Popular culture is a contested site where meanings get struggled over

Evidence

So I settle for a third definition of “popular,” though it is a rather uneasy one. This looks, in any particular period, at those forms and activities which have their roots in the social and material conditions of particular classes; which have been embodied in popular traditions and practices. In this sense, it retains what is valuable in the descriptive definition. But it goes on to insist that what is essential to the definition of popular culture is the relations which define “popular culture” in a continuing tension (relationship, influence, and antagonism) to the dominant culture. It is a conception of culture which is polarized around this cultural dialectic. It treats the domain of cultural forms and activities as a constantly changing field. Then it looks at the relations which constantly structure this field into dominant and subordinate formations. It looks at the process by which these relations of dominance and subordination are articulated. It treats them as a process: the process by means of which some things are actively preferred so that others can be dethroned. It has at its center the changing and uneven relations of force which define the field of culture—that is, the question of cultural struggle and its many forms. Its main focus of attention is the relation between culture and questions of hegemony. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1011 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Popular culture cannot be won outright by any single political side; The ‘popular’ marks subordinate culture’s resistance to being cast as low — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 280; Popular culture is a site of fantasy and identification, not authentic self-discovery (+8 more)

Related

• Popular culture is a site of fantasy and identification, not authentic self-discovery (similarity 0.95)
• Popular culture is a contested site of consent and resistance, not pure authenticity (similarity 0.93)
• The popular is defined by relations of power, not by a fixed content (similarity 0.91)
• What counts as popular culture is defined by power relations, not by content inventory (similarity 0.90)
• Popular culture is defined by its tension with dominant culture (similarity 0.90)
• Popular culture is a site of hegemonic struggle, not mere expression (similarity 0.86)
• The ‘popular’ marks subordinate culture’s resistance to being cast as low (similarity 0.85)
• The popular is defined relationally by opposition to elite culture, not by its contents (similarity 0.84)
• Popular culture is a perpetual uneven battlefield of domination and resistance (similarity 0.81)
• The popular imaginary is contested within popular rather than high culture. (similarity 0.81)
• Popular culture can be won position by position but never captured outright. (similarity 0.80)
• Eighteenth-century popular culture operated outside the law yet inside networks of social force (similarity 0.80)
• Culture and common sense are a contested terrain for building popular hegemony (similarity 0.79)
• Cultures impose dominant, institutionalized preferred readings that are contested but not determined. (similarity 0.78)
• Popular culture always contains both containment and resistance simultaneously (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Popular culture is a contested site of consent and resistance, not pure authenticity #corroborates (0.95)
• Popular culture is defined by its tension with dominant culture #corroborates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1011
• What counts as popular culture is defined by power relations, not by content inventory #expands (0.90)
• Culture and common sense are a contested terrain for building popular hegemony #corroborates (0.85)
• Cultural meanings are unstable and shift with the social field #expands (0.85)
• “The people” is itself a contested construct, not a fixed subject #expands (0.85)
• The popular is defined relationally by opposition to elite culture, not by its contents #expands (0.80)