Philippine Popular Culture Notes

Introduction

Philippine Popular Culture is all around us. It requires critical thought because it is complex. A study of popular culture is also a study of discourse.

What is Popular Culture?

Synonymous to mass culture. Popular appeals to a lot of people. Culture is highly valued representations (tangible and intangible) of a people's culture. There are three broad definitions of culture:

  1. Evolutional process
  2. Lived/cultural practices
  3. Signifying practices/activity

Culture includes various aspects such as working schedules, language, medical care, clothes and dressing, religion, manners, child-rearing methods, jokes, celebrations, folk art, and food.

Traditional Categories of Culture

High Culture vs. Low Culture:

  • Acceptable vs. Popular
  • Wealthy vs. Marginalized
  • Prestigious vs. Common
  • Elite vs. Masses
  • Few / Selected vs. Majority
  • Socialites vs. Epal / Korney

Main Arguments of Popular Culture

  1. Non-permanent (unstable, evolving)
  2. Shifting (changes through time)
  3. Confusing & contradictory (many meanings, dependent)
  4. Empty category (can be used in various ways)
  5. Implied \"otherness\" (many forms, claimants)

How to Explore Popular Culture

Quantify the value based on its wide appeal. Connect a particular product of popular culture with the larger and overlapping areas of our reality. Analyze the connections, motivations, and experiences related in relation to the bigger picture.

Key Considerations of Popular Culture

  1. Popular culture is considered to be the culture \"well liked by the people\".
  2. Popular culture is a \"Residual culture\".
  3. Popular culture is a \"Mass culture\".
  4. Popular culture will always be confronted with the \"struggle against the hegemons\".
  5. Popular culture was developed in a \"post-modern society\" associated by the capitalist world.

Activity

  1. Take a photo or screenshot of one item that you consider as part of popular culture.
  2. Explain in not more than 3 sentences why you considered it as an item of popular culture.
  3. Have your answer printed on a short bond paper.
  4. Presentation of your answers will be next meeting.