Download What Is Culture? - Tipp City Schools

What Is Culture?
Ethnography
• the scientific description of the customs of
individual peoples and cultures.
Your Task
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Auto-Ethnography
Put me in your culture
Jargon
Conflict?
Explain your sub-culture
Rituals?
Multi-Genre: writing, artwork, speaking,
artifacts, documents, photographs
Culture Definition
• the arts and other manifestations of human
intellectual achievement regarded collectively.
Culture
• Sociologists consider culture as the formation
of traditions and trends that link humans in a
common group.
• Human culture existed even in prehistoric
societies; however, those prehistoric societies'
tradition and arts (things that are created,
such as cave paintings and decorated pottery)
are generally considered as folk art and
folkways.
Popular Culture
• Popular culture, by definition, requires that
the masses—that's us, folks—be engaged in
practicing and consuming it, thereby making it
popular,
Popular Culture
• modern popular culture transmitted via mass
media and aimed particularly at younger
people.
• Agree/Disagree?
Popular Culture
• Popular culture (or pop culture) is the entirety
of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes,
images, and other phenomena that are within
the mainstream of a given culture, especially
Western culture of the early to mid 20th
century and the emerging global mainstream
of the late 20th and early 21st century.
What Does Pop Culture Entail?
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styles of dress
the use of slang
greeting rituals
The foods that people eat
Other Examples?
Learned Via Mass Media
Where Does Pop Culture Come From?
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3 Early Pop Culture Mileposts
1. Wedding Ceremonies
2. music performed from written scores
3. establishment of fashion styles
Where Does Pop Culture Come From?
• Wedding ceremonies, predating even Biblical
accounts, began traditions based on religious
tenets and quickly became engrained in society.
• During the Renaissance composers began
committing notes to paper and thus created the
opportunity for music to be shared beyond firstperson familiarity. For the first time, a piece of
music could be performed by someone who had
never heard it.
Where Does Pop Culture Come From?
• Fashion styles that took clothing
beyond mere functionality were
initially set by royalty and aristocracy,
but societal changes like the
emergence of the French bourgeois
class and simple technological
advances in clothing manufacture such
as the sewing machine gave style a
broader "popular" appeal. Thus, in a
couple hundred years we went from
tights and lace cuffs for European
aristocracy to modern teenagers
wearing their pants around their knees.
Initial Pop Culture SuperStars
• The Western world's first pop culture "superstar" was
probably William Shakespeare.
• He wrote for a mass audience, thus fulfilling pop
culture's requirement of art that is meant to be
enjoyed by the masses. They still are enjoyed by many.
• Bridged the gap between popular and fine art in 16th
century England.
• Several of his plays were set elsewhere in Europe,
which exposed the common Englishman to wedding
and courtship traditions of different classes and
cultures, potentially influencing those of England.
Pop Culture Become Global
• Popular culture didn't require
satellite television and the Internet
to become global.
• Explorers took to the seas or
traveled overland routes to
distant places, they were influenced
by, and returned with, examples of other cultures'
popular art, artifacts and customs, such as drinking
coffee.
• If that hadn't caught on, Starbucks would be stuck
trying to sell cups of hot, frothy milk for three bucks a
pop.
Industrialization
• In the case of popular arts especially (theater,
dance, music and more recently movies and
television), the masses must have sufficient
time and resources to enjoy these arts.
Technology is the catalyst that made this
possible.
Industrialization
• Industrial Laborers – free time, money in pocket
• Life had become more than family, survival and
religion
• The concentration of people in urban areas,
attracted by jobs in the factories, also gave rise to
more and different kinds of popular art forms by
concentrating potential audiences.
Industrialization
• This enabled them to enjoy entertainment
venues and engage in hobbies, crafts and
recreation outside their work lives.
Technology
• Technology also created new kinds of arts and
items and made them available to everyone, not
just the wealthy elite.
• Radio, television, motion pictures, amplified music,
computers and the Internet.
• Social Media
• Other technological advances resulted in such
diverse things as silk-screen printing (Express your
opinion on your T-shirt!), bowling alleys' automatic
pinsetters, and Wii.
Opinion
• An important aspect in the study of pop
culture is opinion.
• What makes some elements of pop culture
forgettable while others become timeless?
• What do you regard as some of the most
important—or maybe just memorable—
contributions of pop culture in history?