Unit 1 Nature of Culture

The Nature of Culture

Definitions of Culture

High culture and popular culture

The relationship between culture and value

The meanings and practices of everyday life

Sample Exam Question

Cultural Codes
Verbal/Non-verbal
Identity and self presentation
Group Communication
Reading Images and products

Revise for COMM1 exam, Question 1, by completing the activities and reading the articles below. There are a couple of sample questions on this page also.

Definitions of Culture

What is culture? Try writing a definition for yourself.
Now read the definitions below. Which ones do you agree with? Which ones do you disagree with and why?

• "Culture used to be so simple. Culture use to mean art, literature, and ideas. And not just any old art, literature, and ideas. Culture was High Art, Great Literature, and Big Ideas. And more particularly, our High Art, Great Literature, and Big Ideas."
• "Culture is a collection of beliefs, values and ways of doing things which are typical of a particular community and which are expressed and perpetuated through various codes"
• "Culture - a particular way of life which expresses certain meanings and values not only in art and literature, but also in institutions and ordinary behaviour"
• "Culture.the best that has been thought and said in the world"
• "Culture is the constant process of producing meanings for and from our social experience"
• "It's alleged by the media - and our culture - are "dumbing down", abandoning brain for sentiment, rigour for raucousness, standards for commercial success."
• "Mass culture is very, very democratic: it absolutely refuses to discriminate against, or between, anything or anybody."
• "The cultural diktat of our day still tells us that Schoenberg is superior to Presley; many people go along with that."

Click on the website below - they also have a go at defining culture and you may find them useful.
What is Culture - BBC website - video clips with celebrities giving their definition

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High Culture and Popular Culture

There are lots of different ideas and definitions of these two terms - you will be expected to explore them and provide examples of them in your work and examination answers.

Popular culture would include most forms of mass communication or commercial forms of art such as pop and rock music, TV soap operas, romance stories, blockbuster films, tabloid newspapers etc.

High culture would include classical music , documentary, serious novels, avant-garde or experimental films, broadsheet newspapers, great art such as Van Gogh, Rembrandt etc

As Communication Studies students we are interested in this distinction because certain theoretical groups such as Marxists and Feminists see popular culture as either big business (or the ruling classes) making money out of us and keeping us happy or in the case of feminists, exploiting us for money.

High culture, on the other hand, is seen as pure art, an expression of individual but universal ideas being communicated to other individuals who appreciate and interpret these pieces of art - stories, paintings, films - in their own, unique way. High culture can also be a force for oppression because it is held up as the model all cultural artefacts and art should aspire to.

Try this explanation of Popular Culture by clicking here and then finding the links at the top of the page for High Culture and 'low' culture.

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The Relationship between Culture and Value

There are many different and competing explanations of why cultural products have value. Here are three possibilities - which one do you agree with and why?

• A cultural product has value because it makes a good profit for its producer.
• A cultural product has value because it has stood the test of time.
• A cultural product has value because it is enjoyed by a large number of people.

Read these articles from the Guardian newspaper and BBC website, which discussing some popular arguments and ideas about what is of value and why, in our culture. Try to draw out some criteria from the articles, to describe what qualities high cultural products have compared to popular cultural products.

Cultural cacophony

The invention of popular culture

They want us to choose between the Beatles and Beethoven. Can't we have both?

Art for Art's Sake

High Culture versus Popular Culture - is opera better than rock music?
Read these Guardian articles which give both points of view. Article 1 and counter Article 2. What do you think?

Architecture

Look at the pictures below. What sort of people would visit and enjoy these buildings?

Literature

What sort of people would read these books?

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K Rowling
2. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
3. Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
4. Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger
5. Doctor Who: Peacemaker by James Swallow
6. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Which of the books on the list above would you say was part of Popular Culture and which is High Culture?

Art

Look at the art on this link to the Public Language and Graffiti page - is this art or vandalism? How can we tell? Who decides? What criteria do we use?

Sample Exam Question (click here for advice on how to tackle it)

1 The critic Dick Hebdige has suggested that ‘Culture is a notoriously ambiguous concept’, pointing out that ‘the word has acquired a number of quite different meanings, often contradictory’. Choose one of the following definitions of culture and write about your own cultural experiences in the terms of your chosen definition.

EITHER
1(a) Culture is quite simply ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’ (Arnold 1868).
OR
1(b) Culture is ‘a particular way of life that expresses certain meanings and values’ (Williams 1965).
OR
1(c) Culture consists of ‘all the characteristic activities and interests of a people’ (Eliot 1948). (20 marks)

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The Meanings and Practice of Everyday Life

Look at the images above - which aspects of our culture do they represent? Why are they important to people? How do these social practices differ from country to country, culture to culture? You may need to do a little research to find out. Try the Crazy Brits website. Add some of your own examples of rituals, festivals or practices which you think may be unique to your country or community.

Have a look at the British Library web pages on Ritual and Tradition - particularly related to food.

Social Ritual

Wake up and smell the coffee - article on British tea drinking by Jeremy Clarkson (Thanks for this article to Sarah King)  

ACTIVITY
Click on the links to the articles listed below - read them carefully

Read the article "Art for Art's Sake"

The gloomiest August on record - The British love of sunbathing!

High Culture versus Popular Culture - is opera better than rock music? Read these Guardian articles which give both points of view. What do you think?

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