Mass Culture

I have been meaning to blog about the 'Mass Culture' lecture we had on monday, but since then my life has been overtaken by Teeline, Russel, and McNae's. The lecture on monday was insightful, a calming and motivational mood was set as we walked in to Beethovens symphony, a contrast from the frantic panic of reading HWP for tuesday's seminar. Greeks aside, I learnt a lot about High and Low culture, so i'll fill you in:

'Taste' (not the food related sense) is often concidered as a 'natural' habit, without realising we all have our own perception as to what we believe is good taste, or poor. It is an expression of individuality or even a group as a whole. In simple terms, high culture such as Ochestral Music, Opera, Ballet and Fine Art tends to appeal to a smaller audience, sterotypically generally to an upper class background.Whereas, Low culture such as Cinema, Soaps/TV, Magazines and Celebrities, is extremely popular appealing to a mass audience.

*French accent at the ready... Pierre Bourdieu questions how the logic of taste and preference work. He claimed that cultural preference works as a form of cultural distinction, and our taste and notions of when we deem as 'quality' are socially constructed. Random example but if you hang around with a bunch of skater chicks you probably rate Avril Lavigne, and amongst that group you would be classed as having good taste, but to someone else you could be looked upon as having very very bad taste. This is where "Cultural Capital" or as Pierre may say "le capital culturel" comes in, it is linked to social status and education. Our individual values of what we categorise as high or low culture are not fixed, in the sense that generations can change them.

Shock was definitely on all our faces when Robert Maplethorpe's art popped up before us: 'A man in a polyester suit' (google it if you wish!). Well, the long awkward silence led to the room suddenly feeling hotter and in my case looking anywhere but at the board, (totally primary school I know) but it reminded me of when I encounted him in my Photography A level.  However, in this instance, it got people thinking as to whether his work could be deemed as pornography or art? Emphasising upon the point that different people will have a different perception, prehaps because of our educational background, or values.

In the words of Raymond Williams - 

"Culture is Ordinary" 

"There are no masses there are only ways of seeing people as masses"