Popular Recreation and Resistance - Essay Example

Popular culture: Introduction: Popular culture is the cultural text that is proposed by the media of communication and which we use in our day to day lives. The mass media proposes to us this cultural text continuously, we identify with them but we interpret them in different ways, therefore cultural text change the way we think and the way we react to certain situation in our day to day lives. Popular culture can also be defined as the cultural element of a society that is wide spread in the society.

Therefore popular culture are those cultural text that we use in our day to day life and they are part of our life, they are continuously proposed to us by the media and we adopt them as a way of life. The popular culture is usually observable in such area including clothing, cooking, sports and recreation and also consumption and entertainment. On recreation we can view golf playing as a popular culture practiced by the rich in the society. Segregation of cultural activities: Today cultural activities are segregated and there exist restrictions that are formal and also informal.

Restrictions apply to those that are not part of that culture and may be tempted to join that culture. Formal restrictions: Law and order: Some cultural activities are highly restricted by the laws of the society, an example is beer drinking, beer drinking for example is prohibited in Saudi Arabia and there exist a law that will prosecute those found drinking beer. The drinking of beer therefore is a popular culture among the masses of many societies and this culture is proposed by the mass media through advertisements of these brands, the culture is restricted in some societies like Saudi Arabia formally.

Informal restrictions: There also exist informal restrictions to cultural practices, these informal restrictions are those restrictions that do not exist in writing but are termed as norms in the society, and they do not exist in writing but are termed as rules governing behavior. These informal restrictions include the expected reaction by the society, the society has informal ways in which to discourage behavior example a person doing wrong may be isolated by the society, for example the case where people have tattoos all over their body, this is a popular culture among the young but in some society the making of such decorations on the skin may lead to one being isolated and disowned by the society.

This is an informal way in which this popular culture is restricted by this society and it is helpful in restricting such cultures. Conclusion: There exist restriction of popular culture both formal and informal restrictions, despite these restrictions it is still clear that such restrictions are only for a short period of time because through diffusion the cultural still find its way into the society as people accept the popular culture. Therefore there exist popular culture restrictions but still they get diffused with time and societies accept the pop culture.

References: Arthur Berger (1990) Political Culture and Mass Communication Theory, Transaction Publishers, New York Angela McRobbie (1994) Postmodernism and Popular Culture, Routledge publishers, New York