CultureScope – Volume 119, 2020

THE NEAR FUTURE: CHARACTERISTICS OF POPULAR ABORIGINAL AND TORRES STRAIT ISLANDERS CULTURE HSC Depth Study – Popular Culture Alexander Moscovis, Moorebank High School, Moorebank

Syllabus Content The nature of popular culture Students develop an understanding of the nature of popular culture by examining the FOUR distinguishing characteristics: • associated with commercial products and paraphernalia: – demand develops and expands due to media, marketing and dissemination processes • develops from a local to a global level: – experiences global acceptance with the progression and integration of technologies • achieves widespread consumer access: – broad access is assisted by media and communication technologies • is constantly changing and evolving: – experiences continuity and change – influences society while simultaneously society influences the popular culture. Syllabus Outcomes H1 evaluates and effectively applies social and cultural concepts H10 communicates complex information, ideas and issues using appropriate written, oral and graphic forms Related concepts Commercialisation, commodification, consumption, change, institutional power, continuity, values Rationale The following resource provides an introduction to the four key characteristics of popular culture. Students are encouraged to read and annotate the relevant text in order to gain an insight into each key characteristic of popular culture. Activities throughout the resource aim to provide students the opportunity to apply and consolidate their understanding of each key characteristic. Such activities assist students in activating, linking and reconceptualising their current personal experiences of popular cultures within the course context of an academic investigation of popular culture.

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1. Associated with commercial products and paraphernalia – Demand develops and expands due to media, marketing and dissemination processes

All popular culture is associated with commercial products. These can include accessories, upgrades, magazines, and associated paraphernalia (CDs, t-shirts, posters, books, mugs, lunch boxes etc). This is because profit is the key motive in the perpetuation of popular culture. Commercial products serve a dual purpose: They enable more profit to be earned AND they serve as a method to further promote and advertise the popular culture they are associated with. Think about a new LEGO set. A parent purchases a new set for their child, who then plays with the new set with their friends. The friends have now been exposed to the popular culture and in turn ask their parents to purchase more Lego by Markus Spiske. Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash LEGO. The popular culture expands.

While some popular cultures may seem to exist outside the profit-making cycle, on closer examination there will always be someone making money. Merchandise is a key medium to enhance income for the manufacturers. Consider Internet memes. Individuals create memes, which are hosted on websites. The site owners generate income from advertising impressions on their sites and others can generate income by using the images on t-shirts, mugs etc and selling the related merchandise. In most cases, the creator of the original meme receives no profit form their work. Activity: Follow the money $$ 1. Select two popular cultures that you are familiar with. 2. Locate and list as many examples of commercial products that are available to consumers through the popular culture. 3. Choose three products and try to trace their origins. i.e. source of manufacture, date of manufacture, distribution etc. 4. What organisation or individual is profiting from the consumption of the popular culture products?

EXAMPLE Popular Culture: Nintendo Super Mario Brothers Products: 1. Mugs and plates – Typo 2. Posters – Zing 3. Sleepwear – Peter Alexander 4. Figurines – Zing Complete this activity with what is set out in the example using TWO examples of Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash Popular Culture.

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Who is profiting from their consumption? Nintendo has contracted the manufacturing of various paraphernalia, such as posters, mugs, figurines and sleepwear to different companies. These companies are not owned by Nintendo, but have made an arrangement with the company to develop paraphernalia that is aligned with their video game characters, such as Yoshi, Donkey Kong and Mario. An example of this is Peter Alexander. The Australian owned sleepwear company has now released a line of clothing with the logo and familiar characters on it. Although Nintendo would still be receiving a portion of profits for allowing the use of their brand and products, Peter Alexander would be profiting from the market that Nintendo helped to establish. To see images of the 2019 Peter Alexander Nintendo clothing line, please visit: https://www.gamersclassified. com/latest-news/peter-alexander-releases-a-mario-clothing-line/ 2. Develops from a local to a global level – Experiences global acceptance with the progression and integration of technologies Popular cultures need to start somewhere. Typically they need to achieve success on a small or local (micro/meso level) scale, before moving to a national and finally international level (macro level). However, with the increasing ubiquity of the Internet and globalisation blurring national cultural boundaries, popular cultures can spread more directly from small/local to widespread/international. i.e. from micro to meso to macro levels. At every level, consumers with similar cultural norms help guarantee the rising popularity of the product. The popular culture finally realises its potential at a global level, driven by profit motivations. Transnational corporations with subsidiary companies around the world are able to adapt a popular culture to a local audience while at the same time facilitating its global spread. Global media coverage on a range of different channels including newspapers, radio, magazine, and social media ensure more people are aware of and can access popular cultures.

The following concepts have a significant role in the spread of popular culture: Example: Consider the example of the Australian grunge • Globalisation: Connections between band, . As a popular band from countries, operation of multi-national Newcastle NSW, Silverchair won a local contest organisations held by the SBS network and in 1994. • Westernisation: The emergence of Their song Tomorrow was recorded and a video western culture as dominant in the global produced that was played regularly on local marketplace. radio. It then began to be played on national • Technologies: Technologies change radio and the video was shown on Rage. To view the distribution channels for popular the Australian music video. It quickly gained culture, especially. music, television, national acclaim and #1 on the music charts. film. etc. For example, music was originally The band was signed to record label Sony Music only available live in concert, first wax (now Sony Music Entertainment). The album recordings, mass-produced records, ‘Frogstomp’ was released in 1995 in the USA, and cassette tapes made music more portable, reached the Billboard 200 Top 10. It has sold more re-mixable and sharable, CDs allowed than 2.5 million copies worldwide. Silverchair’s greater volume and content to be stored popularity was helped by the concurrent rise in on a device, MP3 players, online music grunge and alternative rock on the west coast of stores. the USA. Silverchair has gone on to win 20 ARIA awards and APRA awards.

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Activity: What drives growth of popular culture? Answer the following: 1. List the factors that drive growth of popular culture. 2. What role does globalisation play in the spread of popular culture? 3. Choose a favorite international band or music artist. Use their own website or Wikipedia page to trace their spread from local to global. Use the example of Silverchair as a model to describe the band/artist’s growth. 3. Achieves widespread consumer access – Broad access is assisted by media and communication technologies. This is a key defining point of a popular culture: If only a small segment of the population accesses it, it is not popular culture. Access to a particular popular culture is dependent on the social, physical and to a lesser extent, the psychological environment. Developed nations have easier access to most popular cultures due to greater affluence, which provides the population with the ability to meet the costs of accessing the particular culture. Urban centres often have greater access than rural/remote areas as well due to limitations on access to the physical paraphernalia of popular culture. Radio, cassettes, CD’s, DVDs, mobile phones, computers, and the Internet all contribute to access of popular culture. As these products have become increasingly portable and cheaper, barriers to access of popular culture have decreased and the speed by which popular cultures spread has increased. Institutional power also affects access. Governments have more access than individuals and are able to prevent access to unwanted, unsafe or offensive material. For example, many countries including Australia, Canada and France have local content laws that allow only a certain percentage of foreign music on radio and shows on TV in order to preserve their own culture. Until January 2013, Australia did not have an R18+ rating classification for video games, which meant that these games could not be imported legally into Australia. Syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast TV shows to multiple individual stations, without going through a broadcast network. It is common in countries where television is scheduled by networks with local affiliates, particularly in the U.S.A. In the rest of the world, however, most countries have centralised networks without local affiliates and syndication is less common, although shows can also be syndicated internationally. A range of factors can affect access to popular culture including: Photo by freestocks on Unsplash • Affluence/class • Cost of goods • Environment (rural/urban, others…..) • Advances in technology • Institutional power (government, laws, ownership, censorship) • Values and beliefs of a society • Gender • Time (time slots, prime time, leisure time, life-stage

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4. Is constantly changing and evolving – Experiences continuity and change. Popular Culture influences society while simultaneously society influences the popular culture. Popular cultures need to adapt to meet consumers’ needs as trends change in a broader social and cultural context. The producers of the culture need to create new interest and the need to keep consuming and therefore generate more profit. Because popular simultaneously influences society AND is influenced by it, as society changes, so too will popular culture. Even durable popular cultures that have existed for multiple generations (e.g. rock music, sci-fi films, punk) evolve and change over time as the values and desires of societies change. Popular cultures need to be able to satisfy the changing desires and preferences of a society. Producers of popular culture are always on the lookout for the “next big thing”. They aim to create the need to consume new products and paraphernalia to keep profits rolling in. Improvements to technologies also drive changes to popular culture for example the emergence of electronic dance music and Internet memes. Activity: Popular culture time warp Popular culture can define a generation. Choose ONE popular culture and create a digital collage of that popular culture across the relevant time periods outlined below. You need to have several images from each generation in your collage. Examples that you can use: • Builders – born 1925–1945 • Horror films • Baby Boomers – born 1946–1964 • Jazz music • Generation X – born 1965–1979 • Disney cartoons • Generation Y – born 1980–1994 • Racing cars • Generation Z – born 1995–2010 • Bollywood Annotate your collage with words and phrases that describe the values, beliefs, and social trends that are evident in the popular culture across the different generations. Example: Action Films 1946 – 1964 1925 – 1945

1965 – 1979

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Activity: Profiling popular culture Popular cultures need to show evidence of the four characteristics outlined in this section. Find an example of a popular culture from each of the following categories that demonstrates each of the characteristics. Provide EVIDENCE/EXAMPLES of how each characteristic is met. Create and complete a table like the one below to capture your research.

1. Commercial 3. Widespread 4. Constantly changing 2. Local > Global products access and evolving

A music genre

A fashion trend

A sport

A film genre

An online popular culture

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