Culture

• Simpson

  • Gay men emphasize their homosexuality in 'homospaces' and concealed it in 'hetrospaces'
  • Dressed in flamboyant clothing in Manchester gay bars to celebrate this part of their identity
• Skeggs

  • Lower class women training in healthcare consciously changed their identities to fit in with their peers and be more 'respectable'
  • Dressed more demure and used less slang.
• Hybrid identities take element from two or more areas to create a new identity.
• Back

  • New hybrid identities in London council estates
  • Experimented with traditions and symbols
  • Lots of cultural borrowing in inter-racial friendships - black girls straightened their hair, British Asians had dreadlocks.
• Nyak

  • 'White wannabes' - all white, working class males who adopted to style and language of black culture
  • E.g. listening to gansta rap and wearing black street style
• Culture is the shared and learned way of life and common set of values, norms, traditions, and expectations of a society in which we live.
• Fox

  • British culture has unique features and complicated language codes, like talking about weather and queuing
• Hebdige

  • Punk culture rejected consumerism by repurposing everyday items, like bin bags and safety pins.
  • Rejection of capitalism and mainstream culture
• Ghuman

  • British Asian family values differ to white British families
  • More emphasis on loyalty, obligation, and respect
• Bennett

  • 'Neo-tribes' of new cultural hybrid groups that form looser subcultures without distinct styles or values
  • E.g. emos are a mix of goth and punk
• High culture refers to artistic work or activities of assumed high quality, which is expensive, difficult to understand, and enjoyed by an elite few. E.g. Shakespeare, Mozart
• The Sutton Trust

  • Upper class use their wealth and contacts to ensure their children get into the best schools and universities
  • Private schools teach elements of high culture like speaking Latin and playing lacrosse
  • They can then use these contacts to get elite jobs and maintain exclusivity.
• Popular culture refers to cultural products and activities that are enjoyed by the majority of the populations, such as watching TV and football. It is easy to understand, cheap, and designed to make money.
• Adorno

  • Popular culture is a way of socializing the masses into a passive and unquestioning set of attitudes
  • Focus on trivial matters deflects people from the real problems
  • Creates a false psychological need for things we cannot afford or want, which helps the rich get richer
• Consumer culture suggest that our way of life has become focused on expressing identity through the things we buy and use - shopping is now a way of creating an identity
• Lury - features on consumer culture

  1. Shopping is a leisure pursuit
  2. Different forms of shopping available (online, malls, etc)
  3. Debt is the norm
• Katz & Sugiyama

  • Phone are used by youth as a status symbol and a fashion statement
  • Prioritized style over battery life - used for identity
• Global culture is the idea of a cultured shared across to world in a process of homogenization
• McLuhan

  • 'Global village' in which we're more likely to know people across the world due to digital communication
• Ritzer

  • Local cultures are disappearing as a result of McDonaldisation
  • Culture is becoming Americanised - less fulfilling