l COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course explores popular culture as a historical and social phenomena. It will examine how popular culture was
operationalized, circulated, reproduced, consumed and instrumentalized. There is also a walkthrough to the cultural
development of the Philippines, and how popular culture affects Filipinos’ lived experience and decision-making process
for relevant social, economic and political issues.

ESSENTIAL OUTCOMES

At the end of the course, the students must be able to:

✓ Trace the emergence of Popular Culture.
✓ Discuss relevant concepts of culture and theories.
✓ Distinguish Popular Culture from other cultures.
✓ Illustrate key components of popular culture with different artistic genres.
✓ Analyze the impact of Popular Culture to Filipinos’ daily living.
✓ Critique an existing Popular Culture using critical theories.
PHILIPPINE POPULAR CULTURE

At the end of this module, the learners should be able to:

✓ Define the nature of culture.

✓ Identify theories on popular culture:
• Cultural Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci
• Mass Culture by Adorno and Horkheimer
 DEFINITION

C U LT U R E
is learned patterns of perception, values, and behaviors, shared by a group of people,
that are dynamic and heterogeneous.
 LEARNED
When we were born, we don’t know how to be boys or girls.
But we learn how to enact those culturally sanctioned behaviors by listening to
and watching the people in our lives.
 P E R C E P T I O N A N D VA L U E S
When we perceive things it helps us understand and interpret information
about different things.
 B E H AV I O R
These are actions that we have, that correspond with what we perceive
and how we think about things.
 SHARED
Culture is developed by interaction and communication with other people.
They share common experiences, values, and way on looking at the world.
 DY N A M I C A N D H E T E RO G E N E O U S
Culture is always changing.
Cultural dynamic can become something new and something different.
v THEORY ON POP CULTURE

A. Cultural Hegemony by Antonio Gramsci

Cultural Hegemony refers to domination or rule maintained through

ideological or cultural means. It is usually achieved through social
institutions, which allow those in power to strongly influence the values,
norms, ideas, expectations, worldview, and behavior of the rest of
society.

Cultural Hegemony functions by framing the worldview of the ruling

class, and the social and economic structures that embody it, as just,
legitimate, and designed for the benefit of all, even though these
structures may only benefit the ruling class. This kind of power is distinct
from rule by force, as in a military dictatorship, because it allows the
ruling class to exercise authority using the "peaceful" means of ideology
and culture.

Antonio Gramsci (born Jan. 23, 1891, Ales, Sardinia, Italy—
died April 27, 1937, Rome), intellectual and politician, a
founder of the Italian Communist Party whose ideas greatly
influenced Italian communism.
Gramsci led a leftist walkout at the Socialist congress
at Livorno (January 1921) to found the Italian
Communist Party and then spent two years in
the Soviet Union. Back in Italy, he became head of his
party (April 1924) and was elected to the country’s
Chamber of Deputies. After his party was outlawed
by Benito Mussolini’s fascists, Gramsci was arrested and
imprisoned (1926). At his trial the fascist prosecutor
argued, “We must stop his brain from working for 20
years.” In prison, despite rigorous censorship, Gramsci
carried out an extraordinary and wide-ranging
historical and theoretical study of Italian society and
possible strategies for change. Plagued with poor health
in the 1930s, he died not long after being released from
prison for medical care.
THEORIES ON POP CULTURE – Cultural Hegemony
Why do we put up pine trees
during Christmas season?
Why not other trees?
Why do we give diamonds
as engagement rings?
Why not other types of stone?
Controlling a person’s loyalty
is the key to power.
People don’t control ideas,
but ideas control people.
People don’t wield power,
power wield people.
How are these ideas put into our heads?
These are ideas given to us, it’s inside
our head and thus controls our actions.
There are political, economical, social
and ethnic ideas that govern our
behaviors and actions everyday.
THEORIES ON POP CULTURE – Cultural Hegemony

How did this happen?

Each of us navigates our ways in various fields consists of number of

social network such as where you work, party, go to school etc., and when
you enter these fields you adopt various identities and it offers advantages and
disadvantages depending of the situation.

So one person can be a source of symbol, ideas, belief etc. So the identities
you adapted are identities you didn’t actually created, meaning the identity is given
to you by the society. This develops network of different cultures. These networks
are the overall mechanism that decides the course of political, economical, cultural actions.

For example, a small group that created an idea to hate the word “terrorist”, they can now control what the
other small group will act, this is called Hegemony.

University Quick Course “What is Hegemony? Antonio Gramsci and the Prison Notebooks” (September 21, 2018)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQrV8UxpVA
THEORIES ON POP CULTURE – Cultural Hegemony

Let’s first know what Frankfurt School is.

THEORIES ON POP CULTURE – Cultural Hegemony

The Frankfurt School, known more appropriately as Critical Theory,

is a philosophical and sociological movement spread across many universities around the world.
With Habermas, the Frankfurt School turned global, influencing methodological approaches
in other European academic contexts and disciplines.
THEORIES ON POP CULTURE – Cultural Hegemony

Frankfurt School Critical Theory

It was developed in World War II and came was recognized to

the efforts of the members of the Frankfurt School. Their
mission is to examine the failure of revolutionary social change
that had been predicted by Marx’s. They argued that ideas and
ideology represented in the mass media subverted the material
and historical forces of economic changes.

Ideological views of the dominant class conditioned the

economic base by promoting false consciousness among the
working class. In this interpretation, they looked at Marx’s
theory of commodification for validation.

For Adorno and Hokheimer, the culture industry was all

powerful and knowing and unlimited in power and scope.
THEORIES ON POP CULTURE – Cultural Hegemony

For them the culture industry controlled by the capitalist poses

super power to embed their ideas and values in the popular
consciousness through advertising as they note, “Men in top places,
from some of the most powerful sectors of industries, sponsor the
cultural industry to the degree that it becomes dependent and gives
evidence of how thoroughly concentrated capital is within the
entertainment industry.
v THEORY ON POP CULTURE

B. What is Mass Culture (Popular Culture) ? Marxism is a method of

by Antonio Gramsci socioeconomic analysis that uses
a materialist interpretation of
historical development, better known as
According to Marx’s scholars, Mass Culture should be
historical materialism, to understand
rescued from the stigma of crude banality into a valuable
class relations and social conflict as well as
and worthy expression of real world experience.
a dialectical perspective to view
social transformation. It originates
The goal of the Frankfurt School was to highlight the from the works of 19th-century
central role that popular culture occupies in society. German philosophers Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels.

University Quick Courses “Criticism of Critical Theory and The Frankfurt School” (May 29, 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEB1-_HGRJo
. ASSIGNMENT

Give an example of Interpret this cartoon editorial in your own words.

Cultural Hegenomy. Explain.
Danielle Frid (October 1, Danielle Frid (October 1, 2015) Elem
2015) Elem

ents of Art Poster =

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