1. popular culture
high culture

2. Popular culture
Often understood as the culture of the mass of people or of subordinate classes.

3. High culture
Understood as the culture of an educated elite.

4. Popular culture Hollywood cinema Most television Popular music
Romantic fiction

5. What else would you include as popular culture in Australia?

6. High culture
French cinema
Opera on television
Classical music
Poetry

7. What else would you include as high culture in Australia?

8. Popular vs High serious trivial educated uneducated demanding passive
Up until the early 1970s…
Popular vs High
serious
educated
demanding
uncommercial
authentic
trivial
uneducated
passive
commercalised
fake

9. More recently, there has been increased, sociological interest in forms of popular culture, often accompanied by more positive evaluations.

10. Studying Popular Culture
Sociological studies of television and rock music have, for example, become branches of the discipline in their own right.

11. Theories of popular culture can be ranged along a continuum…

12. At one end, Supports a dominant ideology Discourages critical thinking
Reinforces conventional stereotypes
Produces passive audiences

13. At the other end, Creative expression of popular sentiments
Appealing to an audience that is far from passive and is capable of critical thought