what are the three ways that culture spreads for one group to another

Learning Objectives

By the end of this department, you will exist able to:

• Talk over the roles of both high civilisation and pop civilisation within society
• Differentiate between subculture and counterculture
• Explain the role of innovation, invention, and discovery in civilisation
• Understand the role of cultural lag and globalization in cultural alter

Information technology may seem obvious that at that place are a multitude of cultural differences betwixt societies in the world. Later on all, we can easily see that people vary from ane society to the next. Information technology'south natural that a young woman from rural Kenya would have a very different view of the world from an elderly man in Bombay—one of the virtually populated cities in the world. Additionally, each culture has its own internal variations. Sometimes the differences between cultures are not well-nigh equally big as the differences inside cultures.

High Civilization and Popular Civilisation

Practice you prefer listening to opera or hip hop music? Practice you similar watching horse racing or NASCAR? Do y'all read books of poetry or glory magazines? In each pair, one type of entertainment is considered high-brow and the other low-brow. Sociologists utilize the term loftier culture to describe the design of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in the highest class segments of a society. People often associate high culture with intellectualism, political power, and prestige. In America, high culture also tends to be associated with wealth. Events considered high culture tin can exist expensive and formal—attention a ballet, seeing a play, or listening to a live symphony performance.

The term popular culture refers to the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in mainstream lodge. Popular culture events might include a parade, a baseball game, or the flavour finale of a television bear witness. Rock and popular music—"pop" is curt for "popular"—are part of popular civilization. Pop culture is often expressed and spread via commercial media such as radio, telly, movies, the music industry, publishers, and corporate-run websites. Unlike loftier culture, popular civilisation is known and accessible to most people. You can share a discussion of favorite football teams with a new coworker or annotate on American Idol when making small talk in line at the grocery store. Just if you tried to launch into a deep discussion on the classical Greek play Antigone, few members of U.S. guild today would be familiar with information technology.

Although high culture may be viewed every bit superior to popular culture, the labels of high culture and popular culture vary over time and identify. Shakespearean plays, considered popular civilisation when they were written, are now part of our society'south loftier culture. 5 hundred years from at present, will our descendants acquaintance Breaking Bad with the cultural elite?

Subculture and Counterculture

A subculture is just what information technology sounds like—a smaller cultural group within a larger civilisation; people of a subculture are part of the larger civilization just also share a specific identity within a smaller group.

Thousands of subcultures be within the United States. Ethnic and racial groups share the language, food, and customs of their heritage. Other subcultures are united by shared experiences. Biker culture revolves around a dedication to motorcycles. Some subcultures are formed by members who possess traits or preferences that differ from the majority of a order'due south population. The body modification community embraces aesthetic additions to the human trunk, such every bit tattoos, piercings, and certain forms of plastic surgery. In the United States, adolescents frequently form subcultures to develop a shared youth identity. Alcoholics Anonymous offers support to those suffering from alcoholism. But even as members of a subculture band together, they however identify with and participate in the larger lodge.

Sociologists distinguish subcultures from countercultures, which are a type of subculture that rejects some of the larger culture's norms and values. In contrast to subcultures, which operate relatively smoothly within the larger society, countercultures might actively defy larger society by developing their own gear up of rules and norms to live by, sometimes even creating communities that operate outside of greater society.

Cults, a word derived from civilization, are as well considered counterculture group. The group "Yearning for Zion" (YFZ) in Eldorado, Texas, existed exterior the mainstream and the limelight, until its leader was accused of statutory rape and underage marriage. The sect's formal norms clashed as well severely to be tolerated by U.S. law, and in 2008, government raided the compound and removed more than two hundred women and children from the property.

The Evolution of American Hipster Subculture

Skinny jeans, chunky glasses, and T-shirts with vintage logos—the American hipster is a recognizable effigy in the modernistic United states. Based predominately in metropolitan areas, sometimes amassed effectually hotspots such as the Williamsburg neighborhood in New York City, hipsters define themselves through a rejection of the mainstream. Equally a subculture, hipsters spurn many of the values and behavior of U.S. civilization and prefer vintage article of clothing to manner and a maverick lifestyle to one of wealth and ability. While hipster culture may seem to exist the new trend amongst immature, center-class youth, the history of the group stretches back to the early decades of the 1900s.

Where did the hipster culture brainstorm? In the early 1940s, jazz music was on the ascent in the The states. Musicians were known equally "hepcats" and had a polish, relaxed quality that went against upright, mainstream life. Those who were "hep" or "hip" lived past the lawmaking of jazz, while those who were "square" lived according to society'due south rules. The idea of a "hipster" was born.

The hipster movement spread, and young people, fatigued to the music and way, took on attitudes and language derived from the culture of jazz. Unlike the vernacular of the day, hipster slang was purposefully ambiguous. When hipsters said, "It's cool, man," they meant not that everything was practiced, only that it was the manner it was.

In the 1940s, U.South. hipsters were associated with the "absurd" civilisation of jazz. (Photo courtesy of William P. Gottlieb/Ira and Leonore South. Gershwin Fund Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress)

By the 1950s, the jazz culture was winding down and many traits of hepcat culture were becoming mainstream. A new subculture was on the rise. The "Beat Generation," a championship coined past writer Jack Kerouac, were anticonformist and antimaterialistic. They were writers who listened to jazz and embraced radical politics. They bummed around, hitchhiked the land, and lived in squalor.

The lifestyle spread. College students, clutching copies of Kerouac'south On the Road, dressed in berets, blackness turtlenecks, and black-rimmed glasses. Women wore black leotards and grew their hair long. Herb Caen, a San Francisco journalist, used the suffix from Sputnik 1, the Russian satellite that orbited Earth in 1957, to dub the motility'southward followers "Beatniks."

As the Crush Generation faded, a new, related movement began. It too focused on breaking social boundaries, but information technology also advocated freedom of expression, philosophy, and love. It took its name from the generations earlier; in fact, some theorists claim that Beats themselves coined the term to depict their children. Over time, the "little hipsters" of the 1970s became known simply as "hippies."

Today'due south generation of hipsters rose out of the hippie movement in the same mode that hippies rose from Beats and Beats from hepcats. Although contemporary hipsters may not seem to have much in common with 1940s hipsters, the emulation of nonconformity is notwithstanding in that location. In 2010, sociologist Mark Greif set well-nigh investigating the hipster subculture of the Us and found that much of what tied the group members together was not based on manner, musical taste, or even a specific point of contention with the mainstream. "All hipsters play at being the inventors or first adopters of novelties," Greif wrote. "Pride comes from knowing, and deciding, what's cool in advance of the rest of the earth. Withal the habits of hatred and accusation are owned to hipsters because they experience the weakness of anybody'south position—including their ain" (Greif 2010). Much equally the hepcats of the jazz era opposed common culture with carefully crafted appearances of coolness and relaxation, modern hipsters reject mainstream values with a purposeful apathy.

Immature people are oftentimes drawn to oppose mainstream conventions, fifty-fifty if in the same way that others practise. Ironic, absurd to the point of noncaring, and intellectual, hipsters go on to embody a subculture, while simultaneously impacting mainstream culture.

Intellectual and trendy, today's hipsters define themselves through cultural irony. (Photo courtesy of Lorena Cupcake/Wikimedia Commons)

Cultural Change

As the hipster example illustrates, culture is always evolving. Moreover, new things are added to material culture every day, and they affect nonmaterial civilization as well. Cultures alter when something new (say, railroads or smartphones) opens up new means of living and when new ideas enter a civilisation (say, as a result of travel or globalization).

Innovation: Discovery and Invention

An innovation refers to an object or concept'southward initial appearance in society—information technology'south innovative because it is markedly new. There are two ways to come up across an innovative object or thought: discover it or invent it. Discoveries make known previously unknown but existing aspects of reality. In 1610, when Galileo looked through his telescope and discovered Saturn, the planet was already at that place, but until and so, no one had known about it. When Christopher Columbus encountered America, the land was, of class, already well known to its inhabitants. However, Columbus's discovery was new knowledge for Europeans, and information technology opened the way to changes in European civilization, as well every bit to the cultures of the discovered lands. For example, new foods such equally potatoes and tomatoes transformed the European diet, and horses brought from Europe changed hunting practices of Native American tribes of the Smashing Plains.

Inventions consequence when something new is formed from existing objects or concepts—when things are put together in an entirely new mode. In the tardily 1800s and early 1900s, electric appliances were invented at an astonishing footstep. Cars, airplanes, vacuum cleaners, lamps, radios, telephones, and televisions were all new inventions. Inventions may shape a civilization when people use them in place of older means of carrying out activities and relating to others, or as a fashion to deport out new kinds of activities. Their adoption reflects (and may shape) cultural values, and their use may require new norms for new situations.

Consider the introduction of modern communication engineering science, such as mobile phones and smartphones. Every bit more than and more people began conveying these devices, phone conversations no longer were restricted to homes, offices, and telephone booths. People on trains, in restaurants, and in other public places became annoyed past listening to one-sided conversations. Norms were needed for cell telephone utilize. Some people pushed for the idea that those who are out in the globe should pay attending to their companions and surroundings. Notwithstanding, applied science enabled a workaround: texting, which enables tranquillity communication and has surpassed phoning as the chief fashion to meet today'southward highly valued ability to stay in touch anywhere, everywhere.

When the pace of innovation increases, it can lead to generation gaps. Technological gadgets that catch on apace with one generation are sometimes dismissed by a skeptical older generation. A culture's objects and ideas tin can cause not simply generational but cultural gaps. Material culture tends to diffuse more quickly than nonmaterial civilization; applied science can spread through society in a affair of months, but information technology can take generations for the ideas and beliefs of order to modify. Sociologist William F. Ogburn coined the term culture lag to refer to this time that elapses between the introduction of a new particular of material culture and its acceptance every bit part of nonmaterial culture (Ogburn 1957).

Culture lag can too crusade tangible issues. The infrastructure of the United States, congenital a hundred years agone or more, is having problem supporting today's more heavily populated and fast-paced life. Yet there is a lag in conceptualizing solutions to infrastructure problems. Ascension fuel prices, increased air pollution, and traffic jams are all symptoms of civilisation lag. Although people are condign aware of the consequences of overusing resources, the means to support changes takes time to achieve.

Sociologist Everett Rogers (1962) developed a model of the diffusion of innovations. Equally consumers gradually prefer a new innovation, the particular grows toward a market share of 100 per centum, or complete saturation inside a society. (Graph courtesy of Tungsten/Wikimedia Eatables)

Diffusion and Globalization

The integration of earth markets and technological advances of the concluding decades accept allowed for greater exchange between cultures through the processes of globalization and diffusion. Commencement in the 1980s, Western governments began to deregulate social services while granting greater liberties to private businesses. As a result, world markets became dominated by multinational companies in the 1980s, a new state of affairs at that time. We have since come to refer to this integration of international merchandise and finance markets equally globalization. Increased communications and air travel have further opened doors for international business relations, facilitating the menses not only of goods just also of information and people also (Scheuerman 2014 (revised)). Today, many U.S. companies fix offices in other nations where the costs of resources and labor are cheaper. When a person in the United States calls to get information most banking, insurance, or estimator services, the person taking that call may be working in some other country.

Alongside the process of globalization is diffusion, or the spread of material and nonmaterial civilisation. While globalization refers to the integration of markets, diffusion relates to a like procedure in the integration of international cultures. Middle-form Americans can fly overseas and return with a new appreciation of Thai noodles or Italian gelato. Access to tv set and the Internet has brought the lifestyles and values portrayed in U.Southward. sitcoms into homes around the globe. Twitter feeds from public demonstrations in ane nation have encouraged political protesters in other countries. When this kind of improvidence occurs, cloth objects and ideas from i culture are introduced into another.

Officially patented in 1893 as the "clasp locker" (left), the attachment did non diffuse through society for many decades. Today, it is immediately recognizable effectually the world. (Photo (a) courtesy of U.S. Patent Part/Wikimedia Commons; Photo (b) courtesy of Rabensteiner/Wikimedia Eatables)

Summary

Sociologists recognize high civilisation and popular civilisation inside societies. Societies are also comprised of many subcultures—smaller groups that share an identity. Countercultures turn down mainstream values and create their ain cultural rules and norms. Through invention or discovery, cultures evolve via new ideas and new ways of thinking. In many modern cultures, the cornerstone of innovation is technology, the rapid growth of which can lead to cultural lag. Engineering science is also responsible for the spread of both material and nonmaterial civilisation that contributes to globalization.

Short Answer

Identify several examples of popular culture and describe how they inform larger culture. How prevalent is the result of these examples in your everyday life?

Glossary

countercultures

groups that reject and oppose society'due south widely accustomed cultural patterns

culture lag

the gap of time between the introduction of material civilisation and nonmaterial civilization's acceptance of it

diffusion

the spread of material and nonmaterial culture from i civilisation to some other

discoveries

things and ideas found from what already exists

globalization

the integration of international trade and finance markets

high culture

the cultural patterns of a gild's elite

innovations

new objects or ideas introduced to culture for the kickoff time

inventions

a combination of pieces of existing reality into new forms

popular culture

mainstream, widespread patterns amongst a society's population

subcultures

groups that share a specific identification, apart from a social club's majority, even as the members exist within a larger order

Consider some of the specific issues or concerns of your generation. Are any ideas countercultural? What subcultures have emerged from your generation? How have the issues of your generation expressed themselves culturally? How has your generation fabricated its mark on society's commonage culture?

What are some examples of cultural lag that are nowadays in your life? Do you think technology affects culture positively or negatively? Explicate.

Further Research

The Beats were a counterculture that birthed an entire motion of art, music, and literature—much of which is nevertheless highly regarded and studied today. The man responsible for naming the generation was Jack Kerouac; withal, the man responsible for introducing the globe to that generation was John Clellon Holmes, a writer often lumped in with the group. In 1952 he penned an article for the New York Times Magazine titled, "This Is the Beat Generation." Read that commodity and larn more than about Clellon Holmes and the Beats: http://openstaxcollege.org/fifty/The-Beats

Popular civilization meets counterculture in this as Oprah Winfrey interacts with members of the Yearning for Zion cult. Read most it here: http://openstaxcollege.org/l/Oprah

References

Greif, Mark. 2010. "The Hipster in the Mirror." New York Times, November 12. Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/fourteen/books/review/Greif-t.html?pagewanted=i).

Ogburn, William F. 1957. "Cultural Lag equally Theory." Sociology & Social Inquiry 41(3):167–174.

Rogers, Everett M. 1962. Improvidence of Innovations. Glencoe: Free Press.

Scheuerman, William. 2010. "Globalization." The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Eastward. Northward. Revised 2014. Zalta, Summer. Retrieved February 10, 2012 (http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/globalization/).

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Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/pop-culture-subculture-and-cultural-change/

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