One World, One Culture? The Globalisation Debate

This weeks focus was on the globalisation debate within popular culture. According to Held et al (1999: 14-16) ‘Globalisation is the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual’. Furthermore, according to Baylis & Smith (1997: 7) Globalisation

Popular Culture Goes Online

This week we looked at the theories behind popular culture and the internet, how popular culture shapes the internet and the cultural messages we produce within society as a result of the internet. The internet is one of the biggest and most controversial changes in the 21st century and is used more and more as

Tourism and Popular Culture

This weeks main focus was on tourism and popular culture. Tourism and travel enlightens us of cultures different to our own version of normality. Destinations are chosen for the ‘anticipation of pleasure’ and prospect of an experience which contrasts with the normal and everyday. Travel and Tourism has changed dramatically in the modern day but

Celebrity Culture

This weeks main focus was on the celebrity world. As famously define by the historian Daniel Boorstin, ‘a celebrity is a person who is known for their well-knownness’ (Cook, 2011) Furthermore, this week looked at how celebrities are held within society and how they effect society and popular culture, especially in children and young people.

Race, Ethnicity and Popular Culture

This weeks focus was on Race and Ethnicity in popular culture. Race is designed because there are innate biological differences which are apparent within physiology. Barnes Theory of Semiotics can be applied to this section of popular culture as race and ethnicity carry many signifiers which depict messages within culture about that particular individual or

Popular Culture and Gender Identity

This weeks focus was on gender identity and the impact which popular culture has on the stereotypes and expectations we make and face within society. Fleras & Kunz (2001:112) discusses that biology determines an individuals sex as a male or female but popular culture shapes what it takes to be a man or a woman.

Popular Culture, Consumption and Class Identity

This weeks main focus was how popular culture shapes society and class distinction. Conventionally, class distinction was determined by somebodies wealth and economic status. For example, the bourgeoisie upper class to the unskilled lower classes described by Marx (Bennett et al, 2010.) However, moving forwards and into the 21st century it is becoming more clear

Reading the Popular: Culture as a System of Signs of Status

This weeks focus was on Barthes notion of Semiotics. Barthes theory broke down the process of reading signs and focused on their interpretation by different cultures and societies. Barthes suggests that all signs are formulated through two components; the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the sound, image or mark that is visual or

Ideology and Capitalism

This week the main focus was on the Ideology and theories establish by Karl Marx. This included the theory of Capitalism, Marx’s theory of culture and commodity fetishism. Capitalism is a socio-economic system based specifically on private ownership of the means of productions and the the exploitation of the labour force (Shoul, 1957.) However, the

‘Popular Culture’: An Introduction to the Debate.

Upon beginning this course I had very little knowledge and understand of the term ‘popular culture’ and the theories behind it. However, throughout the first of my portfolio entries I will report and discuss the theories we build upon within lectures and seminars, before moving onto the lived experience of popular culture. Within this portfolio