Introduction to Popular Culture (Part 3)

Classifications of Culture
Framing what is “Popular”
Classifications of Culture
• Popular Culture
• High Culture
• Folk Culture
Popular Culture
One of the ways of defining
popular culture is to suggest that
it is the culture that is left over
after we have decided what is
high culture.
Popular culture does not meet
the standards of “high culture”.
High Culture
High culture is considered as “real
culture”. It is considered as real culture
because of its difficulty.
Its very difficulty literally excludes, an
exclusion that guarantees the
exclusivity of its audience. Popular
culture is mass-produced commercial
culture, whereas high culture is the
result of an individual act of creation.
High culture is the expression of the
individual artist.
Folk Culture
Folk culture is the expression of the
people
Folk culture refers to the products
and practices of relatively
homogeneous and isolated small-
scale social groups living in rural
locations. Thus, folk culture is often
associated with tradition, historical
continuity, sense of place, and
belonging.

It is a culture of the people for the

people.
 Framing What is “Popular”
Framing theory suggests that how
something is presented to the audience
(called “the frame”) influences the choices
people make about how to process that
information. Frames are abstractions that
work to organize or structure message and
meaning.
The framing theory was formulated
by Erving Goffman in his work “Frame
Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of
Experience”.
References
• https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-
9780199874002/obo-9780199874002-
0092.xml#:~:text=Conventionally%2C%20folk%20culture%20refers%2
0to,sense%20of%20place%2C%20and%20belonging.
• https://masscommtheory.com/theory-overviews/framing-theory/

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