1. Why is Popular Culture Widely Distributed?
Folk & Popular Culture
Why is Popular Culture Widely Distributed?

2. Popular culture varies more in time than in place Material Posessions
What does this mean???
Material Posessions
Unlike folk culture, pop culture does NOT reflect the local environment; looks the same everywhere
Some regional differences in MDCs, but much less than in past;
Food
Clothing
Shelter

3. Popular Housing Styles
Influences of shapes, materials, detailing etc.
Modern house styles ( )
“Family room” added in 1950s
Neo-eclectic house styles (since 1960)

4. Clothing Styles
Clothing habits as reflection of type of work rather than environment (suit vs. jeans)
Higher income = up-to-date wardrobe (especially women)
Communication speed, manufacturing
Diffusion; Travel, TV, Internet

5. Can you think of a clothing style that was adopted from folk costume?

6. Jeans Became mainstream in US in 1960s Price of jeans??
Used to be associated with low status, manual laborers
Price of jeans??
$10-????
Value of Levi’s around the world
What do jeans have to do with communism??

7. Popular Food Customs Consumption patterns of alcohol & snack-foods
Fast-food/Restaurants
Variations within US much less significant than differences between US & LDCs

8. Regional Differences within the United States
Americans may choose beverages or snacks based on what is produced, grown, or imported locally.
Wine consumption relatively high in California where most of the U.S. production is located.
Cultural backgrounds affect the amount and types of alcohol and snack foods consumed.
Relatively little alcohol is consumed in Utah because of the strong presence of the Church of Latter-day Saints that advocates against drinking alcohol.
High consumption in Nevada where resorts located.
Texans may prefer tortilla chips in greater numbers because of strong Hispanic American presence.

9. Alcohol Preferences in the U.S.
Fig. 4-12: Per capita consumption of rum (top) and Canadian whiskey (bottom) show different distributions and histories of diffusion.

10. Popular Food Culture Differences among Countries
Cola preferences can be influenced by politics.
Soviet Union: Pepsi permitted for sale in country
Russia: Many former Soviets switched to Coke, because Pepsi was associated with communism.
Cola preferences can be influenced by religion.
Southwest Asia: Predominantly Muslim countries boycotted products sold in Jewish Israel—e.g., Coke

11. Diffusing Popular Culture Through TV
Significant pop. custom for 2 reasons
Most popular leisure activity in MDCs
Most important mechanism for diffusing culture
Diffusion from the United States to the rest of the world = 50 years
Internet follows similar pattern
More rapid pace
Diffusion from the United States to the rest of the world = 10 years

12. Diffusion of TV, 1954–1999
Fig. 4-14: Television has diffused widely since the 1950s, but some areas still have low numbers of TVs per population.

13. Diffusion of the Internet: Late Twentieth Century
In 1995, Internet users in the United States accounted for more than half of the global users.
By 2011, 77 percent of the U.S. population accessed the Internet.
Accounted for 10 percent of the global users.
Global share decreased by roughly 40 percent in less than 10 years.

14. Diffusion of Social Media: Twenty-First Century
Same diffusion pattern as TV and Internet
Facebook
In 2008, Facebook users in United States consisted of 1/3 of all global users.
By 2011, global share decreased to 1/5.
Twitter
United States was source of 1/3 of all tweets in 2010.
Second leader of tweets is India.

15. Diffusion of Facebook
Figure 4-21

16. FIGURE 4-35 DISTRIBUTION OF TWITTER USERS More than one-third of the world’s Twitter users were in the United States in 2011.

17. Gov’t Control of TV Private corporations vs. Government owned
CTV, CityTV, VS. CBC, TVO
How do they make $$
Ads, licenses
Satellites banned (China, Saudi Arabia)
Gov’t censorship