LESSON II- CULTURE AS DOMINANT, EMERGENT AND RESIDUAL

It is essential for us to step back and explore more as to how culture was defined and the
connection between the society and the culture. Raymond Williams, British cultural critic, quoted that
‘culture is one among the 2 or three most intricate words within the English language’ . It is without a
doubt one of the focal ideas in our comprehension of how present day social orders work, and
consequently it merits investing some energy considering the various manners by which the term
'culture' has been and is utilized. The ‘true’ meaning of culture has finally been defined: in light of the
fact that culture is one of the key ideas in our insight into social orders over a wide span of time,
definitions are continually being created and refined. I find it fascinating upon reading the essay that
both explains how dominant social structures maintain their dominance, while at the same time other
social groups and in fact individuals can contradict or subvert those cultures. I’m also excited by Williams
description of dominant cultures being influenced by individual actions and practices, as this is often a
prominent idea in practice theory a theory that shows how individuals shape their cultural environment
through their own agency and how the natives can able to preserve and developed their own culture up
until this moment.

For Williams, culture expresses meanings and values (structure of feeling) and through cultural
analysis it is possible to clarify them. He describes society’s constant change as ‘the structure of feeling’.
Williams suggests that with every generation young people respond towards society, and by doing so
they create their own values and own cultural identities.

I am also amused upon knowing that there are three categories of culture and these are residual,
emergent and dominant culture. Impressed with the thought of residual which is the influence of old
cultural practices on modern societies, consciously or unconsciously. A sort of “residue—cultural as well
as social” that is built into the infrastructure of the dominant culture. It is certainly active in shaping
society, even if it does not come from the dominant culture itself. On the other hand, I'm impressed
with the understanding of the emergent culture in which it is described as the new cultural ideas and
practices that are being created constantly in a society by groups and individuals. These ideas can be
dominant themselves, but they can also be alternative or opposing. Alternative would be less
confrontational, where as opposition (to the dominant culture) would clearly be more confrontational.
Lastly, somehow I feel agitated and curious about the dominant culture as to how powerful they are.
The dominant culture refers to the established language and ideals held as the norms for a society,
usually imposed by the majority. Williams then examines the role public versus private sectors have
towards the dominant culture. Practices that are not openly of the dominant culture are practiced in
private in which the dominant culture has no say towards these practices. “Therefore no dominant
social order and therefore no dominant culture ever in reality includes or exhausts all human practice,
human energy, and human intention.” Nonetheless, Williams’ assertion of dominant cultures being
influenced by individual actions and practices was pretty thought-provoking. Essentially, his theory
demonstrates how individuals shape their cultural environment by their own agency.
Pop Culture and Culture Industry

Interestingly, the word ‘‘popular’’ implies to “people” in different contexts. There are three
discourses on how art elevates an ordinary life, transcending body, time and place. First, the concept of
culture derives from trends and developing agriculture. Culture is seen in social sciences and in the
humanities – truth versus beauty, as it is now a marker of differences and similarities in taste and status
within groups.

“Popular culture’’ in Neoclassical economics assumes that desires and capacity to pay for
services results as publicly accepted – being it to be “popular.” The connection of market entertainment
to new identities leads to a variety of sociological reactions. It leads audiences to conceived empirical
entities via research instruments from sociology, demography, psychology, and marketing. Classical
Marxism views the popular as a means to false consciousness that diverts the working class from
recognizing its economic oppression. According to Antonio Gramsci, popular culture legitimizes
sociopolitical arrangements in the public mind and can be the site of struggle as well as domination.
Adorno and Horkheimer see consumers as manipulated by those at the economic apex of production. As
some functionalist sociologists suggest, popular culture represents the apex of modernity. It stands for
the expansion of civil society as part of general community. Popular culture leaves its mark on those
who create it as well as its audiences.

As significant changes in popular culture. Popular culture is more than textual signs or everyday
practices (Martin Barbero, 2003). Culture industry is a term which performs both a descriptive and
conceptual function. It also has history. The term culture referred to the super structure — the social
realm of meaning construction and circulation where symbolic forms of all types were produced and
distributed, and to the German Idealist tradition of culture (or art) as a realm of freedom from material
constraint and interests. The culture industry thus primarily referred to the industrialization and
commodification of the process of symbolic production and circulation in toto.

The use of the term industry referred (Marxism) to the domination of the cultural realm by
competitive and increasingly monopolistic corporations driven by the search for profit through the
exchange of cultural commodities, thus necessarily alienating. Engagingly, it is also referred (Weber) to a
process of organizational rationalization, whereby cultural production and consumption were
increasingly planned, thus suppressing cultural and political alternatives. The term cultural industries
over decades had three developments: (1) the revival of a political economy of communications; (2) the
turn to cultural studies; (3) the revival of the Frankfurt School analysis of capitalism and its social and
cultural effects in the form of a utopian.

It is important to note that the term cultural industries could now be used positively in a critique
of the elitist implications of established public policies for the support of art and media (Garnham 1990).
The cultural industries were now analyzed in terms of the special nature of their products and markets.

The cultural industries approach now developed in three distincts. First, the focus on
distribution and the industries’ links with the consumer electronics sector. Secondly, the focus on the
industrial economics of information led to a merger with the broader post Fordist analysis of the
development of the capitalist economy, Thirdly, the term cultural industries has given way to a range of
terms such as entertainment industry, information sector, knowledge industries and, in particular,
creative industries. An argument, the cultural sector is a key growth sector globally and thus, as a
response to deindustrialization, nations need to foster their ‘‘creative industries’’ in order to get a share
of this market and the profits and export earnings that flow from it. Analysis of and debates surrounding
the cultural industries relate to two other important topics: the public sphere and intellectuals.

Central to the culture industries tradition has been a concern with the socioeconomic position
and role of cultural workers and exercise an autonomous and critical role in the development of
knowledge and culture.

2. Subculture and Counter Culture

Engagingly, subculture means another cultural group in the existing group.People are not protesting
against their existing culture hence, they are happy with the existing regulations, following the rules of the
main culture and share the same values, thus, people are happy to live with the main culture community.
Subculture groups are based on the same interests and likes does not have any political implications. In
subculture behavior of people is normal and in a positive sense and accept the dominant culture even though
they possess different norms but accept the mainstream culture and follow their rules.

Counterculture group is the people with a different ideology that is not matched with the ideology of
the main culture. People are against the rules of the main culture and do not ready to share the same values
whereas trying to change them that's why they are actively protesting against the main culture and unhappy
to lie with the rules of mainstream culture. Groups are based on the same interests and dislikes and has
political implications. People are with negative behavior that deviates from social norms and values and are
not even ready to accept the dominant culture. People of counterculture possess such norms and values that
are incompatible with the mainstream culture.

3. Cultural Imperialism

I was astonished about the term cultural imperialism which refers most broadly to the exercise of
domination in cultural relationships in which the values, practices, and meanings of a powerful foreign
culture are imposed upon one or more native cultures. Although, it's quite confusing about the
relationship between cultural imperialism and dominant culture like how arr they related? Cultural
imperialism is a process of social influence by which a nation imposes on other countries its set beliefs,
values, knowledge and behavioral norms as well as its overall style of life. It could be dangerous too
because it could overcome your thoughts.Some might say that sharing goods cannot be condemned as
an act of ruthless imperialism. It is true; however, this has not just become the act of sharing and
understanding the goods or the product of one’s culture, but it has become the practice of promoting
the culture or language of one nation in another. For example, when we think about fast food one of the
fast food restaurants that it comes to one mind is Mcdonald, it is because it is seen everywhere that it
has become embedded the norm. This idea exactly implies on media content and what makes this
dangerous is that certain ideas that are created in America media is overcoming other countries.
Surprisingly, watching different dramas from other countries also serves somehow as cultural
imperialism.
 Culture can be imposed in a variety of ways, such as through creating new laws and policies concerning
what specific types of education, religion, art, and language are to be used. For example, when Native North
American tribes were forced onto reservations, the United States government dictated that children attend
Christian based boarding schools, they were taught to read and write English, and the use of their native
language was discouraged and/ or forbidden.

As a result of this, amazingly, people find alternative ways of maintaining their culture; sometimes
groups are forced into exile and their cultural practices are outlawed. Language or music is adapted as a
means to continue the culture. For example, stories can be hidden within song lyrics and rhythms from their
traditional music are merged with the new dominant forms as a means of maintaining parts of their culture.

Cultural imperialism differs from cultural diffusion primarily due to the mechanisms used to change
culture and the roles that power plays in the process. Cultural diffusion occurs ‘‘naturally’’ when people and
groups from other cultures interact with each other. It does not result in the purposeful reduction or
elimination of various cultural aspects.

As technology develops, technology made it possible to make a worldwide movement toward

economic, financial trade, and communication integration, which is called globalization. The
globalization paradigm started with a good purpose, it was to unify the world and to share and
understand each other cultures. However, it turns out globalization paradigm had its flaws and this flaws
are described as cultural imperialism.

4. Mass Culture

Interestingly, mass culture is the set of ideas and values that develop from a common exposure to
the same media, news sources, music, and art. Mass culture is broadcast or otherwise distributed to
individuals instead of arising from their day-to-day interactions with each other. Thus, mass culture
generally lacks the unique content of local communities and regional cultures. Frequently, it promotes
the role of individuals as consumers. It emerged in the years following the industrial revolution. The
concept of mass culture defines all the power, behaviors, mythos, and phenomena which are difficult to
resist and which are produced by industrial techniques and spread to a very large masses. Products are
standard cultural products produced and transmitted by mass media only for the mass market.
Generally refers to media-driven cultural practices within modern “mass societies” which arose in
tandem with techniques of mass production and commercial advertising. Culture is understood to be
“manufactured” according to market imperatives rather than arising spontaneously from within the
localized community.

5. Folk and Traditional Culture

It's fascinating to know that there are a lot of people in our society, who are actively involved in
folk culture, and their number is growing despite the fact that the population is in decline. Popularity of
folk culture guarantees the survival of ancient customs also in modern times. The field of folk culture
involves creative hobby activities that are based on folk traditions; heritage culture; intangible cultural
heritage; study, preservation and recording of national and local cultural traditions; public culture
events; activities of societies; courses and supplemental training. The task of the state is to ensure that
our intangible cultural heritage is valued, preserved and developed, and to maintain the long tradition of
song and dance festivals.

A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic
meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of folklore, common examples include
holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes (like lawyers' wigs or military officers' spurs), but the
idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings. Traditions can persist and evolve for thousands
of years—the word tradition itself derives from the Latin tradere literally meaning to transmit, to hand over,
to give for safekeeping. While it is commonly assumed that traditions have ancient history, many traditions
have been invented on purpose, whether that be political or cultural, over short periods of time. Various
academic disciplines also use the word in a variety of ways.

The folk and traditional arts are rooted in and reflective of the cultural life of a community. Community
members may share a common ethnic heritage, cultural mores, language, religion, occupation, or geographic
region. These vital and constantly reinvigorated artistic traditions are shaped by values and standards of
excellence that are passed from generation to generation, most often within family and community, through
demonstration, conversation, and practice.

Culture is a characteristic of societies, not of individuals. Culture is all that is learned in the course
of social life and is transmitted across generations, determining social hierarchy. It is the learned, socially
transmitted heritage of artifacts, knowledge, beliefs, values, and normative expectations that provide
the members of a society with the tools for coping with problems. It is also the beliefs to guide
behaviors and the practices to follow, and thus it shapes and structures social life. Sociologists recognize
high culture and popular culture within societies. Societies are also comprised of many subcultures—
smaller groups that share an identity. Countercultures reject mainstream values and create their own
cultural rules and norms. Through invention or discovery, cultures evolve via new ideas and new ways of
thinking. In many modern cultures, the cornerstone of innovation is technology, the rapid growth of
which can lead to cultural lag. Technology is also responsible for the spread of both material and
nonmaterial culture that contributes to globalization.