Media and Culture

1.Culture as a skyscraper and culture as a map differ in terms of their viewing method. The skyscraper model views culture and media as a high-low vertical hierarchy; however, in the map model, it is judged based on personal taste. The map model shows cultures and media using connections instead of ranking them from high to low. Hence, both of them are similar in their usage, which is to view and categorize culture and media from the most popular to the least popular. In my opinion, the Skyscraper model is better to reflect media and culture in present-day society because it uses more general ideas by ranking them from high to low. Map model's usage is better for small groups of people because it is based on individual taste. Next, I use the ocean and beach metaphor to view culture and media. The ocean that is close to the beach is more crowded; thus, I consider it a high culture, such as Hamlet. In addition, the further away from the beach there will be fewer people in that area, so I consider it as a middle culture, such as TV Dramas. Additionally, The part where the ocean begins to become deep, and people rarely play in that area. I consider it low culture, such as Grand Theft Auto.

2. The Culture as a Skyscraper diagram divides culture and media into different categories correlating with the height of a skyscraper, High culture including things like ballet, Shakespeare or Miles Davis, The middle of culture with things

like Harry Potter, CNN and Adele, then finally low culture consisting of things like TMZ.com, Grand Theft Auto, and reality television. A pro to the Skyscraper model could be from the creators perspective in which they created something to send a message and it was dubbed as high culture. An obvious con to the Skyscraper model would be that there's a supposed established hierarchy to how media is graded on the scale, but what establishes one being better than the other. Another Con to the culture as a skyscraper model is that it sees pieces of culture under a black and white lens, not looking into the depth of the media being analyzed but instead categorizing it based on a shallow perception. Although both graphs provide a unique perspective on the grading of culture and media, the Culture as a Map diagram looks at culture and media through a much more understanding lens that allows people to see the complexity of media forms and how they touch upon more than one aspect of culture. Unlike the skyscraper model’s black and white view of media, the Map diagram views multiple media forms and how they touch upon familiarity, unfamiliarity, comfort, challenge, conventionalism and innovation. In Culture as a map, media is compared and seen for what it touches upon and the complexities of its message, not ranked as higher or lower based on a socioeconomic view or age. The only con to the culture as a map seems to be the inability to rank media based on merit since they all have such individual messages. The culture as a map diagram seems to better reflect media in present day society thanks to its more level field, looking at media not in any ranked order but as equal and different based on their varying messages and the structures they touch upon. IMG_9420.jpg