Sociology: Globalisation, Media and Popular Culture 1

-Globalisation has undermined national and local cultures, as the same cultural and consumer products are now sold across the world, inspired and promoted by global media content and advertising.

-These products become part of the ways of life of many different countries, spreading a popular culture which makes what were once different cultures more and more alike.

-Advances in multi-media technology, like satellite TV and the internet, and the digitisation of cultural products like music and visual art, mean that today's media conglomerates operate in a global marketplace.

-As well as breaking down the distinction between high culture and popular culture, this new digital world also breaks down the cultural distance between countries, and popular culture is spread beyond the boundaries of particular nation-states, with the same cultural products sold across the globe.

-Companies have to make their content have 'world' appeal'.

-'One Day We Won't Need This Day' - Nike.

-People throughout the world are interconnected through the use of new media technologies.

-Mass culture, which is this enjoyed by the majority, is highly commercialised, involving mass-produced, standardised and short-lived products, sometimes of trivial content and seen by many as of no lasting artistic value.

-These cultural products are designed to be sold on the global mass market to make profits for the large 'culture industry' corporations that produce them, especially the mass media.

-The term 'low culture' is a derogatory term to describe this - its usage suggests mass culture is of inferior quality to the high culture of the of the elite.

-This is everyday culture - simple, undemanding, easy-to-understand entertainment, rather than something 'set apart' and 'special'.

-Such products aimed at popular tastes are typically the products of mass culture, such as mass-circulation magazines, red-top tabloid newspapers like the Sun of the Mirror; television soaps and reality TV shows, TV films, dramas and thrillers, popular music, feature films for the mass market, thrillers bought for reading on the beach and popular websites like Facebook.

-It is largely linked to passive and unchallenging entertainment, designed to be sold to the largest number of people possible.

-Such products are dumbed-down - they demand little critical thought, analysis or discussion, and rarely provide any challenge to the existing social structure or cultural ideas.

-The mass media are now spreading a mass culture across the globe, which is becoming this of millions as it appeals to people across local communities, different cultures and national divisions, and makes vast sums of money for huge media conglomerates.

-The global reach of contemporary media, the mass production of goods on a world scale, and easier international transportation make a huge range of media and cultural products available to everyone.

-This has been combined with a huge expansion of the media-based creative and cultural industries, like advertising, television, film, music, and book, magazine and web publishing, which makes the distinction between high and popular culture meaningless.

-Such changes enable original music and art and other cultural products to be consumed by the mass of people in their own homes without visiting specialised institutions like theatres or art galleries.

-High culture is no longer the preserve of cultural elites, and people now have a wide diversity of cultural choices and products available to them and can pick 'n' mix from either popular or high culture.

-Technology has made it possible for mass audiences to see and study high-culture products, such as paintings by artists like Van Gogh, on the internet or TV, and have their own framed print hanging on their sitting-room wall.

-Internet websites, like those of museums and galleries and Google mean people can build their own private high-culture virtual museums and galleries.

-The originals may still only be on show in art galleries and museums, but copies are available to everyone.

-High-culture images, like the Mona Lisa or Van Gogh's Sunflowers, are now reproduced on everything from socks and T-shirts to chocolates and can lids, mugs, mouse mats, tablemats, jigsaws and posters.

-Classical music is used as a marketing tune by advertisers, and literature is turned into TV series and major mass movies, such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

-They view media globalisation in ways that are more similar to the pluralist than the Marxist view.

-They regard the diversity of the globalised media as offering the world's population more choices in terms of their consumption patterns and lifestyles, opening up a greater global awareness and access to a diversity of cultures, bringing them more opportunities to form their identities unconstrained by the limited horizons of local cultures.

-They argue that the media no longer reflect reality but actively create it.

-People today are disillusioned with grand political, philosophical and scientific theories or meta-narratives about the way society works or should work - they argue that a media-saturated society produces a more media-literate audience that, because of the sheer diversity of media output, is aware that there is no such thing as a single and absolute truth, and that knowledge is actually underpinned by diversity, plurality and difference.

Evaluations:

-They assume that people approach the media without any prior experiences of their own, and that they do not discuss, interpret, ignore or reject media imagery and messages.

-Media images and representations of gender, age, ethnicity, disability and so on do not open up new choices of identity and lifestyle, but simply present and reinforce stereotypes.

-Many people, particularly in the poorest social groups and the poorest countries of the world, simply do not have access to new media, and cannot afford to make free choices between media-promoted lifestyles and identities, and buy the consumer goods associated with them, no matter how much they might like to.

-Marxists emphasise that the choice alleged by this perspective is a myth, as transnational media conglomerates control the major media and forms of communication and influence.

-The media are only one element - albeit an important one - in shaping our lives - for many of us, our gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, social class, whether we are able-bodied or disabled, our experiences of school, college, work friends and family, our political or religious beliefs all are likely to influence how we select, interpret and respond to the media.

-They have been criticised for exaggerating the degree of the social changes that they associate with global media and popular culture - evidence from attitude surveys indicates that many people still see social class, ethnicity, family, nation and religion as having more influence over their lives and identities than global media or culture.

-Media influence is undoubtedly important, but it is not the determining factor in most people's lifestyle choices.

-He saw this as a form of social repression - a means of locking people into the present system, promoting conformity and a passive acceptance of the way things are, and undermining the potential for revolutionary action to change society.

He claimed this conformity is the product of media audiences being encouraged by media companies to subscribe to 3 ways of thinking and behaviour:

1. Commodity fetishism - the idea that the products of popular culture have special powers that somehow enhance the life of the user. For example, Turkle's (2011) research suggests many people see their smartphones as extensions of their self and feel lost and disconnected when they are without the device.

2. False needs - this is the idea generated by the media through marketing, advertising and branding that, in order to conform to a modern lifestyle, consumers need to have a particular product. These products are not essential, hence the description of them as 'false needs', but the consumer is persuaded that they are central to their lifestyle and identity. Such products are deliberately designed to be obsolete - they have a fairly short life-span before the next range of products appears. Adorno claimed that these 'false-need' products exist in order to bind consumers to producers.

3. Conspicuous consumption - particular products of the media and the popular culture it generates are presented as having more status than other items for consumption. Consequently, certain brands are credited with imbuing the consumer with more status than others. People are therefore encouraged by the media to 'conspicuously consume' - to be seen with the 'right' cultural products, such as designer labels, in order to attract praise and status from others.

-Power of global conglomerates such as Disney and companies like Netflix - operating in a global marketplace and have access to audiences across the world.

-Societies across the world have become increasingly interconnected and are exposed to the same cultural products.

-Postmodernists argue that this has democratised culture and that there is no longer a hierarchy of culture.

-Marxists argue that this concept has led to a form of social control where we can experience mass conformity and lose our ability to think and challenge those in power.

Examples:

-F.R.I.E.N.D.S

-X-Factor

-Strictly Come Dancing

-Bake Off

-Top Gear - Top Gear America, Top Gear Italia, Top Gear China

-Media Imperialism is similar, in that it is the suggestion that the media, particularly the internet, satellite television and global advertising, have led to the imposition of Western, and especially American, cultural values on non-Western cultures.

-Its products are often found in special places such as art galleries, museums, concert halls and theatres, and they are aimed at mainly upper-class and professional middle-class audiences with that might be viewed as 'good taste'.

-Such products might include 'serious' news programmes and documentaries, and quality newspapers, involving comprehensive detail, social and political analysis and discussion.

-Other products include classical music like that of Mozart or Beethoven, opera, ballet, jazz, foreign-language or specialist 'art' films, and what has become established literature, such as the work of Shakespeare, Dickens, the Brontës, Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf, and visual art like that of Monet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso or Kahlo.

-The internet, cable, satellite and digital television, and the global reach of modern media technology all offer a huge range of media products.

-This gives consumers across the world a wide diversity of cultural choices.

-New media technology, like smartphones and the internet through websites like YouTube, Facebook and Blogger, enables consumers to create and distribute their own media products, and enables people to generate their own popular culture, rather than being the passive victims of Western media conglomerates.

-There are a variety of possible effects of the media, and media messages can be interpreted in a range of ways.

-Even if media conglomerates are spreading Western ideas, values and culture, this does not mean that all cultures will react in the same way or necessarily adopt the Western culture and consumer lifestyles the global media promote.

-Rather than being doped into passivity, with people simply and uncritically swallowing what they see or hear, as some Marxists argue, consumers and audiences now have more choices and knowledge available to them than ever before in history.

-This, they claim, makes it ever more difficult for any one set of ideas or culture to dominate in the world, leading to a promotion of democracy, growing cultural diversity through hybridisation, and the blossoming of ideas that were never before possible.

-Popular mass culture is a form of social control, giving an illusion of choice between a range of similar dumbed-down, standardised, trivial and uncritical media infotainment and escapist fantasy, which maintains the ideological hegemony and power of the dominant social class in society.

-This has been intensified by the growth of global media corporations such as Apple and Facebook - Access to the worldwide web via the Internet, global webservers (such as AOL or Google) and new technology (such as wireless broadband) mean that we can access information and entertainment in all parts of the world.

-Many people in the world are exposed to the same content as media crosses national frontiers.

-We live in a 'global village' and experience a shared global culture.