Research: Popular Theory

POPULAR MUSIC THEORY

The music industry has a large place in 'popular culture'. Media theorists/sociologists have explained what popular culture is, who it's for and how it gets received. It's important to understand these theories because they outline how the media operates and affects our daily lives. This post explores Gramsci's hegemony theory, the Frankfurt School, the Birmingham School, Hebdige on subcultures and Adorno's theory on popular culture. 

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POPULAR CULTURE

Popular culture refers to standardised production to manipulate mass society into passivity.

Because the masses cannot understand ‘true art’, the bourgeoisie have constructed a division between the two cultures in terms of what they consume.

The masses at the bottom of the triangle intake popular culture, such as chart music and they do not realise that what they are listening to is essentially ‘the same’, (singing about the same cultural ideas, themes etc.).

Popular media and music products are standardised; meaning that they are all similar like factory productions. Pseudo-individualisation is also present in the media – this is incidental differences between content that make it seem different, but in reality it isn’t.

This applies to consumption of media products. Large, mainstream audiences have formed who fall under the 'masses' and are passive to the hegemony behind what they are listening to. Niche music acts as a resistance to this, challenging conventions by being different - which are arguably a part of postmodernism world meaning popular culture no longer exists.

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GRAMSCI - HEGEMONY

Antonio Gramsci was a leading Marxist thinker who used the term hegemony to denote the predominance of one social class over others.

Hegemony is the way that those in power maintain it. Dominant ideologies are considered hegemonic, power in society is maintained by constructing ideologies which tend to be promoted by the mass media. For example, the media is likely to control what is broadcasted to viewers, what shows are censored and what shows are banned.

As a result, many musicians self publish their music and video on sites that are widely accessible avoiding the media. In comparison to before, it is argued that broadcasting companies no longer hold hegemony, although they attempt to regain it by using new technologies, instead the people hold hegemony. 

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FRANKFURT SCHOOL - CULTURAL THEORY

Stuart hall who was a cultural theorist and sociologist attended the Birmingham school where he created his theory which was revolved around issues regarding hegemony and cultural studies, taking a post gramascianstance.

His theory also included encoding and decoding. Encoding is the process by which a text is constructed by its producers, whereas, decoding is the way in which an audience reads, understands and interprets a text, Spectators will decode the text in a different way.

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ADORNO - POPULAR CULTURE

This PowerPoint has been created to explain Adorno's theory of popular culture. Adorno was a sociologist who came from the Frankfurt School.

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BIRMINGHAM SCHOOL - CULTURAL THEORY 

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HEBDIGE - SUBCULTURES

Dick Hebdige, media theorist and sociologist, counters McCracken in his theory. He argues that subcultures do form under the intention to resist mainstream culture.

Because of this, subcultures are all doing the same thing despite differences in attributes such as dress sense. Subcultures are otherwise 'little cultures', as they are all resisting the main culture. 

We are all active consumers, Hebdige says, so use an active process when reading into media. One product can be interpreted in various ways depending on the person. Different reading can be heavily influenced by what social background a person is from. This allows for resistance thus forms a subculture.

This applies to the audiences of the music industry. With mainstream artists come mainstream audiences, likewise with niche artists come niche audiences. As they are smaller, loyalty to the artist is stronger and personalities of those within the subculture are more defined. Whereas, mainstream audiences consist of a large diversity of individuals.