Why is Popular Culture Widely Distributed?
Objectives
• Diffusion of Popular Housing, Clothing, and Food
• Electronic Diffusion of Popular Culture• Underlining thread to popular culture is
CONSUMPTION.
Diffusion of Popular Housing, Clothing, and Food
• What allows popular culture to be widely distributed?
• Money, technology, & time allow for people to adopt popular culture
• Slight regional differences in MDC’s. WALMARTIZATION
• Regional differences are due to variation of resources (Food Franchises)
• Amount consumed is also based on beliefs, income, and advertisement.
What do you call a generic soft drink?
Coke, Soda, or Pop?
Underlining thread to popular culture is CONSUMPTION.
Wine: case study
• Spatial distribution of wine = environment (soil/climate)
• Also influenced/ diffused by particular cultural values (European hearth/ Christianity)
Rapid Diffusion of Clothing Style
• MDC countries’ fashion typically reflect social group, occupation & income rather than environmental
• Communication and mass distribution from designer to manufacturer to consumer result in rapid diffusion of fashion.
Underlining thread to popular culture is CONSUMPTION.
Case Study: Jeans
• Associated with low-status manual laborer and farmer.
• 1960’s they symbolized cool, youthful, western, independence. (USSR = banned)
• Highly prized in foreign markets $2000 Momotaro Jeans Japan
Underlining thread to popular culture is CONSUMPTION.
Popular Housing Styles
• Change more rapidly with time than in place (3 periods)
• Pre-1940: Folk• 1945 – 1960: Modern• Post- 1960: Neo Eclectic
Modern House Style 1945 – 1960)• Tudor-style (one story) target
young families and veterans WWII.
• Ranch House: One story, long side parallel to street, one story, larger
• Split Level: garage, intro of “new” family room. 2nd level bedrooms.
• Contemporary: flat or low pitched roofs
• Shed: high pitched shed roofs (geometric)
Neo Eclectic (since 1960)• Mansard: shingle covered
2nd story walls sloped inward and merged into the roof
• Neo Tudor: steep-pitched front facing gables.
• Neo French: dormer windows, rounded tops, high hipped roofs
• Neo Colonial: large central great room (combined family and living room)
Underlining thread to popular culture is CONSUMPTION.
Electronic Diffusion of Popular Culture
• Television: diffusion of popular culture
• 1954: US contained 86% of TV’s
• 1955 - 1970: spread to Europe & Japan
• 1970 - 2005: ownership rates to that of US. LDC rapid increase.
Diffusion of Internet
• More rapid diffusion than television
• 1995: 62% of world market
• By 2000: 31% of world market
• By 2008: 14% of world market
The End
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