COMM 30-INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
Chapter 7: Popular Culture and Intercultural Communication

I. Popular Culture and IC

A.

B.

C.

1.

2.

D.

II. What is “Pop Culture”?

A. High culture

B. Low culture

1.

2. Intercultural contact

C. There are four characteristics of popular culture.

1.

2.

3.

4.

D. Folk culture

E. Popular culture serves as important social function

F. We are not passive receivers of pop culture

III. Consuming and Resisting Popular Culture: To maintain and reshape our identities, we often turn to popular culture. At times, we seek it out; at other times, we try to avoid certain texts.

A. Consuming Popular Culture

1. Popular culture does not have to “win over” the majority of people to be considered “popular”

2. We may feel pressured to participate in popular culture

3. Pop culture serves important cultural functions connected to cultural identities (our view of ourselves in relation to the cultures to which we belong)

a. We participate in those texts that address issues relevant to our cultural groups.

b. They tend to affirm cultural identities that are sometimes invisible or are silenced by the mainstream culture.

B. Resisting Popular Culture

1. How do people refuse pop culture?

2. Conscious decisions to resist are based on cultural politics

3. Pop culture plays a powerful role in how we think about and understand other groups.

IV. Representing Cultural Groups: Popular culture is a lens for viewing other cultural groups, and it does so in more intimate ways than tourist experiences because it permits us to see the private lives of people.

A. Migrant’s perceptions of mainstream culture

B. Popular culture and Stereotyping: Our knowledge of places, even those we have been to, is influence by popular culture.

1.

2.

3.

V. U.S. Pop culture and Power: It is important to consider the power relationships embedded in popular culture.

A. Global circulation of Images

1. Circulation

2. Availability

3. Recent events

B. Pop Culture from other cultures

1. Not all pop culture is from U.S.

2. Some pop culture is limited to particular cultures, while other forms cross into international markets.

C. Cultural Imperialism: it is important to think about the impact of the U.S. media and popular culture on the rest of the world

1. American media in 1920’s

a. Media Imperialism--

b. Electronic Colonialism--

c. Cultural Imperialism--

D. There is no easy way to measure the impact of popular culture, but we need to be sensitive to its influences on intercultural communication because, for so many of us, the world exists through popular culture.