Issues Reader 7: High and Low Culture 2 11

8/3/2019 Issues Reader 7: High and Low Culture 2 11

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High and Low Culture 2

Your third and final topic (write about one for Unit 3)Choose two brands of the same product and compare their packaging, design

and promotional material. One should reflect the values of high culture and the

other those of low or popular culture. Say what characteristics and contexts mark

each out as high or low. Lastly, discuss whether and why the boundaries between

high and low culture are still clearly defined or are becoming blurred today.

Minimum: 750 words.


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Brief: your tasks

1. Give a short introduction to, or adefinition of, high and low culture.

2. Analyse an example: how does itreflect high culture values

3. Analyse an example: how does it

reflect low culture values

4. Discuss with reasons and illustratewhether the boundaries betweenhigh and low culture are still clearly

defined or are becoming blurred?

5. Include a title page, bibliographyand images


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High and Low Culture

Culture: Collectively, art, literature and music but also describes how society isorganised in terms of knowledge, beliefs and attitudes of different groups.

High culture: high brow; the highest achievements in society in terms of art,music, literature, ones which are held to be improving and significant

Supported by an exclusive elite of refined or educated taste

Expensive, elegant and collectable Complex, often difficult to understand, deep, and supported by critical texts

Traditional rules and codes established, handed down and followed

Supported by Government funds, housed in official buildings

Low Culture/Popular culture: low brow, consumed by the masses, held to be

vulgar, worthless and insignificant Cheap, easily understood or appreciated, less complex and often amateur.

Consumed passively (no education required, no rules to understand)

Kitsch, trivial, simple, superficial and easily produced

Low value, trivial, throwaway and for fun and entertainment only

Low class consumers and often opposing the ruling elite


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Keywords

High Culture Long established forms

Professional and endorsed by critical material

Supported by an elite from the wealthy strata of society

Improving and elevating with profound and significant meaning & content

Housed in museums etc and so sanctioned

Supported by government subsidy or business and regarded as civilising

Low Culture

Regarded as vulgar, kitsch and transient/expendable

Cheap, expendable and for a mass audience

Consumed passively, indiscrimiinating

Entertainment, popular, and commercial

Often youthful (not exclusively)


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Which is Which?


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In Pairs

Discuss the cultural associations of these examples and then decide which

could be best described as reflecting the values of high or low culture,

and which cause you problems (and why)

Soap Operas

Rugby UnionThe Sun

Ballet

The Cinema

Jewellery

Tattoos

Primark

Remy Martin

Jeffrey Archer


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The Canon and Good Taste (Film Clip)

Last week we looked at how a set of rules and hierarchies was developed over

time, and as a part of the classical tradition, to establish a clear idea of

what high culture was and how an educated elite could acquire the

understanding to use them to identify high culture. This became known as

having good taste.

Use the sheet at the back of this Reader to follow Stephen Bayleys account of

this development and how it has changed in the twentieth century.

(The annotations are mine, to pick out the main points for you)

Next two examples: see how these illustrate, I think, the ways in which industry

and commerce stillplay on this hierarchy to suggest that an elite or

exclusive product must be superior to a more available and popular one.


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Exploiting Blurred Boundaries in a

Postmodern Age

However, its clear, as weve seen in earlier examples

and in the video, that marketing and the media

also exploit the modern tendency to criticize,

break and mock the divisions and pretensions of

a high-low culture hierarchy.

As we saw with Burberry, the consumer can be

encouraged, often with humour, to disrupt social

patterns by mixing and matching products and

styles from all parts of our culture: why do you

think this is commercially successful today?

Weve encountered these traits as Postmodernism

before (see Pop Art) and will return to it soon

and this makes these changes to High and Low

Culture part of bigger changes in culture/society


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Identify the styles, content

and contexts of this

example (texts, image,

production values,

connotations etc) and saywhich elements are best

described as high or low

culture.

Overall, does this examplereflect the values of high or

low culture?

We can now look at your

examples.


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UNIT 3: RECAPS

BRIEF

PRESENTATION

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

EXTENSIONS, LATE WORK AND THE MITIGATION PANEL

CAPTION PACK examples, key words, writing mistakes use this

6 COMMON MISTAKES: using Art examples, no name on the work, plagiarism, gaps

(not checking the deliverables), not applying for an extension in

advance and being late (up to two weeks = 40%, later = no

marks)

HAND IN ONE DOCUMENT

VRF + Contextual Issues Writing at the back

Cover, contents and bibliography

- VRF = 6 introductions, 12 images, 12 explanations + research

materialsWritin = one to ic from 3 covered min 750 words title and ima es

Issues Reader 7: High and Low Culture 2 11

Documents

Transcript of Issues Reader 7: High and Low Culture 2 11