Popular culture Popular Culture Regions Diffusion in Popular Culture The Ecology of Popular Culture...

Popular culture

Popular Culture Regions Diffusion in Popular Culture The Ecology of Popular Culture Cultural Integration in Popular Culture Landscapes of Popular Culture

Ecology of popular culture

Popular culture may seem less directly tied to the physical environment than folk culture Cyberplace, Virtual ecology Adaptive strategies have enormous potential

for producing ecological disasters

Environmental influence

The physical environment still can exert an influence on members of popular cul ture even with their loss of close ties to nature

Some natural hazards are actually intensified Millions of city dwellers live astride the major

earthquake zone in California Popularity of seaside residences greatly increases

dwelling susceptible to hur ricane destruction along the Gulf Coast

Epidemic diseases can spread more rapidly along modern transportation networks


How weather may affect a sport’s popularity Is greater popularity of basketball in the North partly

because of cold winters? Does cold weather favor bowling and ice hockey,

explaining their popularity in northern states and Canada?

Is it mere chance that major college football bowl games are all played in Sunbelt States?

Over 80 percent of the College Baseball World Series winners, in the past 50 years, have been teams from the Sunbelt


Why climatic influence on different sports is waning Huge covered stadiums make it possible to

play football and baseball indoors Artificial wave-making machines permit

surfboarding in Arizona’s desert


Japan’s Seagaia Ocean Dome at Miyazaki on the island of Kyushu Three story structure offers indoor surfing Computer-controlled wave-making machine Temperature remains at 84°F all year around World’s largest retractable roof permits fresh air in

perfect weather Has palm trees and sandy beaches Has an enormous waterslide and 17 restaurants


La Laporte Ski Dome, near Tokyo, Japan Stands 25 stories high Provides year-round skiing for 2,000

customers at a time Ski runs are the length of five football fields


The popular way of life has become a high-energy consuming culture Even devices of diffusion require large

amounts of electricity and gasoline Labor-saving machines add to insatiable need

for fossil fuels and other energy supplies If energy costs rise, we may reach a point

where many aspects of popular culture can no longer be maintained

Impact on the Environment

Popular culture makes heavy demands on ecosystems

Since World War II, leisure time and recreational activities have increased greatly in developed countries Much time is spent in some space-consuming time

outside cities Demand for “wilderness” recreation zones has risen

sharply in the last 25 years No end to the increase is in sight

Environmental Impact:San Felipe, Mexico Prior to the advent of

dune buggies and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), a rich variety of sea birds inhabited the beaches of this fishing community.

Environmental Impact:San Felipe, Mexico In the past decade, San

Felipe has become a tourist mecca, especially popular with ATV enthusiasts.

Driving through a pelican colony seems like great fun to these tourists.


Massive presence of people in recreational areas results in damage to physical environment

National parks suffer from traffic jams, residential congestion, litter, and noise pollution

Off-road vehicles have caused soil loss and long-term soil deterioration

As few as several hundred hikers can beat down trails Vegetation is altered Erosion is encouraged Wildlife diminished

The more humans cluster in cities and suburbs, the greater their impact on open areas


Reactions to the recreational tourist boom Some countries have made natural areas more accessible,

causing them to become crowded, and damaged Others, including the United States, have drawn a distinction

between nat ional park tourism and wilderness areas Access to many wild districts is now restricted Some national parks restrict access by automobile and camper

For most of the countryside, recreational assault continues Enormous demand for refuse dumps

Generated by cities Refuse is altering the ecology of many rural areas

Popular culture


The convergence hypothesis

We are supposedly converging in our cultural makeup, becoming more alike

In 1790 a more pronounced regionalization of people’s given names existed than in 1968

Cultural Integration:Lane County, Pennsylvania

Lane County is part of the Pennsylvania “Dutch” ethnic homeland.

Even though some members of this community still reject modern phenomena such as electricity and automobiles, many have chosen to cater to increasing leisure demands of the larger society.


Motels, restaurants, shops, and activities such as buggy rides playing on the local heritage are increasingly common and are evidence of assimilation.

The sign’s folk hex symbols are countered by the popular AAA (American Automobile Association).


The AAA is an instrument of landscape change as it provides information, recommends destinations and routeways, and puts its seal of approval on accommodations for thousands of travelers nation-wide.

Mapping personal preference

Working against the convergence hypothesis is greater personal individualism

Gone is the conformity of folk cultures Individualism, coupled with other factors, has the

ability to create new regionalism Gives us the will and means to diverge rather than

converge Free exercise of individual preferences — each person

“doing his/her own thing” Could create a new spatial order

Mapping personal preference

How new spatial restructuring can occur If people who pursue similar life-styles gather in close

geographical proximity to each other We already have Sun City, Arizona, where only the

elderly live There are residential concentrations of gay people in

certain districts within cities such as San Francisco The media cater to and help promote restructuring The increasing desire of people for individual freedom

may have begun to alter the spatial attributes of society and culture

Place images

The media often produces place images Place, portrayer, and medium interact to

produce the image that colors our perception and cognition of places and regions we have never visited

The images created may be inaccurate or misleading, but create a world in our minds

Place images

Example of Hawaii In the American mind a sort of earthly

paradise Peopled by scantily clad, eternally happy,

invariably good-looking swarthy natives A physical setting of unparalleled natural

beauty and idyllic climate The interworkings of popular culture cause

these images to proliferate and become more vivid, if not more accurate

Social spatialization

Geographer Rob Shields’ views Sees popular cultural integration from the

core/periphery perspective Agrees we need to begin remapping the

universalized and homogeneous spatialization of popular culture

We need to reveal heterogeneous places Agrees place images are very powerful


Geographer Rob Shields’ views Devotes attention to peripheral areas and locales

—”left behind in the modern race for progress” Because of remoteness Because they are sites of illicit or disdained activities

“Margins become signifiers of everything centers deny or repress”

Legalized prostitution in Nevada Legalized gambling casinos in Atlantic City, New

Jersey English resort town of Brighton, where proper

Londoners can spend a “dirty weekend”


Geographer Rob Shields’ views Canadian North

Arctic and Subarctic regions Native folk cultures survive at least in vestige Popular culture intrudes more weakly

Southern Canadians mythologized the North as seat of the “real” Canada a “counter-balance to the civilized world” of the urbanized South

Planetary culture is almost certainly illusory in the age of popular culture

Popular culture and its integration work as much against homogenization as for it

Popular culture


Elitist landscapes

Development of social classes is a distinctive aspect of popular culture

The top social class consists of persons of wealth, education, and taste—the elitist class

Because of their wealth, desire to be together, distinctive tastes, and hedonistic life styles, they create distinctive cultural landscapes

Elitist landscapes

Example of the French Riviera A district of stunning natural beauty and idyllic climate French elite created an aesthetically pleasing cultural

landscape Characterized by preservation of old buildings and town

cores Building codes and height restrictions are rigorously

enforced Land values have risen making the Riviera ever more elitist It is now far removed from the folk culture and poverty that

prevailed there before 1850 Farmers and fishermen have almost disappeared from the

region

Leisure Landscape:Southern France This is an artificial

beach, made by dumping sand on a rocky shore of the Mediterranean Sea near Spain.

Increases in leisure time and disposable income create demand for recreational

Leisure Landscape:Southern France opportunities and many

Northern Europeans head southward in

Here, a “natural” environment has been constructed for leisure, and with an array of new hotels and services, evolves as a leisure landscape.

Elitist landscapes

America also has its elitist landscapes Exclusive suburbs with rigidly-enforced

architectural themes are common In Santa Fe the favored architectural style is

pseudo-Pueblo Indian

Elitist landscapes

The gentleman farm — agricultural unit operated for pleasure rather than profit Owned by affluent city people as an avocation Help to create or maintain high social standing Most notable found:

In the inner Bluegrass Basin of north Kentucky The Virginia Piedmont west of Washington, D.C. Eastern Long Island in New York Parts of southeastern Pennsylvania

Engage in such activities as breeding fine cattle, racing horses, or fox hunting

Elitist landscapes

Gentleman farms in the Kentucky Bluegrass Basin Concentrations so great they constitute a dominant feature

on the land scape Have black or white wooden fences A rural landscape created more for appearance than

function Elaborate entrance gates with hand-painted sign giving

name of farm and owner Network of surfaced, well-maintained driveways and pasture

roads Elegant houses visible through a lawnlike parkland dotted

with clumps of trees and maybe a pond or two Tourists think they are seeing the “real” rural America

Landscapes of consumption

Eye catching commercial “strips” along urban arterial streets

Study of the evolution of such a strip in an Illinois college town Covered the period 1919 to 1979 Street changed from single-family residential

to a commercial focus

Landscapes of consumption Researchers suggested a five-stage model of strip evolution

Single-family residential period Introduction of gasoline stations Other businesses join growing number of filling stations,

Multi-unit housing becomes common Absentee ownership increases

Commercial function dominates Businesses catering to drive-in trade proliferate Residential use sharply declines Income levels of remaining inhabitants is low

Residential function of the street disappears Totally commercial landscape prevails Business properties expand to provide off-street parking Often public outcry against the ugliness of the strip is raised


Represent popular aesthetic values, and may reveal social and cultural problems that need redress

May be needed antidote to plastic artificiality of elitist landscapes

Perception of strip creators See it differently than do visitors Owners or operators of businesses are proud of them

and their role in the community Hard work and hope colors their perceptions


The grandest of the indoor shopping malls — West Edmonton Mall Located in the Canadian province of Alberta Encloses 5.2 million square feet and

completed in 1986 Employs 18,000 people in over 600 stores and

services Earned 42 percent of dollars spent in local

shopping centers in its first nine months of operation


The grandest of the indoor shopping malls — West Edmonton Mall Boasts a water park, sea aquarium, and ice skating

rink Also has mini-golf course, roller coaster, and 19 movie

theaters Has a 360 room motel Its “streets” feature motifs from exotic places

Hopkins says this “simulated landscape” reveals “growing intrusion of spectacle, fantasy, and escapism into the urban landscape”

Leisure landscapes

West Edmonton Mall is more than a landscape of consumption being clearly designed as much for leisure as for shopping

Leisure landscapes take many forms “RV resort landscape” of greater Phoenix where

“recreational nomads” spend winter months In the United States alone golf courses occupy an area

twice the size of the state of Delaware

Leisure landscapes

Leisure landscapes take many forms Kindred amenity landscapes — Minnesota

North Lake country In one area 40 percent of dwellings are weekend

cottages or vacation homes Often rustic or humble in appearance

Leisure landscapes

“Historylands” Collections of old structures relocated to fenced areas

open only dur ing certain seasons or hours If desired bit of visual history has perished, Americans

and Canadians do not hesitate to rebuild it from scratch

Examples—Jamestown, Virginia, or Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island

People do not live in these parks Role-playing actors sometimes pretend to live in some

past era

The American scene

Article written by David Lowenthal — an overall evaluation of the visible impact of popular culture in the American countryside

Some of the main characteristics of popular landscape as seen by Lowenthal “Cult of bigness” Tolerance of present ugliness to achieve a supposedly

glorious future Emphasis on individual features at expense of

aggregates, which produced a “casual chaos” Preeminence of function over form

The American scene

Fondness for massive structures is reflected in edifices such as: The Empire State Building The Pentagon The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Salt Lake City’s Mormon Temple

This fondness for largeness may reflect an effort to match the largeness of the physical environment -- Grand Canyon, redwoods, Yellowstone geysers

The American scene

Lowenthal says Americans tend to regard their cultural landscape as unfinished Tend to accept structures that are makeshift,

flimsy, and transient Hardships of pioneer life may have

preconditioned them toward valuing function over beauty

State capitol grounds in Oklahoma City are adorned with working oil wells and their derricks

The American scene

Lowenthal says individual landscape features take precedence over groupings Five buildings or houses in a row may display five

architectural styles Rarely is an attempt made to erect assemblages that

“belong” together Each structure must be unique and eye-catching Architects vie with one another to produce attention-

grabbing edifices Each fast-food chain requires it own outlandish style to gain

instant visual recognition Australians share this fondness for unique designs—Sydney’s

opera house

The American scene

The traditional American front yard Since the early 1800s, the expanse of grassy lawn has

prevailed Manicured lawns now occupy an area equal to the size

of Pennsylvania! Neglect of front lawns or using the space for something

functional can invite animosity and contempt of neighbors

Lawn neglect can also lower property values or be in violation of building codes

Most Americans accept the grass-covered front yard as a natural order of things in suburbia

The American scene

The traditional American front yard Migrating Anglos in the nineteenth century

brought the front lawn into desert areas Irrigation was necessary to maintain the grass Anglo dwellings with their lawns stood in marked

contrast to older Hispanic houses that either lacked yards or had bare-earth areas

The American scene

The traditional American front yard Decline of the grass front yard in favor of

“desert front” yards Began to rise in the 1950s Gravel, crushed rock, desert plants, paving, or

undisturbed desert Spurred by new urban immigrants who found the

desert beautiful Acceptance occurred earliest in higher-priced

subdivisions Spread gradually to middle-class districts

The American scene

The traditional American front yard Decline of the grass front yard in favor of “desert front” yards

One half of all houses built in Tucson between 1965 and 1975 had desert front yards

Some yards covered with gravel dyed green—simulation of lawns and a classic example of a permeable barrier in cultural diffusion

Decline of lawn tradition heralds emergence of a new distinct popular culture region

Reflects an appreciation of Arizona’s natural setting and Hispanic heritage

Desert fronts have since diffused to neighboring states and beyond, such as Florida where plastic sheets are installed under gravel to prevent grass and weeds

Landscapes of tragedy

Geographer Kenneth Foote terms these landscapes “shadowed ground”

Stigmatized sites where horrible events transpired Site of Martin Luther King’s assassination Schoolbook Depository from which President Kennedy

was assassin ated Gettysburg Battlefield from the Civil War

Some sites are obliterated from the landscape

Landscapes of tragedy

Some sites are rectified, after repairs, and a plaque is placed as a reminder of the tragedy that occurred there

Level of shame often helps determine the fate of shadowed ground

Geographer Phil Hubbard speaks of “immoral landscapes”—those associated with prostitution

Others have written about the “landscape of the aged”—produced when popular culture began to separate disabled older people residentially

Popular culture Popular Culture Regions Diffusion in Popular Culture The Ecology of Popular Culture...

Documents

Transcript of Popular culture Popular Culture Regions Diffusion in Popular Culture The Ecology of Popular Culture...