the
defini on of the terms culture and ideology clearly becomes the paramount stepping stone for
approaching the correct defini on of popular culture in different dimensions as discussed below
(Storey 4).

What is popular culture?

First, popular culture is simply a custom that is widely preferred by many people. Thus, it implies that
the magnitude of interested people determines the social concepts present. Such quan ta ve index
of the majority of people can be traced in different lucra ve fields. For example, a study on the rate
of sold books and other electrical gadgets and find the sta s c of net income. Also a close study on
a endance reports at movie and spor ng events could give the most approved movie or spor ng
event. An analysis of market research findings on the most preferred programs. Such details could
give at a glance the most preferred item in the social lives of people. Although it might be difficult to
agree on a certain figure that may qualify to be widely favored and qualify to be liked by the majority.
However, a quan ta ve approach should be essen al in defining popular culture.

Another way of defining popular culture is ‘to suggest that it is the culture that is le over a er we
have decided what high culture is … a residual category, there to accommodate texts and prac ces
that fail to meet the required standards to qualify as high culture … it is a defini on of popular
culture as inferior culture’ (Storey 6). Thus, popular culture must include the audience and avoid
complexity of ‘high culture. This would be done when it includes a range of judgments in a respec ve
item. This approach can be supported by the assump on that popular culture is commercial while
high culture is individually forged. Thus high culture requires moral and aesthe c response and
popular culture deserves a social conceptual inspec on.

Third, popular culture can be defined as ‘mass’ culture (Storey 8). This implies that popular culture
produces mass items that are consumed largely. The audience renders the mass-produced items
hopeless because they will be wholly consumed, hence a non-discrimina ng audience. The culture is
manipula ve and in a designated formula that is passive. For example during the 20 th century many
films failed to benefit from the promo on cost incurred. Mass culture has been characterized to be
influenced by American culture. However, this culture is hardly consumed wholly. The items of
popular culture are seen as fantasy and have no structure or moral approach hence ‘sees popular
culture as a sort of ideological machine which more or less effortlessly reproduces the prevailing
structures of power’ (Storey 9).

‘A fourth defini on of popular culture is a custom that originates from ‘the people’… according to this
defini on; the term should only be used to indicate an ‘authen c’ culture of ‘the people’. This is
popular culture as folk culture: a culture of the people for the people’ (Storey 9). This defini on is
some mes referred to as the working-class culture and acts as the main founda on of capitalism.
However, like in the first defini on, who are ‘the people’ and who qualifies to be ‘the people. In
addi on, the defini on does not touch on commercial approach of items from popular culture. This
defini on evokes various ques ons. For example, what would be the implica ons of popular culture
producing commercial raw materials?

Another a empt to define popular culture by Storey is that it is popular culture is one that focuses
on poli cal analysis and the concept of hegemony. Hegemony means the way powerful people try to
win the hearts of the powerless using intellectual and moral forms of leadership (Storey 10). The
poli cal concept here explains the tension between the weaker individuals called ‘subordinate’ and
the stronger class of people called ‘dominant group’. Thus this culture is far from the mass culture or
opposi onal popular cultures discussed above. It mainly centers on the idea of hegemony. The
various arguments on this theory apply to the struggle of the dominant group and the subordinate or
the weaker group. Therefore, there are various aspects of this theory that need to be discussed in
depth. For example, hegemony allows interac on between the dominant and subordinate groups to
a ain equilibrium, thus ‘the compromise equilibrium of hegemony can also be employed to analyze
different types of conflicts within and across popular culture … but hegemony theory can also be
used to explore and explain conflicts involving ethnicity, ‘race’, gender, genera on, sexuality,
disability, etc., all are at different moments engaged in forms of cultural struggle against the
homogenizing forces of incorpora on of the official or dominant culture’ (Storey 11). In addi on,
popular culture has another feature that is a ributed to hegemony theory, that it is a site for
evalua ng social groups and their response to poli cal power.

Lastly, popular culture may be defined in rela on to postmodernism. This is where the there is no
dis nc on between ‘high culture’ and ‘popular culture. No difference between ‘authen c’ and
‘commercial’. There is full integra on of the above-discussed defini ons.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ‘what all these defini ons have in common is the insistence that whatever else
popular culture is, it is a culture that only emerged following industrializa on and urbaniza on
(Storey 12).