The popular is defined relationally by opposition to elite culture, not by its contents

Evidence

We can’t simply collect into one category all the things which “the people” do, without observing that the real analytic distinction arises, not from the list itself—an inert category of things and activities—but from the key opposition: the people/not of the people. That is to say, the structuring principle of “the popular” in this sense is the tensions and oppositions between what belongs to the central domain of elite or dominant culture, and the culture of the “periphery.” It is this opposition which constantly structures the domain of culture into the “popular” and the “non-popular.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1010

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Central definition of ‘the popular’ as a relational structuring principle rather than a descriptive inventory.
• XREF: Relational definition parallels Bourdieu’s field theory of cultural distinction, and Saussurean structuralist value.

Related

• What counts as popular culture is defined by power relations, not by content inventory (similarity 0.90)
• The popular is defined by relations of power, not by a fixed content (similarity 0.90)
• Popular culture is a contested site of consent and resistance, not pure authenticity (similarity 0.86)
• Popular culture is defined by its tension with dominant culture (similarity 0.86)
• Popular culture is a contested site where meanings get struggled over (similarity 0.85)
• Eighteenth-century popular culture operated outside the law yet inside networks of social force (similarity 0.85)
• The ‘popular’ marks subordinate culture’s resistance to being cast as low (similarity 0.82)
• Culture names the forms, not the content, of social relationships (similarity 0.82)
• Popular culture is a site of fantasy and identification, not authentic self-discovery (similarity 0.82)
• Popular-class culture is always shaped by dominant cultural production institutions (similarity 0.80)
• Popular culture is a site of hegemonic struggle, not mere expression (similarity 0.80)
• Popular culture, not canonical refinement, was Hall’s analytical object. (similarity 0.79)
• Popular culture cannot be studied apart from dominant cultural production. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Popular culture refers not to one class but an alliance of subordinated classes #expands (0.70) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1022
• Cultural value is historically mobile as forms move between elite and popular #exemplifies (0.60) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1010