Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Chapter 8The Human Mosaic

Characteristics of popular culture

! Constantly changing! Based in large, heterogeneous groups of

people! Based mainly in urban areas! Material goods mass-produced by machines

in factories! Prevailing money economy

Recreation and clothing

Characteristics of popular culture

! More numerous individual relationships, but less personal

! Weaker family structure! Distinct division of labor with highly

specialized professions and jobs! Considerable leisure time available to most

people! Police, army, and courts take the place of

family and church in maintaining order

Leisure time

Popular culture

! If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it is change ! Words such as growth, progress, fad, and

trend crop up frequently in newspapers and conversations

! Some people unable to cope with fast change! Change can lead to insecurity expressed in

the term future shock! Vast majority of people in developed countries

belong to the popular culture

Popular culture

! If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it is change ! Contributions to the spread of popular culture

! Industrialization! Urbanization! Rise of formal education! Resultant increase in leisure time

! All the reasons popular culture spread caused folk culture to retreat

Placelessness: Anywhere USA! Without the sign, we would

not know if these were houses, apartments, or condos.

! Their style is no style; a sense of sameness pervades.

! Nothing sets these structures apart as being in a particular place; this is placelessness.

Placelessness: Anywhere USA! In fact, the complex is in

suburban Columbus, Ohio otherwise known as “Test Market USA.”

! Because the demographic character of Columbus offers a representative cross section of American society, it is an appropriate place to try out new products.

! Most fast food menus are tested here.

Popular culture

! If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it is change ! We and our recent ancestors embraced the free, open,

dynamic life-style offered by popular culture! Science challenged religion for dominance in our daily

lives! We profited greatly in material terms through this

transition! In reality, all culture presents a continuum on which

popular and folk represent extreme forms

Popular culture! If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it is

change ! Many graduations between the two are possible! Disadvantages become apparent as one moves toward

the popular end of the continuum! We forfeited much in discarding folkways! Popular culture is not superior! We weaken both family structure and interpersonal

relationships! Tne prominent cultural geographer has said of popular

culture “only two (things) would I dislike to give up: inside plumbing and medical advances.”

Popular culture

! Popular Culture Regions! Diffusion in Popular Culture! The Ecology of Popular Culture! Cultural Integration in Popular Culture! Landscapes of Popular Culture

Placelessness or clustering?! Superficially, popular culture appears to vary less areally than

folk culture! Canadian geographer Edward Relph’s proposal

! Popular culture produces a profound placelessness! A spatial standardization that diminishes cultural variety! Demeans the human spirit

! James Kunstler speaks of “geography of nowhere” in describing America! One place become much like another, robbed of its

geographical essence! Pervasive influence of a continental or worldwide popular

culture

McDonald’s in Tokyo

Wendy’s in Idaho

Pampas Grill in Finland

Placelessness or clustering?

! Folk cultures, rich in uniqueness, appear to make the geographical face of popular culture seem expressionless

! Michael Weiss argues that “American society has become increasing fragmented”

Cappadocia province, Turkey


! Jonathan Robbin identifies 40 “lifestyle clusters” based on postal ZIP codes! Says the ZIP codes can tell him what people eat, drink,

drive—even think! Each life-style cluster is a formal region with a colorful

name, for example:! “Gray Power”—upper middle-class retirement areas! “Old Yankee Rows”—blue- and white-collar older

ethnic neighbor-hoods of the Northeast! Norma Rae-Vile—lower- and middle-class southern

mill towns

Lifestyle clusters


! Old Yankee Rowers” typically have a high school education! Like bowling and ice hockey! Three times as likely to live in rowhouses or duplexes

! Residents of Norma Rae- Vile! Mostly nonunion factory workers! Have trouble making ends meet! Consume twice as much canned stew as the national

average


! The above examples are to make a point! A whole panoply of popular subcultures exists

in America and the world! Each possesses its own belief system,

spokespeople, dress code, and lifestyle! Popular culture creates new places

! Paul Adams sees television as being a gathering place

! Social space where members of a household and their friends assemble


! Television has become to popular culture, worldwide, what fire and hearth were to folk culture

! Must remember region and place exist from micro to macro scales

Cyberspace

! Perhaps the personal computer and Internet access have created another new type of place

! Certain words we use imply it has a geography—”Cyberspace”

! The information superhighway connects not two points, but all points, creating a new sort of place

Cyberspace

! Does cyberspace contain a geography at all?! Place, as understood by geographers, cannot be

created on the net! “Virtual places” lack a cultural landscape and a cultural

ecology! Human diversity is poorly portrayed in cyberspace

! Old people, poor people, the illiterate, and the continent of Africa are not represented

! On the net, users end up “meeting” people like themselves

! The breath and spirit of place cannot exist in cyberspace

! These are not real places and never can be

Cyberspace

! Still, cyberspace possesses some geographical qualities! Enhances opportunities for communication

over long distances! Allows access to rare data banks! Encourages and speeds cultural diffusion! The Internet helps heighten regional contrasts! Uneven spatial distribution of Internet

connections creates a new way people differ

Internet Connections

Food and drink

! What we eat and drink differs markedly from one part of the country and world to another

! Difference in alcoholic drink consumption in the United States! Beer has highest per capita consumption levels in the

West! Least beer is sold in the Lower South and Utah ! Corn whiskey, both legal and illegal, has been a

traditional southern beverage! Californians place more importance on wine

Kitsch Architecture: Lacross, Wisconsin

! Kitsch – trivial, showy, designed for mass consumption – it is increasingly common in placeless landscapes.

! Much kitsch in North American and Australia is characterized by gigantism

! This is purported to be the world’s largest six-pack.

Kitsch Architecture: Lacross, Wisconsin

! Gottlieb Heileman, a German immigrant, founded his brewery in 1870 and this region has one of the highest per capita beer consumption figures in the nation.

Food and drink

! Foods vary across North America! In the South, barbecued pork and beef, fried

chicken, and hamburgers have greater than average popularity

! More pizza is consumed in the North! Focus of Italian immigration! Pizza diffused to the southern states only in the

mid- 1950s

Food and drink

! Importance of fast food restaurants varies greatly within the United States! Stronghold is in the South — 57 percent in

Mississippi! Northeast has lowest rate of such eateries —

27 percent in New York and Vermont! We should not expect geographical uniformity

within popular culture! Placelessness has been overstated

Popular music ! The many difference styles of popular music all

reveal geographic patterning in levels of acceptance! Pop musicians can receive adulation of a magnitude

reserved for deities in folk culture! Elvis Presley, a generation after his death retains an

important place in American popular culture! Illustrates the vivid geography of the culture! Sale of memorabilia reveals a split personality! Hotbeds of Elvis worship lie in eastern states! Elvis largely forgotten out West

Sports! Abundant leisure time has allowed North Americans

to devote time watching or participating in sports! Few aspects of popular culture are as widely

publicized as our games, both amateur and professional

! From Little League through professional contests, athletics receive almost daily attention from members of popular culture

! The further we withdrew from our folk tradition, the more important organized games became

Sports

! The nineteenth century gave us football, ice hockey, baseball, soccer, and basket-ball—our major spectator sports

! Our folk ancestors played games, but most were limited to children and little time was spent on them

! Concept of professional athletes and admission-paying spectators is not found in folk culture

Sports

! With diffusion of commercial spectator sports through North America, distinct

! regional contrasts developed! “Hotbeds” of football arose in some regions! Basketball became a winter mania in some

areas! Baseball came to rule supreme in some states! Ice hockey reigned in still other provinces

Sports

! Participant sports reveal similar regionalization

! Ten “sports regions,” each with its own special character was developed after a study done by two geographers

! These ten regions provide a more definitive identity to regions formerly revealed mainly through intuition

Beauty pageants

! Contests are not confined to sports arenas! Nearly everyone participates in one or

another less strenuous competition! Provide a typical expression of American

popular culture! Began in earnest at Atlantic City, New Jersey

in the early 1920s

Beauty pageants

! Reveal pronounced areal contrasts! Winners tend to come preponderantly from

certain parts of the country! A “beauty queen belt” stretches from

Mississippi to Utah! Directly north of this belt lies a sizable block of

states that have never pro-duced a major contest winner

! As with other culture regions the question arises concerning cause and effect

Vernacular culture regions! Defined as those regions perceived to exist by their

inhabitants! Product of the spatial perception of the population at

large! Not a formal region based on carefully chosen criteria! Such regions vary greatly in size, from small districts

to multistate areas! Often overlap and usually have poorly defined

borders

Vernacular culture regions

! Example of “Green Country” in northeastern Oklahoma! Name pushed by Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation

Commission! Proclaim “where a blend of natural beauty, ideal

climate and frontier heritage offers visitors a memorable vacation experience”

! News media in Tulsa repeatedly drum “Green Country” into minds of local Oklahomans

! Billboards and businesses spread the same message


! These regions can be found in almost every part of the industrialized Western world

! Wilber Zelinsky! Compiled province-sized regions in North America ! Used most common provincial name appearing in the

white pages of urban telephone directories! One curious feature is found in the populous districts in

New York, Ontario, eastern Ohio, and western Pennsylvania where no affiliation to province is perceived


! Joseph Brownell, in 1960, sought to delimit the “Midwest” ! Sent questionnaires to postal employees in the

midsection of the United States from the Appalachians to the Rockies

! Asked each employee whether he/she felt the community lay in the “Midwest”

! Revealed core area where residents felt themselves to be Midwesterners

! Similar survey done 20 years later, using student respondents, gave almost the same result


! A resident of Alabama’s “Black Belt” might also claim residence in “Dixie” and “the South”

! Vernacular regions of America are perceptual in character

! Vernacular regions are often perpetuated by the mass media

Popular culture

! Popular Culture Regions! Diffusion in Popular Culture! The Ecology of Popular Culture! Cultural Integration in Popular Culture! Landscapes of Popular Culture

Hierarchical diffusion

! Might play a larger role because popular society is highly stratified

! McDonald’s restaurants! Beginning in 1955 spread hierarchically! Revealed a bias in favor of larger urban

markets


! Wal- Mart stores! Diffused from its Arkansas base in a largely contagious

pattern! Spread into neighboring states! Initially chose smaller towns and markets for locations

using a pattern called reverse hierarchical diffusion! Later spread into cities! Combination of contagious and reverse hierarchical

diffusion led Wal-Mart, within 30 years, to become the nation’s largest retailer


! Speed of diffusion in popular culture! Progresses far more rapidly than in folk culture! Time-distance decay is considerably weaker! In the early nineteenth century time span was

measured in decades! Modern transportation and communications networks

now permit cultural diffusion to occur within weeks or days

! Rapid diffusion enhances the chance for change in popular culture

Advertising

! Most effective device for popular culture diffusion

! Commercial advertising of retail products bombards us visually and orally

! Using psychology, we are sold products we do not need

! Popular culture is equipped with the most potent devices and techniques of dif-fusion ever perfected

Advertising

! Modern advertising is very place-conscious! Products and services are linked to popular,

admired places! Example of the “Marboro Man” and the

romanticized American West! Remarkably such techniques work in countries

as far away as Egypt

Advertising and Diffusion:Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia! Advertising plays a key role in

the diffusion of popular culture.! Symbols are important

marketing tools and companies aim to get instant recognition for their products.

! Here a row of former Chinese shophouses has been renovated as a “strip mall.”

! The signs are international status symobls meaning “American.”

Advertising and Diffusion:Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia! American pop culture is

becoming increasingly popular in Asia to the dismay of many traditional parents.

! How do you think these young Malaysians learn about American products and why are they so much in demand?

! Where do you think they are manufactured?

! What signs do you recognize?

International diffusion

! Innovations diffuse between countries and continents as rapidly as jet airplanes and satellite-beamed television programs

! Popular cultures of North America, Europe, and Australia have become similar and in constant contact! Country-western music now heard in Northern

Ireland’s pubs! Levi-clad Romanians in small towns flock to

American-made movies

International diffusion! Popular cultures of North America, Europe, and

Australia have become similar and in constant contact! Americans lineup to hear touring British rock musicians! Rocky Mountain ski resorts are built in Alpine-Swiss

architecture! Latest Paris fashions appear in American department

stores! Fast-food franchises of MacDonalds and Kentucky

Fried Chicken diffused to Russia ! Motel chains such as Holiday Inn took root in Tibet and

other countries

International diffusion

! In many lesser-developed countries acceptance of Western popular culture occurs among a socioeconomic elite

! Many people across the world now share aspects of a global culture

Stimulus Diffusion and Fast Food:Sao Paulo, Brazil

! Not only have McDonalds and other fast food outlets spread around the world but also they have stimulated the development of new ones.

Stimulus Diffusion and Fast Food:Sao Paulo, Brazil

! At McDingos, one can buy a hamberger, cheeseburger, a “Big Dingo” with double meet and cheese, and a “Bomba de Chocolate” ie a chocolate sundae

! The American influence is unmistakable

Communication barriers ! Spread can be greatly retarded if access to the media is denied! Billboard, a magazine devoted largely to popular music,

described such a barrier! Record company executive Seymour Stein complained radio

stations and disk jockeys refused to play “punk rock”! Stein claimed punk devotees were concentrated in New York

City, Los Angeles, Boston, and London! Diffusion of punk rock could only be heard in other areas

through live con-certs and the record sales they generated! Other musical forms had the same problem -- pachanga,

ska, pop/gospel, “women’s music”, reggae, and “gangstarap”

! Time Warner Inc., a major distributor of gangsta rap, had to endure scathing criticism in the United States congress in 1995

Communication barriers ! To control programming of radio and television is to control

much of the diffusion of popular culture! Government censorship can also provide barriers to diffusion

! Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran during 1995! Long opposed Western popular culture as a corrupting

influence! Outlawed television satellite dishes to try and prevent citizens

from Watching programs broadcast in foreign countries! Repressive regimes must cope with a proliferation of

communication methods—the fax and Internet! It is probably impossible for even totalitarian nations to

completely keep out some influence of popular culture

Communication barriers

! Government censorship can also provide barriers to diffusion! Example of Islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran —

outlawed television satellite dishes in 1995! Control of media can approach control of the mind in

popular culture! Repressive regimes must cope with a proliferation of

communication methods! Status of inward-looking “hermit” nations is probably no

longer attainable

Communication barriers

! Newspapers also act as selective barriers! Reinforce the effect of political boundaries! Between 21 and 48 percent of all news

published in Canadian newspapers is of foreign origin, mainly United States news

! About 12 percent of news in American newspapers foreign

Diffusion of the rodeo! Rooted in ranching culture of North American West

and has never completely escaped that setting ! Modern rodeo had its origin in folk tradition! Began simply as roundups of cattle in Spanish

livestock ranching! Started in northern Mexico and the American

Southwest! Word rodeo derived from the Spanish rodear, “to

surround” or “to round up”

Diffusion of the rodeo

! Cowboys from adjacent ranches began holding informal contests at roundup time to display their skills

! After the Civil War, some cowboy contests on the Great Plains became formalized, with prizes awarded

Diffusion of the rodeo! Transition to commercial rodeo, with admission

tickets and grandstands, came quickly! The “Wild West Show” and its role in the diffusion of

the rodeo! A rodeo at North Platte, Nebraska in 1882 led to some

events being included in a Wild West Show held in Omaha in 1883

! Wild West Shows moved by railroad from town to town! Probably provided the most potent agent of early rodeo

diffusion


! Within a decade of the Omaha affair commercial rodeos were being held independently of Wild West Shows at several towns! The first apparently at Prescott, Arizona, in

1888! By 1900, commercial rodeos appeared

throughout much of the West! Frontier Days rodeo, at Cheyenne, Wyoming,

was first held in 1897

Diffusion of the rodeo! By World War I, rodeos became an institution in provinces of

western Canada! The Calgary Stampede began in 1912! Professional rodeos are now held in 36 states and 3 Canadian

provinces! Oklahoma listed 98 scheduled events in 1977

! Ethnic and gender lives have been crossed! Creek Nation All Indian Rodeo at Okmulgee! All Girls Rodeo at Duncan! All Black Rodeo at Wewoka

! In Texas and other states, rodeo competition has become an official high school sport

! Major acceptance is found west of the Mississippi River


! Absorbing and permeable barriers to diffusion! Mexico—bullfighting occupies a dominant position! Mormon culture region centered in Utah! In central Mexico the charreada exists as a unique

form of rodeo! In California the rodeo penetrated the mountains to

reach the Pacific! Greatest strength of commercial rodeo lies in the

cattle ranching areas

The American diner

! Restaurant in the general shape of a railroad or trolley car

! Experienced a failure to diffuse throughout the United States

! Arose before World War II in the northeastern United states! Spread through the manufacturing belt states — New

York City-Philadelphia urban quarter! Perhaps as many as 6000 eateries were founded by

26 companies

The American diner

! Spread of the diner generally failed in the American South! Connoted cities, industries, ethnicity, and

“northernness”! Threatened southern way of life! Rejected from Virginia southward! Only Florida proved receptive to the idea

Popular Culture

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