© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter 4: Folk and Popular Culture The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Culture The combination of three things: –Values –Material artifacts –Political institutions This chapter deals with material artifacts

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Material Culture Two basic categories: folk and popular culture –Folk culture Traditionally practiced by small, isolated, homogeneous groups in rural areas –Popular culture Characterized by large, heterogeneous groups of people who share common habits despite differences in other personal characteristics –Geographers are interested in two aspects of culture: Where cultures are located in space How cultures interact with the environment

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Where Do Folk and Popular Cultures Originate and Diffuse? Origin of folk and popular cultures –Folk culture = anonymous hearth area; originators are usually unknown. May also have multiple hearths. –Popular culture = hearth area comes from more developed countries (MDCs) People in MDCs have disposable income and leisure time that allow for these innovations

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Popular Culture Clothing: Jeans, for example, have become valuable status symbols in many regions including Asia and Russia despite longstanding folk traditions.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Where Do Cultures Originate and Diffuse? Origin of folk and popular music –Popular music characteristics Written by individuals for the purpose of selling to a large audience Highly technical

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Hip-Hop Map Figure 4-3

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. The Bridge is over

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Skittles Style

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Common Popular Music embedded ure=player_embedded Ruby Arabic Music

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Where Do Cultures Originate and Diffuse? popular culture –Popular culture diffuses rapidly, via hierarchical diffusion, and over a large scale Example: Sports –Soccer (futbol) – Most popular sport in the world. »“Kick the Danes head” »The word soccer originated after 1863 (association shortened to assoc, then twisted around over time to the word soccer). –Ice Hockey is popular in cold weather areas. –Baseball and Football in America. –Basketball in America and Europe. –Cricket and Rugby in England, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. –Martial Arts “wushu” in East and SE Asia.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Iroquois Lacrosse Developed by the Iroquois. Colonists picked up the game and diffused it. Lacrosse derived from the French words la crosse, for a bishop’s crosier or staff. The Iroquois called it guhchigwaha.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Why is Popular Culture Widely Distributed? Key Issue 3

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Why Is Popular Culture Widely Distributed? Diffusion of popular housing, clothing, and food –P–Popular culture varies more in time than place Food customs: consumption of large quantities of snack foods and alcohol Clothing styles: reflect occupation rather than environment Housing: reflects fashion trends since the 1940s in the United States

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. 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.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. U.S. House Types (1945–1990) Figure 4-16

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Popular Culture Hair

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Popular Culture Clothing

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Popular Culture Food

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Why Is Popular Culture Widely Distributed? Electronic diffusion of popular culture –Watching television The most popular leisure activity in MDCs Diffusion from the United States to the rest of the world = 50 years –The Internet Diffusion from the United States to the rest of the world = 10 years

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Diffusion The process by which an idea or innovation is transmitted from one individual or group to another across space Relocation Diffusion The idea is physically carried to new areas by migrating individuals Acculturation A culture is modified Adoption of traits of another dominant group Immigrant populations take on the values, attitudes, customs, and speech of the receiving society, which itself undergoes change from absorption of the arriving group.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Diffusion of TV Figure 4-18

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Diffusion of Internet

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Internet Connections The Internet is diffusing today, but access varies widely. Some countries censor the Internet, but this is much harder to do.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Internet Connections The Internet is diffusing today, but access varies widely.

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Diffusion of Facebook Figure 4-21

© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Key Issue 3 Why is popular culture widely distributed? Popular culture diffuses rapidly across Earth, facilitated by modern communications, especially television. Differences in popular culture are more likely to be observed in one place at different points in time than among different places at one point in time.