Defining Popular Culture with reference to John Storey: Cultural theory and popular culture.

Defining Popular Culture with reference to John Storey: Cultural theory and popular culture.

The definition of Popular Culture is not a simple one. Throughout history several theories surrounding the concept have emerged which all offer a different insight into the meaning of the term. According to Storey, there are six main definitions for Popular Culture, which he explores briefly in the chapter, whilst constantly referring to his initial statements about ideology.

To begin ideology is described as a 'crucial concept' when researching into Popular Culture. This term is also one with several definitions. These include, "a systematic body of ideas articulated by a particular group of people", "false consciousness", ideas caused and thrusted upon the public by the dominant class, and that ideology is not a theoretical practice but instead a practical one. All though this could be explained in more depth, this response will be more focused on Storeys work on Popular Culture.

Culture is initially referred to as a word "used to refer to 'a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development'", "a particular way of life, whether of a people, period or a group", or "signifying practices". These may all seem similar, however there are slight differences in the definitions, which again would be explored in more depth if this was the element I was focusing on, be as that may it seemed worth touching on to help with an overall insight into the subject.

Storey summarizes Popular culture in six key ways; "culture that is widely favoured", "culture that is left over after we have decided what is high culture", "mass culture", "culture that originates from 'the people'", "exchange and negotiation", and postmodernism which "no longer recognises the distinction between high and popular culture." Personally, I cannot fully agree with any of these theories.

The first explanation for Popular Culture is meaningless. The concept that it is "favoured" isn't worth anything when it is imposed on the mass public, AKA the working class. Many theorist have a Marxist approach when studying Popular Culture, as do I, which simply means that the public is told what to like by people in higher power with more money. This can be done through many ways, a strong example being marketing. For example, Walt Disney spent $2.1 million on advertising in 20141, which led to the success of the movie Frozen. The trailers for this film where everywhere along with posters and merchandise, thus contributing to this being a case of priming causing a text to become Popular Culture. There are more examples of this in music. One direction came third in the Xfactor in the seventh series, thus suggesting they were less popular than the winner, who was Matt Cardle. Today they have a combine net worth of $150 million, whilst Cardle is only worth $3 million. It could be argued that this is due to marketing after the competition. For example, the winner was quoted saying "I would just have been left to get on with it while One Direction ruled the planet"2, thus implying substance behind my previous point. Larger companies thrust what they want to be Popular Culture on the masses.

A quantitate approach can also not be used in my explanation. This is because consummation doesn’t necessarily mean the reaction to a product is positive. This is shown through Donald Trump at the present moment. As he has been elected, it cannot be disputed that the majority of the voting public in America favoured him. Using PR and the destruction of Hillary Clinton through the media over the email scandal, Trump closed the gap between the two rivals. However now due to his policies coming into actions there has been protests world wide. Using the concepts raised by Storey, these would not have happened as Popular Culture is "passive". You may be questioning how a president could be described as a text of Popular Culture, well in its simplest form this example fits into the key theories on a hegemonic level. One theory is that hegemony has to be in place for Popular Culture to work, however the discourse caused by a seemingly positive welcome connotes that this decision is not "liked" globally. This also raises questions on how far Popular Culture ranges. Is it different dependant on the area the public live in?

In summery, despite Storey suggesting many different theories for Popular Culture, many of which have references to ideology, I believe that none of them are entirely accurate, as many link to the idea of the public consuming media texts etc in question, however the term 'popular' in its basic form is defined as a concept "liked"3, and consummation does not necessarily mean this. I also want to clarify I do believe that the public have texts forced upon them which leads passive audiences to contribute to things becoming Popular Culture without intention.

1 http://uk.businessinsider.com/10-biggest-advertising-spenders-in-the-us-2015-7/#10-walt-disney-company-ad-spend-up-74-to-21-billion-the-company-spent-big-on-marketing-its-box-office-phenomenon-frozen-with-fresh-content-and-merchandise-long-after-its-2013-opening-1 Last accessed on 31.01.17

2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Cardle last accessed on 31.01.17

4 http://www.bing.com/search?q=what+does+popular+mean&src=IE-TopResult&FORM=IETR02&conversationid= last accessed on 31.01.17