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  • Essay / The Meaning of Popular Culture: What is Popular Culture?

    “In more traditional definitions of the term, culture is said to embody “the best of what has been thought and said” in a society (Hall, 1997: 2). When applying this to popular culture, it can be assumed that if something is consumed by many people, such as products, ideas, and experiences, it is "popular." Popular culture can come from a range of genres such as sports, music, cyberculture, entertainment and television. One way to monitor aspects of popular culture is to analyze numbers, including sales, watches, and attendees. An example would be pop music. "The official UK chart is calculated by both sales and streams, with a streaming ratio of 150:1 (Ibid, online 2018)", with the artist calculating the highest number being awarded number 1 in the UK on a Friday. Flaws can be found in this idea because although something may be popular with a majority, it does not take into account the ideas and viewpoints of subcultures. Even if something may be accessible and enjoyed by a majority, that doesn't mean that idea/experience or product is the best overall, contradicting Hall's previous statement. On top of this, the idea that popular culture is enjoyed by many can only go so far, which Hall also examines by introducing the interpretation that popular culture is "the culture that remains after we have decided what what is high culture” (2009: 6). According to this definition, popular culture is a residual category, an inferior culture, which is "there to accommodate texts and practices that do not meet the standards required to be qualified as high culture ».