CAPS#5 Lindy Rauscher

Popular Culture vs. Folk Culture

            Martin and Nakayama make it very clear that popular culture is not the same thing as folk culture (p. 351).  Popular culture “refers to the cultural products that most people share and know about” (Martin and Nakayama, p. 350).  Folk culture is “traditional and nonmainstream cultural activities that are not financially driven” (Martin and Nakayama, p. 352).  Academics have distinguished between these two cultures along financial lines, but there is now some blurring of this division.  Folk culture can become part of popular culture when anyone markets an activity, particular for local tourism purposes.

            George M. Foster explains that folk culture is not a primitive culture that has survived the spread of urban culture (p. 163).  Time is the biggest determinate of folk culture because Foster’s definition of folk culture states “many of their most significant elements have filtered down from the sophisticated world of their own tradition of several centuries earlier” (p. 164).  This suggests that folk culture is tied to the financially elite culture of a society, although from the past.  It was not until the 1960’s that cultural studies included a non-elite culture (Mukerji and Schudson, p. 4).  Mukerji and Schudson explain that folk culture was included in popular cultural studies at this early point for the discipline (p. 4).  It is apparent that academic concepts have diverged in relation to these two subjects.  Perhaps they were initially interconnected because the culture industries were not as well established in the 1960’s.

            It seems that a more complete understanding of a culture incorporates knowledge of both popular and folk culture.  Popular culture is associated with stereotypes (Martin and Nakayama, p. 360), but folk culture does not have this association.  Intercultural communication is influenced by perceptions of culture mediated by popular culture.  If the inherent stereotypes accompanying popular culture are acknowledged, perhaps the communication will focus more on folk culture that actually represents the values of a cultural group.

References

Martin, Judith N. and Nakayama, Thomas K. (2010). Intercultural Communication in Contexts.  5^th Edition. McGraw-Hill.

Foster, George M. (1953). “What is folk culture?” American Anthropologist. Volume 55, Issue 2. Online October 28, 2009.

Mukerji, Chandra and Schudson, Michael. (1991). Rethinking Popular Culture: Contemporary Perspectives in Cultural Studies. University of California Press.