Reflection
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CriticalPerspectiveonPopCulture.pptxThe Critical/Conflict Perspective on Popular Culture
Key Issue is Social Inequality
Corporate concentration in the culture industry
Inequalities of race, class, gender, sexuality
Creation and perpetuation of stereotypes
Role of popular culture in creating and mobilizing people to oppose existing hirerarchies
Marxian Approaches
Culture is about reproducing capitalism as a system of economic exploitation and political oppression
Mechanism whereby consciousness is shaped and manipulated
Gramsci – cultural hegemony
Culture as means of social control
Control achieved through persuasion rather than just coercion
Adorno and Horkheimer – popular culture helps maintain consumer capitalism by manufacturing new wants and desires; stunts imagination and creativity
Handful of Firms Control Culture Industry
Sony Corporation
Time Warner
Walt Disney Company
Viacom
CBS Corporation
Comcast Corporation
Amazon
Apple
Microsoft
Corporate Concentration Example: Disney Net Worth - over $200 billion
ABC (Programming, News, Sports)
Walt Disney Pictures
Pixar Animation
Touchstone Pictures
Marvel Entertainment
Disney Plus
Disney Toys and Disney Apparel
Cartoon characters including the Muppets
Industrial Light and Magic
Lucasfilm
Disneyland and Disney World
Wall Street Journal
Haper-Collins Publishers
ESPN
A & E
History Channel
National Geographic
Lifetime
Fox News and Entertainment
Fox Sports
FX
GoPro
Hollywood Records
Buena Vista Studios
20th-Century Studios
https://www.titlemax.com/discovery-center/money-finance/companies-disney-owns-worldwide/
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How is social inequality reproduced?
Low wages and benefits within culture industry (structural)
Both in U.S. and overseas
Low wages, few benefits, no job security
Anti-union (including brutal suppression)
Stereotypes (cultural)
Gender
Race and Ethnicity
Social Class
LGBTQ
Impact of Corporate Concentration and Control
Pursuit of Profit (not creativity or free expression)
Data-mining (e.g. Facebook)
Promotion of corporate friendly world-view
Naturalization of inequality
Role of Popular Culture in Movements to Support or Resist Social Change
Protest songs
Memes
Satire and parody
Clothing (BLM Tshirts, Pussy Hats, MAGA gear)
Signs, Chants, Flags
TV shows, movies, ads
Does the fact that much of this is produced for profit undermine culture as genuine agent of social change?
