"Mass Art" redirects here. For the college, seeMassArt.
Popular culture (also calledpop culture ormass culture) is generally recognized by members of asociety as a set ofpractices,beliefs,artistic output (also known aspopular art [cf.pop art] ormass art, sometimes contrasted withfine art)[1][2] andobjects that are dominant or prevalent in a society at a given point in time. Popular culture also encompasses the activities and feelings produced as a result of interaction with these dominant objects. Mass media, marketing, and the imperatives of mass appeal within capitalism constitute the primary engines of Western popular culture—a system philosopher Theodor Adorno critically termed the 'culture industry'.[3]
In the past,folk culture functioned analogously to the popular culture of the masses and of the nations.[8]
The phrase "popular culture" was coined in the 19th century or earlier.[9] Traditionally,[when?] popular culture was associated[by whom?] with pooreducation and with thelower classes,[10] as opposed to the "official culture" and higher education of the upper classes.[11][12]With the rise of theIndustrial Revolution in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Britain experienced social changes that resulted in increasedliteracy rates, and with the rise of capitalism andindustrialization, people began to spend more money on entertainment, such as (commercialised) public houses and sports. Reading also gained traction. Labelingpenny dreadfuls the Victorian equivalent of video games,The Guardian in 2016 described penny fiction as "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young".[13] A growing consumer culture and an increased capacity for travel via the newly inventedrailway (the first public railway,Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened in north-east England in 1825) created both a market for cheap popular literature and the ability for its distribution on a large scale. The first penny serials were published in the 1830s to meet the growing demand.[14][15]
The stress on the distinction from "official culture" became more pronounced towards the end of the 19th century,[16] a usage that became established by theinterbellum period.[17]
The abbreviated form "pop" for "popular", as in "pop music", dates from the late 1950s.[19] Although the terms "pop" and "popular" are in some cases used interchangeably, and their meaning partially overlap, the term "pop" is narrower. Pop is specific to something containing qualities of mass appeal, while "popular" refers to what has gained popularity, regardless of its style.[20][21]
A third definition equates pop culture with "mass culture" and ideas. This is seen as a commercial culture,mass-produced for mass consumption bymass media.[23] From a Western European perspective, this may be compared toAmerican culture.[clarification needed] Alternatively, "pop culture" can be defined as an "authentic" culture of the people, but this can be problematic as there are many ways of defining the "people".[page needed] Storey argued that there is a political dimension to popular culture;neo-Gramscian hegemony theory "sees popular culture as a site of struggle between the 'resistance' of subordinate groups in society and the forces of 'incorporation' operating in the interests of dominant groups in society". Apostmodernist approach to popular culture would "no longer recognize the distinction between high and popular culture".
Popular culture is constantly evolving and occurs uniquely inplace andtime. It forms currents and eddies, and represents a complex of mutually interdependent perspectives and values that influence society and its institutions in various ways. For example, certain currents of pop culture may originate from, (or diverge into) asubculture, representing perspectives with which the mainstream popular culture has only limited familiarity. Items of popular culture most typically appeal to a broad spectrum of the public. Important contemporary contributions to understanding what popular culture means have been given by theGerman researcherRonald Daus, who studies the impact of extra-European cultures inNorth America,Asia, and especially inLatin America.
Within the realm of popular culture, there exists an organizational culture. From its beginning, popular culture has revolved around classes in society and the push-back between them. Within popular culture, there are two levels that have emerged, high and low.High culture can be described as art and works considered of superior value, historically, aesthetically and socially.Low culture is regarded by some as that of the lower classes, historically.[26]
Adaptations based on traditional folklore provide a source of popular culture.[27]This early layer of cultural mainstream still persists today, in a form separate from mass-produced popular culture, propagating by word of mouth rather than via mass media, e.g. in the form ofjokes orurban legends. With the widespread use of theInternet from the 1990s, the distinction between mass media andword-of-mouth has become blurred.[citation needed]
Although the folkloric element of popular culture engages heavily with thecommercial element, communities amongst the public have their own tastes and they may not always embrace every cultural or subcultural item sold. Moreover, certain beliefs and opinions about the products of commercial culture may spread by word-of-mouth, and become modified in the process and in the same manner that folklore evolves.[citation needed]
Western popular culture stands persistently accused of functioning as a vast engine of commercialism. This system, critics argue, is designed to privilege products selected and mass-marketed by capitalists. Such criticisms find articulation in the works of Marxist theorists—including luminaries likeHerbert Marcuse,Theodor Adorno,Max Horkheimer,bell hooks,Antonio Gramsci,Guy Debord,Fredric Jameson,Terry Eagleton—as well as postmodern philosophers such as Jean-François Lyotard (who dissected the commercialization of information under capitalism).[28]
The Frankfurt School, particularlyTheodor Adorno andMax Horkheimer, delivered critiques through their concept of the "culture industry," explored in their seminalDialectic of Enlightenment. Drawing fromKant,Marx,Nietzsche, and others, they argued that capitalist popular culture is far from an authentic expression of the people. Instead, it constitutes a system churning out homogenous, standardized products, manufactured to serve the interests of elite domination. Consumer desire forHollywood films, pop melodies, and disposable bestsellers is not organic, but shaped by the capitalist behemoths—Hollywood studios, record labels, publishing giants—and the elite gatekeepers who dictate which commodities saturate our media, from television screens to print journalism. As Adorno noted, "The industry bows to the vote it has itself rigged".[29] This elite dictates commodification based on narrow ideological values, habituating audiences to formulaic conventions that, Adorno contended, stifle genuine intellectual engagement.[30] His work influenced cultural studies, philosophy, and theNew Left.[31]
The digital age, as music criticAlex Ross observed inNew Yorker (2014), has only magnified Adorno's relevance.[32] The success of phenomena like theHarry Potter franchise, as critiqued byJack Zipes, exemplifies this mass commercialization and corporate hegemony. Zipes contends that culture industry commodities achieve "popularity" precisely through their homogeneity and adherence to formula. The media, he argues, actively molds children's tastes.[33] Postmodern sociologistJean Baudrillard presented a stark view of the consumer's role. He argued that individuals are relentlessly conditioned to pursue the maximization of pleasure as a social duty – a failure to participate risks rendering oneasocial.[34] His core critique held that products of capitalist culture, especially those marketed as rebellious, can only offer an illusion of defiance. True rebellion is impossible because the system producing these commodities remains firmly controlled by the powerful.[35]
Scholarship robustly demonstrates how Western entertainment industries fortify transnational capitalism and cement Western cultural dominance.[36] Consequently, commercial entertainment is less an authentic local expression and more a culture amplified by transnational media conglomerates,[37] leading to an homogenization of cultural identities, eroding diverse traditions in favor of marketable forms.[38] These conglomerates—vast media empires controlling music labels, film studios, streaming platforms, and news outlets—are often answerable primarily to shareholders demanding ever-increasing returns.[39] This shareholder primacy incentivizes cost-cutting and profit maximization at the expense of ethical considerations, including fair artist compensation beyond the top tier, safe working conditions, and sustainable sourcing. The advertising revenue that underpins "free" platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify, crucial for promoting stars, is generated through sophisticated surveillance and data extraction, commodifying user attention and privacy on an unprecedented scale.[40]
The culture industry not only standardizes taste but also rests upon and obscures a foundation of global exploitation, resource plunder, and the relentless pursuit of shareholder value above human dignity and ecological sustainability.[41] While mega-stars achieve immense wealth, the system is structured so that the vast majority of revenue flows upwards: to platform owners, shareholders, and executives. The success of celebrities becomes a powerful marketing tool for the conglomerate itself, boosting its stock price and attracting investment, while obscuring the exploitative labour practices and environmental damage embedded within its global supply chains. The very devices essential for consuming this culture often rely on minerals mined under appalling conditions. Cobalt and tantalum, critical for electronics, are frequently sourced from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo using child labour and artisanal miners facing lethal hazards and exploitation, generating vast profits for multinational conglomerates further up the supply chain.[42]
The influential feminist scholarbell hooks delivers a searing intersectional critique. She argues that commercial celebrities and their branded commodities cannot authentically symbolize liberation while being structurally dependent on – and actively reinforcing – imperialist capitalism and oppressive beauty standards. hooks dissects figures likeBeyoncé not merely as artists, but as nodes within a vast profit machinery: her global stardom increases the wealth of corporate giants (Pepsi, Adidas), luxury brands (her Ivy Park brand), and the extractive ad-revenue engines of platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. Beyoncé’s ascent to billionaire status, hooks contends, exemplifies how such success is built upon and fuels the very systems of patriarchal capitalism it might superficially appear to challenge. Her power derives from, and legitimizes, the industries profiting from exploitation.[43][44]
The very structure of mass media facilitates control, asEdward S. Herman andNoam Chomsky argued in their pivotal 1988 work,Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. They posit that a powerful elite, driven by its own interests, controls and manipulates mainstream information flow. Mass media, therefore, operates as a sophisticated system of propaganda:
In sum, a propaganda approach to media coverage suggests a systematic and highly political dichotomization in news coverage based on serviceability to important domestic power interests. This should be observable in dichotomized choices of story and in the volume and quality of coverage... such dichotomization in the mass media is massive and systematic: not only are choices for publicity and suppression comprehensible in terms of system advantage, but the modes of handling favored and inconvenient materials (placement, tone, context, fullness of treatment) differ in ways that serve political ends.[45]
Popular culture has frequently served as a vehicle forimperialist ideologies.John M. MacKenzie highlights how many such products were crafted to glorify the British upper classes and promote imperialist worldviews, rather than reflecting a democratic perspective.[46]
With the invention of theprinting press in the sixteenth century, mass-produced, cheap books,pamphlets and periodicals became widely available to the public. With this, the transmission of common knowledge and ideas was possible.[47]
In the 1890s,Nikola Tesla andGuglielmo Marconi created theradiotelegraph, allowing for the modern radio to be born. This led to the radio being able to influence a more "listened-to" culture, with individuals being able to feel like they have a more direct impact.[48] This radio culture is vital, because it was imperative to advertising, and it introduced thecommercial.
Films and cinema are highly influential to popular culture, as films as an art form are what people seem to respond to the most.[49] With moving pictures being first captured by Eadweard Muybridge in 1877, films have evolved into elements that can be cast into different digital formats, spreading to different cultures.
The impact of films and cinema are most evident when analyzing in the search of what the films aim to portray.[50] Films are used to seek acceptance and understanding of many subjects because of the influence the films carry—an example of an early representation of this can be seen inCasablanca (1942): the film introduced war subjects to the public after the United States entered World War II, and it meant to increase pro-war sentiment for the allies.[51] Films are a known massive influencer to popular culture yet not all films create a movement that contributes enough to be part of the popular culture that starts movements.[citation needed] The content must resonate to most of the public so the knowledge in the material connects with the majority.[citation needed] Popular culture is a set of beliefs in trends and entail to change a person's set of ideologies and create social transformation.[52] The beliefs are still a trend that change more rapidly in the modern age that carries a continuation of outpouring media and more specifically films. The trend does not last but it also carries a different effect based on individuals that can be grouped to generalized groups based on age and education.[citation needed] The creation of culture by films is seen in fandoms, religions, ideologies, and movements. The culture of film is more evident through social media. Social media is an instant source of feedback and creates discussion on films. A repeating event that has been set in modern culture within the trend setting phase is the creation of movements in social media platforms to defend a featured subject on a film.[53]
Popular culture or mass culture, is reached easily with films which are easily shared and reached worldwide.[49]
A television program is a segment of audiovisual content intended for broadcast (other than a commercial, trailer, or other content not serving as attraction for viewership).
Popular music is music with wide appeal[54][55] that is typically distributed to large audiences through themusic industry. These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by people with little or nomusical training.[54] It stands in contrast to bothart music[56][57] andtraditional or "folk" music. Art music was historically disseminated through the performances ofwritten music, although since the beginning of therecording industry, it is also disseminated throughrecordings. Traditional music forms such as earlyblues songs orhymns were passed along orally, or to smaller, local audiences.[56]
Sports include all forms ofcompetitivephysical activity orgames which,[58] through casual or organized participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases,entertainment for spectators.[59] The connection between sports and popular culture is significant in recent times because there is an influx of sport history to keep track of, as sports journalists produce quality pieces, more sports museums are developed, and there are various radio, film, and television documentaries. Sport history has embraced popular culture as it has expanded its horizons on elite athletes and governing bodies, to the study of every day activities. It has broadened its perspective by connecting sports and athletes with class, gender, ethnicity, and disability. Sports are becoming more popular in the eyes of society, and impacting human culture as they get more invested in the game, and perhaps even play the sports themselves in their neighborhoods. Museums also show sports as popular culture, such as Stuart Clarke’s "The Homes of Football" photographic collection in the National Football Museum.[60]
Personal branding includes the use of social media to promotion to brands and topics to further good repute among professionals in a given field, produce an iconic relationship between a professional, a brand and its audience that extends networks past the conventional lines established by the mainstream and to enhance personal visibility. Popular culture: is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of thepractices,beliefs, andobjects that are dominant or prevalent in asociety at a given point in time. As celebritiesonline identities are extremely important in order to create a brand to line-up sponsorships, jobs, and opportunities. Asinfluencers, micro-celebrities, and users constantly need to find new ways to be unique or stay updated with trends, in order to maintain followers, views, and likes.[62] For example,Ellen DeGeneres has created her own personal branding through her talk showThe Ellen DeGeneres Show. As she developed her brand we can see the branches she created to extend her fan base such as Ellen clothing, socks, pet beds, and more.
Social media is interactivecomputer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation or sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtualcommunities and networks.Social media platforms such asInstagram,Facebook,Twitter,YouTube,Pinterest,TikTok andSnapchat are the most popular applications used on a daily basis by younger generations. Social media tends to be implemented into the daily routine of individuals in our current society. Social media is a vital part of our culture as it continues to impact the forms of communication used to connect with those in our communities, families, or friend groups.[63] We often see that terms or slang are used online that is not used in face-to-face conversations, thus, adding to a persona users create through the screens of technology.[63] For example, some individuals respond to situations with a hashtag or emojis.[63]
Social media influencers have becometrendsetters[64] through their direct engagement with large audiences, upending conventional marketing and advertising techniques. Consumer purchase choices have been impacted by fashion partnerships, sponsored material and outfit ideas offered by influencers. Social media has also made fashion more accessible by fostering uniqueness, expanding the depiction of trends, and facilitating the rise of niche influencers. The influencer-driven fashion industry, nevertheless, has also come under fire for encouraging excessive consumerism, inflated beauty ideals, and labour exploitation.[65]
Pop culture has had a lasting influence to the products being released in their time. Many examples of art, books, films and others, have been inspired by pop culture. These include:
Pop music is a wide-ranginggenre of music whose characteristics include styles and tones that have a wider andmore massive appeal to all kinds of consumers.[68] Oftentimes, many examples of these music contain influences from other pre-existing works.[69] The origins of popular music began in the late 1800s with the inventions of Edison’s phonograph and Berliner’s gramophone, both of which allowed for music to be available for purchase to the public rather than access to just the elites. Due to the almost nonexistent copyright laws, the early 1900s flourished with composers and publishers aiming to make and sell as much music as they could. The hub for this activity was a small area of New York known as Tin Pan Alley, which quickly became one of the major spots for popular music as the demand grew intensely.[70] Technological advances in the 1940s only furthered the success and popularity of the genre. The reel-to-tape recorder was groundbreaking in terms of innovation and served as the baseline for many more transformations this genre and the music industry as a whole will endure. Along with the continued innovation of popular music, multiple subset genres emerged as the new faces of popular music, all with the foundation of jazz and blues. Some of those genres include Rock and Roll, Punk, and Hip Hop.[70] Due to the increasing mainstream success of popular music, artists of the genre grew in fame and popularity. A few of the major singers and musicians of this genre includeMichael Jackson,Madonna,Britney Spears,Christina Aguilera,Jennifer Lopez,Justin Bieber,Elvis Presley,Beatles,Beyoncé,Katy Perry, andTaylor Swift. Popular music will continue to be shaped by, and evolve to fit the tastes and preferences of the public.
Pop culture studies areresearchesthesis, and other academic works that analyzes various trends of pop and mass culture,pop icons, or the effects and influences of pop culture in society and history.Ray B. Browne is one of the firstacademicians to conduct courses on the studies about pop culture.[74]
^Although theOxford English Dictionary lists the first use as 1854, it appears in an address byJohann Heinrich Pestalozzi in 1818:Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich (1818).The Address of Pestalozzi to the British Public.Archived from the original on 2023-06-30. Retrieved2020-10-24.I see that it is impossible to attain this end without founding the means of popular culture and instruction upon a basis which cannot be got at otherwise than in a profound examination of Man himself; without such an investigation and such a basis all is darkness.
^Per Adam Siljeström [sv],The educational institutions of the United States, their character and organization, J. Chapman, 1853, p. 243: "Influence of European emigration on the state of civilization in the United States: Statistics of popular culture in America".John Morley presented an addressOn Popular Culture at theBirmingham Town Hall in 1876, dealing with the education of the lower classes.
^"Learning is dishonored when she stoops to attract," cited in a section "Popular Culture and True Education" inUniversity extension, Issue 4, The American society for the extension of university teaching, 1894.
^e.g. "the making of popular culture plays [in post-revolutionary Russian theater]", Huntly Carter,The new spirit in the Russian theatre, 1917–28: And a sketch of the Russian kinema and radio, 1919–28, showing the new communal relationship between the three, Ayer Publishing, 1929, p. 166.
^"one look at the sheer mass and volume of what we euphemistically call our popular culture suffices", fromWinthrop Sargeant, 'In Defense of the High-Brow', an article fromLIFE magazine, 11 April 1949, p. 102.
Pop Culture–although big, mercurial, and slippery to define—is really an umbrella term that covers anything currently in fashion, all or most of whose ingredients are familiar to the public-at-large. The new dances are a perfect example... Pop Art itself may mean little to the average man, but its vocabulary...is always familiar.
It is tempting to confusepop music withpopular music. TheNew Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, themusicologist's ultimate reference resource, identifies popular music as the music since industrialization in the 1800s that is most in line with the tastes and interests of the urban middle class. This would include an extremely wide range of music from vaudeville and minstrel shows toheavy metal. Pop music, on the other hand, has primarily come into usage to describe music that evolved out of therock 'n roll revolution of the mid-1950s and continues in a definable path to today.
^On the Ambiguity of the Three Wise Monkeys A. W. SmithFolklore, Vol. 104, No. 1/2 (1993), pp. 144–150.
^Lyotard, Jean-François (1979).La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir. Paris: Minuit.
^Adorno, Theordor; Horkheimer, Max (2002). "Enlightenment as Mass Decption".Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 106.ISBN0-8047-3633-2.
^Adorno & Horkheimer: Dialectic of Enlightenment. p. 100.
^Held, D. (1980).Introduction to Critical Theory: Horkheimer to Habermas. Berkeley, University of California Press.
^Ross, Alex (8 September 2014)."The Naysayers".The New Yorker.Archived from the original on Aug 2, 2021. Retrieved20 July 2021.
^Zipes, J. (2002).Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. p. 175.
^Baudrillard. J. (1998).The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. p. 80.
^Jackson, Kathy (2000). "Playing it again and again: Casablanca's impact on American mass media and popular culture".Journal of Popular Film & Television.27 (4):33–41, 9p.doi:10.1080/01956050009602813.S2CID191490559.
^Popular Music. (2015).Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia
^abPublisher, Author removed at request of original (2016-03-22)."6.2 The Evolution of Popular Music". University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing edition, 2016. This edition adapted from a work originally produced in 2010 by a publisher who has requested that it not receive attribution.{{cite journal}}:|first= has generic name (help);Cite journal requires|journal= (help)
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Browne, Ray B. and Pat Browne, eds.The Guide to U.S. Popular Culture (2001), 1010 pages; essays by experts on many topics.
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Freitag, Sandria B. "Popular Culture in the Rewriting of History: An Essay in Comparative History and Historiography,"Journal of Peasant Studies, 1989, Vol. 16 Issue 3, pp. 169–198.
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Hassabian, Anahid (1999). "Popular",Key Terms in Popular Music and Culture, eds.: Horner, Bruce and Swiss, Thomas. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers.ISBN0-631-21263-9.
Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir, 2016:Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific: Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney, New York: Palgrave.ISBN978-1-137-54264-9.
Knight, Robert H.The Age of Consent: the Rise of Relativism and the Corruption of Popular Culture. Dallas, Tex.: Spence Publishing Co., 1998. xxiv, 253, [1] p.ISBN1-890626-05-8
Ross, Andrew.No Respect: Intellectuals & Popular Culture. New York: Routledge, 1989. ix, 269 p.ISBN0-415-90037-9 (pbk.)
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