http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAHTe4wpZqE

1. Meme: is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena.

(Taken from Wikipedia.)

(commonly known as pop culture) Is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes 1, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century.

Mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.

Folklore refers to the cultural mainstream of more local or pre-

industrial societies.

Folklore consists of culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared.

As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which

deem it superficial, consumerist,

sensationalist, and corrupted.

Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and dumbed-down in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream.

Jenkies states that video games teach children how to learn through play.

He also states that good video games give players strong identities.

Some examples of this is being able to build a character from the ground up and look at the character's point of view, create their own skate park, community, and life.

He further states that in this realm, students are able to be free and independent thinkers.Students become creative problem solvers. (Phisical therapy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x82gWQFEpQA

Mass culture refers to how culture gets produced, whereas popular culture refers to how culture gets consumed. Mass culture is culture which is mass produced, distributed, and marketed.

"Mass Culture" is a set of cultural values and ideas that arise from common exposure of a population to the same cultural activities, communications media, music and art, etc.

Mass culture tends to reproduce the liberal value of individualism and to foster a view of the citizen as consumer

•Mass culture is related to high art because of the new incorporations on their works.•Great divide: the discusion of the distinction between high art and mass culture (40’s and 50’s)•Adorno is the most recognized representant of high art. • It is the culture of an elite such as the aristocracy.

•Art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other working people. •Many 18th and 19th century American folk art painters made their living by their work, including portrait painters, some of whom produced large bodies of work.• Folk artists traditionally learn skills and techniques through apprenticeships in informal community settings

The mass Culture definition is related to the pop culture definitionMass culture reflects a culture of “ mass produced for mass consumption”From a Western European perspective, this may be compared to American culture. Alternatively, "pop culture" can be defined as an "authentic" culture of the people

Neo-Gramscian hegemony theory "... sees popular culture as a site of struggle between the 'resistance' of subordinate groups in society and the forces of 'incorporation' operating in the interests of dominant groups in society.

Mass culture depends on techologies of mass production

Mass media is part of our everyday enculturation. The population is bombarded with popular culture by television, radio, advertisement, internet and every other imaginable form to help us determine our views of popular culture.

Comprehensive collection of writings on mass culture in film, literature, radio, TV, advertising, and popular music. Forty nine articles by varied writers which include: "Mass Appeal and Minority Tastes", "Popular Songs vs. the Fact of Life", and "Popular Culture and the Open Society". The writers address the question "Should we adopt the classic intellectual rejection of mass culture, or should we give mass culture our critical support?”

Andreas Huyssen “All culture is standardized, organized and administered for the sole purpose of serving as an instrument of social control" (Huyssen 21).

•1923 School Oo Social Research •Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcus, Benjamin•With the hope of bringing different trends of Marxism together Weil organised a week-long symposium (the Erste Marxistische Arbeitswoche) in 1922.•Adorno and Benjamin both renowned for their studies of literature and mass culture which would become so influential from the 1960s on.

Theodor Adorno Adorno (1903-69) a German philosopher, member of the Frankfurt School, argued that capitalism fed people with the products of a 'culture industry' - the opposite of 'true' art - to keep them passively satisfied and politically apathetic.

Where Marx had focused on economics, Adorno placed emphasis on the role of culture in securing the status quo.

Commodity fetishism (promoted by the marketing, advertising and media industries) means that social relations and cultural experiences are objectified in terms of money. We are delighted by something because of how much it costs.

By fulfilling false needs, people feel that they are getting what they really want, while true needs remain unsatisfied.

Popular media and music products are characterized by standardisation (formulaic and similar, “predigested” – the audience has already heard or seen them) and pseudo-individualisation (incidental differences make them seem distinctive, but they're not).

Popular music offers relaxation and respite from the rigors of mechanical labour because it is not demanding or difficult. It serves to maintain masses away from political issues, thus they are easily manipulated.

Classical music focuses on the melody and harmony. Popular music on timbre and connotation – elements ignored in Adorno’smethods of analysis.

Superior form of human expression

Distracts and comforts the listener ensuring that they will be a cooperative and productive element in the economic system

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-njxKF8CkoU

http://www.jahsonic.com/MassCulture.htmlHuyssen, A. After the great divide: Modernism, mass culture and postmodernism. 1986. USA. Indiana University Press.Adorno, . The culture Industry.2001.New York. Routledge.