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In sociology, the term Low culture identifies the forms of
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
that have
mass appeal, which is in contrast to
High culture
High culture is a subculture that emphasizes and encompasses the cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, art, and literature that a society cons ...
, which has a limited appeal to a smaller proportion of the populace.
Culture theory
Culture theory is the branch of comparative anthropology and semiotics (not to be confused with cultural sociology or cultural studies) that seeks to define the heuristic concept of culture in operational and/or scientific terms.
Overview
In t ...
proposes that both high culture and low culture are
subculture
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
s within a society, because each type of popular culture is mass produced by the
culture industry
The term culture industry (german: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment ...
, for every social class.
Standards and definitions
In ''Popular Culture and High Culture: An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste'' (1958),
Herbert J. Gans
Herbert J. Gans (born May 7, 1927) is a German-born American sociologist who taught at Columbia University from 1971 to 2007.
One of the most prolific and influential sociologists of his generation, Gans came to America in 1940 as a refugee fro ...
defines and identifies ''Low culture'':
Culture as social class
Each
social class
A social class is a grouping of people into a set of Dominance hierarchy, hierarchical social categories, the most common being the Upper class, upper, Middle class, middle and Working class, lower classes. Membership in a social class can for ...
possess their own types of high-culture and of low-culture, the definition and content of which are determined by the socio-economic and educational particulars, the ''
habitus'' of the people who compose a given social class. Therefore, what is ''high culture'' and what is ''low culture'' has specific meanings and usages collectively determined by the members of a social class.
History
Physical artefacts from low culture are normally small, cheaply and often crudely made, in contrast to the often grand
public art
Public art is art in any Media (arts), media whose form, function and meaning are created for the general public through a public process. It is a specific art genre with its own professional and critical discourse. Public art is visually and phy ...
or luxury objects of high culture. The cheapness of the materials, many perishable, generally means that survivals to modern times are rare. There are exceptions, especially in
pottery
Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...
and
graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
on stone. An
ostracon
An ostracon (Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ston ...
is a small piece of pottery (or sometimes stone) which has been written on, for any of a number of purposes, among which
curse tablet
A curse tablet ( la, tabella defixionis, defixio; el, κατάδεσμος, katadesmos) is a small tablet with a curse written on it from the Greco-Roman world. Its name originated from the Greek and Latin words for "pierce" and "bind". The table ...
s or more positive magical spells such as
love magic
Love magic is the belief that magic can conjure sexual passion or romantic love. Love magic is often used in literature, like fantasy or mythology, and it is believed it can be implemented in a variety of ways, such as by written spells, dolls, ...
are common. Wood must have been a common material, but only survives for long periods in certain climatic conditions, such as Egypt and other very arid areas, and permanently wet and slightly acid
peat bog
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; a ...
s.
Once
printing
Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ea ...
(and paper) became relatively cheap, by the late
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...
,
popular prints
Popular prints is a term for printing, printed images of generally low artistic quality which were sold cheaply in Europe and later the New World from the 15th to 18th centuries, often with text as well as images. They were some of the earliest e ...
became increasingly widespread, and cheap texts of
street literature
Street literature is any of several different types of publication sold on the streets, at fairs and other public gatherings, by travelling hawkers, pedlars or chapmen, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Robert Collison's account of t ...
such as
broadsides and sheets with
broadside ballad
A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the ...
s, typically new topical words to a familiar tune. These became extremely common, but were treated as
ephemera
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...
, so that survivals are few.
Much traditional
folk music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
was only written down, and later mechanically recorded, in the 19th century, when nationalist sentiment in many countries made it of interest to middle class enthusiasts.
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, the escape from real world problems, or the experience of living vicariously through viewing someone else's life on television.
Stereotypes
Low culture can be formulaic, employing
trope conventions,
stock character
A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
s and character
archetype
The concept of an archetype (; ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, and literary analysis.
An archetype can be any of the following:
# a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main model that ot ...
s 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.
See also
References
{{culture
Popular culture
Culture
Mass media
Social class subcultures
Working-class culture