Low culture

Low culture is a derogatory term for forms of popular culture that have mass appeal. Its contrast is high culture which can also be derogatory. It has been said by culture theorists that both high culture and low culture are subcultures.

The boundaries of low culture and high culture blur, through convergence. Many people are "omnivores", making cultural choices from different menus.

Standards and definitions of low culture

In his book Popular Culture and High Culture, Herbert J. Gans gives a definition of how to identify and create low culture:

Aesthetic standards of low culture stress substance, form and being totally subservient; there is no explicit concern with abstract ideas or even with fictional forms of contemporary social problems and issues. ... Low culture emphasizes morality but limits itself to familial and individual problems and [the] values, which apply to such problems. Low culture is content to depict traditional working class values winning out over the temptation to give into conflicting impulses and behavior patterns.
— Herbert Gans, ^[1]

When applying that lens to mass media, it often includes shows that do not go too deeply into abstract ideas, or that do not address head-on contemporary social problems.

Culture as class

Herbert Gans states in his book Popular Culture and High Culture that the different classes of culture are linked correspondingly to socio-economic and educational classes.^[2] For any given socio-economic class, there is a culture for that class. Hence the terms high and low culture and the manifestation of those terms as they appeal to their respective constituents.

Mass media

Audience

All cultural products (especially high culture) have a certain demographic to which they appeal most. Low culture appeals to very simple and basic human needs plus offers a perceived return to innocence,^[3] the escape from real world problems, or the experience of living vicariously through viewing someone else’s life on television.^[4] for examples.

Stereotypes

Low culture can be formulaic, employing trope conventions, stock characters and character archetypes in a manner that can be perceived as more simplistic, crude, emotive, unbalanced, or blunt compared to high culture's implementations—which may be perceived as more subtle, balanced, or refined and open for interpretations.

References

↑ Herbert Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture pg. 115.
↑ Herbert Gans Popular Culture and High Culture pg. 7
↑ , Anna Tomisino Discovering Pop Culture, pg. 211.
↑ , Anna Tomisino Discovering Pop Culture, pg. 225 (although this is an excerpt from "The Happiest Place On Earth: Disney" by Eric Mazur and Tara Koda.)

Culture
Outline
Sciences	Cultural anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural geography Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory Neuroculture
Subfields	Bioculture Cross-cultural studies Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural leadership Cross-cultural psychiatry Cross-cultural psychology Cultural analytics Cultural economics Cultural entomology Cultural health Cultural history Cultural mapping Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Culturomics Intercultural learning Intercultural relations Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Transcultural nursing
Types	Constructed culture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Microculture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Subculture Alternative culture list Super culture Vernacular culture Culture by location
Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural behavior Cultural bias Cultural capital Cross-cultural Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural emphasis Cultural framework Cultural heritage Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Cultureme Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Safety culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation Visual culture
Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cross cultural sensitivity Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural contracts Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural racism Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural subsidy Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Deculturalization Dominator culture Interculturalism Intraculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Biculturalism Pluriculturalism Security culture Transculturism
Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Bullying culture Cannabis culture Circuit of culture Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural center Cultural Christian Cultural Mormon Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural Detective Cultural determinism Cultural diversity Cultural encoding Cultural evolutionism Cultural Hindu Cultural homogenization Cultural institution Cultural jet lag Cultural Judaism Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural mulatto Cultural Muslim Cultural probe Cultural relativism Culture speculation Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural translation Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture and positive psychology Culture and social cognition Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Culturgen Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Death and culture Disability culture Deaf culture Emotions and culture Intercultural communication Intercultural competence Languaculture Living things in culture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture
Category Portal Commons WikiProject changes

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.