ACCOUNT FOR THE EMERGENCE OF FISKES THEORY ON POPULAR CULTURE AND DESCRIBE AND EVALUATE ITS DEFINING
In order to fully understand the emergence of Fiske’s theory on popular culture we must take into consideration theories that went before. Matthew Arnold argued that culture was “high Culture” (off print, Arnold, Culture and Anarchy,1869,pg1) that the main components of culture were “beauty”, “intelligence” and “perfection” and that everything in society should be measured against an intellectual and aesthetic criterion. The move from high culture to popular culture can perhaps be explained by the industrial revolution, when people moved to urban areas in order to find employment. The moved from a form of folk culture into a commodity based society. This can account for the growth of consumption and affiliations between people based upon products rather than tradition. Also, by being part of this commodity based culture people felt they fitted into the new urban society. According to Raymond Williams “Culture is ordinary”. He suggested that “culture is wrestled from that privileged space of artistic production and specialist knowledge (e. ... high culture) into the lived in experience of the everyday”. (Off print, Williams, 1958, pg1) Williams believes that culture is not innate but in fact a process of learning. A critical approach to culture is that taken by Marxist theorists. Gramsci suggests that popular culture is a struggle between the dominant and subordinate classes. ... (Off print: popular culture theories, pg1). Another view which originates from leftist cultural theorists is that popular culture is simply a vehicle of brainwashing the subordinate masses “into the ways of the dominant social order”. (Off print popular culture and the logic of consumption, pg1). ... (Off print: Bennet, popular culture and the logic of consumption, pg1). To some degree Fiske’s theory of popular culture has elements which originate from Marxist theory. ... Therefore the masses are not simply passive but in fact construct their own popular culture. He also believes that that these theories like high cultural theories are irrelevant to a certain extent as neither of them fully account for the intricacies of the modern capitalist societies and are therefore inadequate.