RB 10/31

“Culture” Signification #1:

I’m cultured because I can tell you who Dick Hebdige is. That that makes me cultured is common sense. Or at least common sense within the ideology that says people who can tell you who Dick Hebdige is are cultured. “Ideology saturates everyday discourse in the form of common sense” (Hebdige 148), which is common sense to Hebdige because he wrote it as a result of the parameters ideology.

“Culture” Signification #2 (Pop Culture):

I’m cultured because I can tell you who Britney Spears is. Britney Spears’ identity is common knowledge. Or at least common knowledge within US culture. My knowledge of her is a reflection on my society.

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According to one signification of the word “culture,” culture is analytical and intellectual, but, according to the other signification, culture is exhibitionist and sexual. Culture #1, according to Jürgen Habermas, is a result of the compartmentalization of science, morality and art and, subsequently, their individualized study by “specialists who seem more adept at being logical in these particular way than other people” (Habermas 103).

As a result, pop culture becomes ostracized by culture #1. “The distance grows between the culture of the experts and that of the larger public” (Habermas 103). For example, Yahoo produces approximately 38 million Web sites in a “Britney Spears” search; it produces approximately 32 thousand in a “Dick Hebdige” search. The Internet becomes a unifying reflection of both cultures, within the parameters of its ideology.