Table of Contents
Introduction
Pop culture also referred to as popular culture is the summation of perspectives, attitudes ,ideas and other phenomenon that are considered to be more preferable as per an informal consensus especially within daily phenomenon of a given culture. Most pop cultures are specifically evident in western culture that emerged in the 20th century. However since 21st century, most of the emerging pop cultures are felt globally (Hinds and Ferris, 157). Pop culture greatly influences the normal lives of the society especially due to the campaign they get from mass media.
Popular culture theories
Some of the theories on pop culture include the theory of mass society and the theory of cultural industry. As per mass society theory, this was developed during the industrialization process in the 19th century (Ray and Pat, 92). Some of the contributing features that resulted to development of this theory include urbanization, growth of political movements and even increased development of international communication system. This theory which was developed by aristocratic ideologists can be connected to moral crisis resulting due to industrialization that awakened traditional authority centers like religion and family which the industrialization process had started to erode. The society that was to develop due to pop culture as per this theory was one that lacked cultural authority and morals hence will result to the destruction of genuine art in the society.
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Contemporary liberal pluralism theory theorizes the fact that pop culture should be liberating and democratic. This theory shows how an intellectual can comfortably enjoy junk culture.
Culture industry theory
This is another traditional theory of pop culture. This theory opposes the aristocratic. The theory was developed by Frankfurt school critical theorists such as max, Theodor and Herbert. According to these scholars’ views on popular culture was that people, are dominated by an all round culture industry and in most cases, people tend to only obey what they perceive to be the logic of consumer capitalism. According to this theory they claim that there are no dominating societies that can be considered for a specific group of people who are responsible of taking partial care of the other groups or even representing these groups (Hinds and Ferris, 321). The rise of pop culture is hence according to this theory as a result of social classes avoiding being oppressed by others, a phenomenon that if not addressed results to the disappearance of that social class. To avoid being oppressed, the social class affected tries to emulate some characteristics fro other societies and of successful results to a stronger social class that other member start imitating.
Progressive evolution theory
This theory on popular culture perfectly fits liberal pluralist ideology. Progressive evolution theory views popular culture as an optimistic form of culture. A good illustration that is used to explain popular culture as per this theory is that this type of culture can be compared to capitalist economy who try all means to ensure that every one in the society participate in the new culture (Ray and Pat, 157). Through the use of mass education and media programs and films, popular culture are able to penetrate into the society in a subtle manner hence in most cases, popular culture like capitalist economy receive less resistance from the society. According to this theory, popular culture does not threaten any other culture but rather it’s mainly used as an original means for the people to express and overcome challenges they are faced with.