Lesson 4

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Lesson 4 An Interaction(ist) Approach to
Popular Culture

• Robert Wonser
• Soc 86 Fall 2014

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The Interaction Approach

• This approach emphasizes how popular culture is
  created, diffused, and consumed as an outcome of
  social interactions experienced among small
  groups of individuals.
• Who you are, your tastes and values are a product
  of those around you.
• Your choice in pop culture is too.

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Foundations of the Interaction Approach

• The self is created and maintained through
  interactions with others
• As Charles Horton Cooley said, individuals build
  their self-image from the judgments of others, or
  at least from what they imagine others
  evaluations to be (looking-glass self)

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The Interaction Approach

• Our knowledge and experience of popular culture
  is conditioned by the social contexts in which we
  live and interact with others
• Our consumer and cultural tastesmusic we like,
  food we eat, clothes we wearare deeply
  influenced by our peers, acquaintances and others
  who surround us in everyday life
• Even though the production of most pop culture is
  done by a handful of corporations, the eventual
  success may depend on micro-level processes
  illustrative of how chattering individuals within
  small groups interact in everyday life.

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Social Networks and the Spread of Fashion and Fads

• social networks consist of individuals connected
  to one another through a variety of
  relationships, whether based on kinship,
  authority, friendship, romance, or work.
• Why do networks matter for pop culture?
• Trends and fads spread through these social
  networks

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Word-of-Mouth

• Communication among consumers who have no stake
  in a product are influential
• 67 of U.S. sales of consumer goods are based on
  word of mouth among friends, family and strangers
• Word-of-mouth is a function of
• Volume total of conversations in which it is
  discussed
• Intensity enthusiasm expressed in those
  conversations
• Valence evaluative content (good or bad movie?)
• Dispersal numerous social networks or just one?
• Duration how much time does it continue for?
• General rule people are more likely to talk
  about products favorably but negative word of
  mouth tends to have a stronger effect on consumer
  behavior

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Interpretive Communities

• Interpretive communities Consumers whose common
  social identities and cultural backgrounds
  (whether organized on the basis of nationality,
  race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, or
  age) inform their shared understandings of
  culture in patterned and predictable ways.
• They rely on common social experiences to frame
  their collective readings of popular culture

Some Latino fans explain their embrace of
Morrissey and the Smiths in terms of shared
ethnic heritage and immigrant experience
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Culture Wars

• Meaning is not simply given. What is art? What is
  good or bad?
• Culture wars are cultural conflicts fought among
  ideological adversaries in the public arena
• Ex PMRC and heavy metal and rap

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Popular Culture and the Search for Authenticity

• Perhaps the biggest motivator to consume popular
  culture meaning, identity and ultimately,
  authenticity.
• Authenticity can refer to a variety of desirable
  traits credibility, originality, sincerity,
  naturalness, genuineness, innateness, purity, or
  realness.
• Can never be truly authentic, instead must always
  be performed, staged, fabricated, crafted or
  otherwise imagined.

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What about Art Worlds?

• How do we know what the real deal is?
• Remember, art worlds are where many of our
  expectations regarding a particular art form come
  from.

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• The performance of authenticity always requires a
  close conformity to the expectations set by the
  cultural context in which it is situated (this
  includes the art worlds expectations).
• Why is authenticity so important? Is it lacking
  in our culture?
• The search for authenticity has been a
  middle-class reaction to the soullessness of
  monopoly capitalism (as expressed by Marxs
  critique of alienated labor).
• Can you think of something that is authentic?
  How do you know it is?

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• Consumers attribute authenticity to cultural
  objects and symbols as a means of creating
  distinction, status, prestige, or value
• Ironic that it is often associated with hardship
  and disadvantage
• Ex runaway middle-class punks, hipsters

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Case Study on Authenticity the Hipster
Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently
settled urban middle class adults and older
teenagers with musical interests mainly in indie
rock.

• Person A Are you a hipster?
• Person B (obviously a hipster) What?! No!
• Where do we turn when for authenticity?

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What are Hipsters though?

• Julia Plevin argues that the "definition of
  'hipster' remains opaque to anyone outside this
  self-proclaiming, highly-selective circle."
• She claims that the "whole point of hipsters is
  that they avoid labels and being labeled.
  However, they all dress the same and act the same
  and conform in their non-conformity" to an
  "iconic carefully created sloppy vintage look."
• Hipsters fetishize authenticity and borrow it in
  pastiche form from everywhere.

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Hipsters

• Key components of the Hipster
• Stuff authentic material culture, the correct
  stuff that indicates you have
• Taste (remember this for Bourdieu and cultural
  capital late on)
• Pastiche the hodgepodge blending of elements
  from pop culture to create a sensibility

• Ultimate goal here is to non-conform without an
  admission of actually doing so.
• Successful non-conformity is achieved through
  cultural ironytake anything valued within a
  culture, be it fashion, music, literature, or
  art, and use it or wear it with outright, yet
  subtle irony (this is more difficult to achieve
  than one might think).