1. Folk and Popular Culture Chapter 4
Objective: Compare and contrast the origin and diffusion of folk and popular cultures

2. Folk and Popular Culture
Insanely Rad Scot, with Kilt and Three-Fin Thruster
Woman with Oxcart, Myanmar

3. The Forbidden City
Beijing, China 2004

5. Beijing, China 2004

6. “Where do folk and popular cultures originate and diffuse?”
Folk Culture – traditionally practiced by a small, homogeneous, rural group living in relative isolation.
Popular Culture – found in a large, heterogeneous society that shares certain habits despite differences in personal characteristics.
Polish folk culture
Simpsons – TV Pop. Culture

7. Material Culture
The physical objects produced by a culture in order to meet its material needs: food, clothing, shelter, arts, and recreation.

8. Custom – frequent repetition of an act until it becomes characteristic of a group of people
Habit – repetitive act performed by an individual.
Taboo – a restriction on behavior imposed by social custom

9. Folk Culture – rapidly changing and/or disappearing throughout much of the world.
Guatemalan Market
Portuguese Fishing Boat
Turkish Camel Market

10. Folk Culture – Where?
anonymous origins, diffuses slowly through migration. Develops over time.
Stable and close knit
Usually a rural community

11. Popular Culture – Where?
Often product of advances in industrial technology and increased leisure time
Originates in more developed countries
Diffuses to other MDC as well as less developed countries

12. Folk Culture - Diffusion
Relocation Diffusion
Mainly through the movement or migration of the people themselves

13. Popular Culture Hierarchical diffusion
Typically from a hearth or node of innovation
Ex: Hollywood, California for the film industry

14. The Communist Party…
…Loves popular culture…

15. Why is folk culture clustered?
Previously uncontacted tribe in Amazon jungle, found in 2011

16. North American Folk Culture Regions

17. Folk Culture Tradition controls Resistance to change
Clustered distributions: isolation/lack of interaction breed uniqueness
Influence of the physical environment – can be seen in food and shelter choices

18. Folk Architecture
Buildings erected without architect or blueprint using locally available building materials
Effects on Landscape: usually of limited scale and scope.

19. FOLK ARCHITECTURE Agricultural: fields, terraces, grain storage
Dwellings: wood, brick, stone, skins; often uniquely and traditionally arranged

20. FOLK ARCHITECTURE

21. Hog Production and Food Cultures
Fig. 4-6: Annual hog production is influenced by religious taboos against pork consumption in Islam and other religions. The highest production is in China, which is largely Buddhist.

22. Food Taboos: Jews – can’t eat animals that chew cud, that have cloven feet; can’t mix meat and milk, or eat fish lacking fins or scales; Muslims – no pork; Hindus – no cows (used for oxen during monsoon)
Washing Cow in Ganges

23. Why is popular culture widely distributed?
Objective: Explain the process and the extent of the diffusion of different elements of popular culture

24. Popular Culture
Wide Distribution: Variances in pop. culture are more in time than in place.
Rapid diffusion requires high level of economic development to acquire the “products” of pop. culture.

25. Popular Culture
Clothing: Jeans, for example, have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.

26. Methods of Diffusion
Technology makes widespread exposure possible, and quicker
TV and Internet are instrumental in spreading items of pop. culture, especially fashion
David Beckham

27. Diffusion of TV, 1954–1999
Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.
Much media is still state-controlled.
Ten Most Censored Countries:
North Korea
Myanmar (Burma)
Turkmenistan
Equatorial Guinea
Libya
Eritrea
Cuba
Uzbekistan
Syria
Belarus
Source: The Committee to Protect Journalists.

28. Internet Connections
The Internet is diffusing today, but access varies widely. Some countries censor the Internet, but this is much harder to do.

29. Food
Franchises, cargo planes, superhighways and freezer trucks have eliminated much local variation
National advertising reaches large audiences

30. Housing
Only small regional variations, more generally there are trends over time

31. U.S. House Types by Region
Small towns in different regions of the eastern U.S. have different combinations of five main traditional house types.

32. Why does globalization of popular culture cause problems?
Objective: Explain the impact of globalization on folk and popular cultures

33. Popular Culture
Effects on Landscape: creates homogenous, “placeless,” landscape
Complex network of roads and highways
Commercial Structures tend towards ‘boxes’
Dwellings may be aesthetically suggestive of older folk traditions
Planned and Gated Communities more and more common

34. Progress?

35. Surfing at Disney’s Orlando Typhoon Lagoon
Are places still tied to local landscapes?
Disconnect with landscape: indoor swimming pools? desert surfing?

36. Dubai’s Indoor Ski Resort
Swimming Pool, West Edmonton Mall, Canada

37. Muslim Women in Traditional Dress at Indoor Ski Resort

38. Problems with the Globalization of Culture
Often Destroys Folk Culture – or preserves traditions as museum pieces or tourism gimmicks.
Mexican Mariachis; Polynesian Navigators; Cruise Line Simulations
Change in Traditional Roles and Values
Satellite Television, Baja California

39. Western Media Imperialism?
U.S., Britain, and Japan dominate worldwide media.
Glorified consumerism, violence, sexuality in media
U.S. (Networks and CNN) and British (BBC) news media provide/control the dissemination of information worldwide.
These networks are unlikely to focus on or provide third world perspective on issues important in the LDCs.

40. Environmental Problems with Cultural Globalization
-Accelerated Resource Use through Accelerated Consumption
Furs: minx, lynx, jaguar, kangaroo, whale, sea otters (18th Century Russians) fed early fashion trends.
Consumerism evident in most Western Media fashions, including hip hop and rock and roll.
Inefficient over-consumption of Meats, Poultry, even Fish by meat-eating pop cultures
Mineral Extraction for Machines, Plastics and Fuel
New larger housing desires and associated energy and water use.
Golf courses use valuable water and destroy habitat worldwide.

41. Pollution: waste from fuel generation and discarded products, plastics, marketing and packaging materials

42. Cattle Feed lots – function of corporations needing massive quantities of cheap beef, ex: McDonalds

43. Using water resources for the green grass of golf courses
Beijing, China
Palm Springs, CA

44. Marlboro Man in Egypt

45. Fiji – popular culture has spread to the Pacific Islands

46. Suburban Sprawl, Arizona

47. Progress? – Urban Sprawl in Tokyo