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Nature of Popular Culture
Bernie Howitt, Narara Valley High School
Identifying the distinguishing characteristics
- Being associated with commercial products
- Developing from a local, to a national, to a global level
- Allowing consumers to have widespread access to it
- Constantly changing and evolving
Your interaction with popular culture
Outcomes
H2: analyses relationships within and between social and cultural groups (this particularly deals with interaction with popular culture)
H3: accounts for cultural diversity and commonality within societies and cultures (which deals with the number and range of practices that can be defined as popular culture)
H7: applies appropriate language and concepts associated with society and culture (this should be done every time you write or think about any aspect of the course)
Focus
To fulfil the syllabus aim of understanding the interconnection between the individual and popular culture, it is important to understand the criteria that distinguish popular culture.
Identifying the distinguishing characteristics
The syllabus recognises four distinguishing characteristics of popular culture. These criteria should be reflected in your focus study. Each of the following characteristics should be present in an activity for it to be identified as popular culture. You should practise applying these characteristics to a range of activities you participate in. This will greatly help you to understand the nature of popular culture. As you get closer to examinations, an ideal way of revising popular culture is to make a list of specific examples of why your focus study is a popular culture, and then another list giving specific examples of how you interact with the popular culture.
1. Being associated with commercial products
It is important to remember that popular culture is about making money. No matter how pure the motivation of some of those creating the popular culture, all popular culture thrives on commercial enterprise. Some examples could be:
- Rock’n’roll music, where the commercial product ranges from CDs to T shirts to magazines.
- Kids’ music, where children collect a wide range of merchandise, from groups like The Wiggles.
- Barbie, where the dolls and associated spin offs have been big sellers for over 40 years.
- Animation, where shows like The Simpsons and South Park have spawned T shirts, videos and figurines.
- Star Wars, where a science fiction film has emerged as a popular culture in its own right, with videos, books, figurines and fast foods all being associated with the Star Wars phenomena.
2. Developing from a local, to a national, to a global level
It is the global level of acceptance that distinguishes a genuine popular culture from a local cult success. Although the progress from local to national to global success may not always be clear cut, it should be traceable somewhere in your focus study. Some examples could be:
- The progress of rock ’n’ roll in the early 50s in the USA. It started at a number of local levels. Elvis Presley started in Memphis on Sun Records, Chuck Berry in Chicago with Chess, and Little Richard in New Orleans on Speciality. The key for rock music to move nationally was television shows like Ed Sullivan and Milton Berle, which were shown across the country. From there rock went global through tours, record releases and films.
- The Wiggles started out playing tiny shows at preschools, were signed to the ABC, which gave them national coverage. They toured nationally, and are currently engaged in widespread touring and promotion in the United States and England.
- Barbie started out as a minor toy in the Mattel catalogue in Hawthorne, California. Through inspired marketing she has moved from a national to an international sales phenomena.
- A good example of the process in animation is the emergence of The Simpsons from their brief appearances on the Tracey Ullman Show, to national and then international syndication.
- Star Wars can be traced from its antecedents in George Lucas’ cult sci fi film THX 1138, through to the national success of Star Wars in 1977, and the development of an international marketing promotion that ensured its acceptance around the world.
3. Allowing consumers to have widespread access to it
Access is absolutely critical in understanding the nature of popular culture. Quite simply, without widespread access, nothing can become popular culture. There are always some barriers, often economic to open and universal access, and you should consider that when studying your focus study. Some obvious examples of access include:
- Right from the start, rock’n’roll was marketed as teenage music. Its initial consumers were teenagers who could access it through records, radio, concerts, TV, films and magazines.
- Most Australian kids have had an opportunity to access music like The Wiggles through the ABC with its national reach. Once the ABC established shops it became even easier.
- Walk into any toy shop or young girl’s bedroom, and you will find just how easy it is to access Barbie.
- Animation discovered very quickly television gave maximum access in the second half of the 20th century.
- Just think back to the launch of The Phantom Menace in 1999 to remember how difficult it was to avoid access to all things related to Star Wars!
4. Constantly changing and evolving
Popular culture demands change if it is to remain appealing. Part of its nature is that once people have consumed what it has to offer, it has to offer something new to retain its market share. You should be able to trace a path of change with your focus study to explain how it retained popularity. Some examples include:
- Consider the change in rock music from Elvis to The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix to the Sex Pistols to Michael Jackson to Nirvana. There are many examples to emphasise this point.
- Consider the new characters The Wiggles have introduced to stay fresh and appealing, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Wags the Dog, Henry the Octopus and Captain Feathersword.
- Barbie is a fascinating study of change, and numerous serious sociological studies have been made examining her ability to reflect current social interests and directions.
- Even the very change in the content of The Simpsons to South Park shows how animation has constantly pushed at the limits of what is socially acceptable.
- Star Wars has taken an unusual approach to change by actually working backwards. It was a perfect marketing strategy that maintained interest across the years after Luke was revealed as Darth Vader’s son.
Your interaction with popular culture
The syllabus, and therefore examiners, expects you to be able to explain how you interact with your examples of popular culture. Obviously everyone will have a personal response, and that is perfectly acceptable. What is important though, is that you are able to explain your interaction in terms of the distinguishing characteristics. You must ask yourself how much do you spend on the popular culture? What do you buy? Where do the products come from? How do you access it? How long have you been interested in it? How much time does it take up? It is the answers to these and similar questions that will allow you to provide a personal response if you are asked about interaction with your popular culture.
Activities
- Make a list of specific examples of how your focus study of popular culture meets all the distinguishing characteristics set out by the syllabus.
- Explain how you interact with your popular culture.
- Set up a diary to chart your interaction with your popular culture.
More
It is important that you work with
materials you can understand. There are some major investigations of popular
culture, but they may not suit all students. Your choice for further research
depends largely on your choice of focus study. A reliable search engine like
Google
(www.google.com 
)
will help you organise an Internet search. The Society and Culture Association
journal, Culturescope also contains many articles on aspects of popular
culture written for, and sometimes by, students.