Social theories

IN
popular culture
 Aligning the classic theories
and ideas
with examples drawn
from popular culture in order
to identify and explain
the major points of the theories
that can be seen in the different
examples of popular culture
Social theory refers to ideas, arguments,
hypotheses, thought-experiments and explanatory
speculations about how and why human societies—
or elements or structures of such societies—come to
be formed, change, and develop over time or
disappear
OBJECTIVES
KARL MARX
AND
MUSIC
He offered the most comprehensive theories of the development of
human societies from the hunter-gatherers to the modern industrial
age
 Class
 Class conflict
 Capitalism
 Ideology
Mode of production refers to the varied ways that
human beings collectively produce the means of
subsistence in order to survive and enhance social
being.
Marx believed that human history could be
characterized by the dominant modes of production.
In this sense the term refers to a specific economic
system.
Effect: class inequality
Social inequality (Mofitt & Chapel, 2003)
-the existence of unequal opportunities and
rewards for different social positions or statuses
within a group or society.
-It has several important dimensions.
a.Income is the earnings from work or
investments, while wealth is the total value of
money and other assets minus debts.
b.Other important dimensions include:
- Power
- occupational prestige
- Schooling
- Ancestry
- Race/ ethnicity
Capitalists lives from the laborers sweat
1. Inequality
The benefits of capitalism are rarely
equitably distributed. Wealth tends to
accrue to a small % of the population.
This means that demand for luxury goods
is often limited to a small % of the
workforce. The nature of capitalism can
cause this inequality to keep increasing.
2. Financial instability/economic cycle
-economic downturns, recession (economic decline) and unemployment
3. Monopoly Power
-market dominance in an industry like telecommunications
4. Monopsony
-market power in employing factors of production (sole producer/ sole
purchaser)
5. Immobilities
-No changing – salary or position
6. Environmental costs and externalities
-over-production and over-consumption of goods that cause harmful effects
to third parties
-This can lead to serious economic costs – pollution, global warming, acid
rain, loss of rare species; external costs that damage future generations
7. Encourages greed/materialism/ short termism
- Failed to check the real goal of the company
result of capitalism?
Act of production
A commodity is a basic good used in
commerce that is interchangeable with
other goods of the same type.
Commodities are most often used as
inputs in the production of other goods or
services. The quality of a
given commodity may differ slightly, but
it is essentially uniform across producers.
Capitalism – market and profit
Commodity – as a product
Class - mass
Music is like a public good.
A public good is a commodity or service
whose benefits are not depleted by an
additional user. It is generally difficult or
impossible to exclude people from its
benefits, even if they are unwilling to pay
for them. Recorded music has been
labeled as a commodity.
Popular music is music with wide appeal that is typically
distributed to large audiences through the music industry.
These forms and styles can be enjoyed and performed by
people with little or no musical training. It stands in
contrast to both art music and traditional or "folk" music.
Genesis of Popular Culture
In music, groove is the sense of an effect ("feel") of changing pattern in a
propulsive rhythm or sense of “swing”". In jazz, it can be felt as a quality of
persistently repeated rhythmic units, created by the interaction of the music
played by a band's (e.g. drums, electric bass or double bass, guitar, and
keyboards). Groove is a significant feature of popular music, and can be
found in many genres, including salsa, rock, soul, funk, fusion.
PHILIPPINE BAND
PHILIPPINE BAND
 FILIPINO SINGERS

Filipino identity
 FILIPINO SINGERS
Magalona was later awarded a
posthumous Presidential medal of
merit. The award's citation noted that it
had been given "for his musical and
artistic brilliance, his deep faith in the
Filipino and his sense of national pride
that continue to inspire us
FILIPINO SINGERS
FILIPINO SINGERS
Wherever there is music there is money (Attali, 1977)

The target age of Pop music is 16-21. Pop was originally

made for young children before their music tastes
become more sophisticated, however this taste
in music can be transferred into adulthood due to Pop
music being over-played on a large scale.
1.economic oppression and inequality is the dominant force in society
- Economic oppression is the divide between two classes of society. These were once
determined by factors such slavery, property rights, disenfranchisement, and forced displacement
of livelihood.

2. class and its expression in terms of ownership or non-ownership of production is

the primary form of inequality
3. issues of gender have no “distinctive social validity for the working class because
all are instruments of labor”
- Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All
are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex.
4. class remains the dominant force and the primary component within calls for
revolutionary change
- Revolutionary change happens when something shakes an organization, presenting a clear
need for a major overhaul, which will change the culture because the enterprise will never be the
same again. Both revolutionary and constant, accelerating change are very different because
accelerating change evolves gradually

5. hip-hop music is predominantly a masculine discourse but there are contemporary

examples of alignment between hip-hop music and female empowerment which they
uses the sound as an empowering political feminist force and allies it with class to
call for social change
6. class and class conflict is the driving engine of history
-factors why people would like to have change
5. hip-hop music is predominantly a masculine discourse but there are contemporary
examples of alignment between hip-hop music and female empowerment which they
uses the sound as an empowering political feminist force and allies it with class to
call for social change
6. class and class conflict is the driving engine of history
-factors why people would like to have change
WEBER AND FILM
Ownership of
goods and
opportunities

Styles of life
Rationalization – characters
Class/ status – theme
 Film is a motion picture;
a movie
Film theorists Comolli and Narboni as
cited by Hamza (2016) point out that film
is a commodity “possessing exchange
value,” but which “as a result of being a
material product of the system, it is also
an ideological product of the system.”
 Film is a motion picture;
a movie
This is the two-fold aspect of the film.
First, it is a particular product, that is to say, a commodity
produced within a certain economic formation, which, as
every other commodity in order to be produced, involves the
existence of labor force. First, when it is produced, it
becomes an ideological product of the given social–
economic formation.
The second, and arguably more crucial, aspect is that the
product occurs within the capitalist form of organization of
production.
Film is a motion picture;
a movie
 Film is a motion picture;
a movie

Following Netflix’s recent announcements that it had added over 25 million

subscribers amid the pandemic (15.77 million subscribers in Q1 and over 10 million
in Q2), which is almost the same as the entire number added throughout 2019 — 28
million — we decided to revisit our study on Netflix subscriber numbers and revenue
totals.
Life chances
PHILIPPINE MOVIES
PHILIPPINE MOVIES
PHILIPPINE MOVIES
1. classes are stratified according to their relations to the production
and acquisition of goods
= ownership and non-ownership
2. status groups are stratified according to the principles of their
consumption of goods as represented by special “styles of life”
- The Style of Life reflects the individual's unique, unconscious,
and repetitive way of responding to (or avoiding) the main
tasks of living: friendship, love, and work. ... The style of
life is reflected in the unity of an individual's way of thinking,
feeling, and acting.
3. film is centrally concerned with the issue of life chances
- opportunities each individual has to improve their quality of life.
4. film expresses numerous social groups
5. castes represents closed status groups that area set apart due to the strict social and
cultural blockades that exist to enforce a lace of movement or mobility between
differing castes and their socially prescribed characteristics
- Caste is a form of social stratification characterized by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a
style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social
interaction and exclusion based on cultural notions of purity and pollution.

6. Class remains a central force in the world but the divisions and stratifications
within it are also significant and perceptible.
1. classes are stratified according to their relations to the production and
acquisition of goods
= ownership and non-ownership
2. status groups are stratified according to the principles of their consumption of
goods as represented by special “styles of life”
- The Style of Life reflects the individual's unique, unconscious, and repetitive way of responding
to (or avoiding) the main tasks of living: friendship, love, and work. ... The style of life is
reflected in the unity of an individual's way of thinking, feeling, and acting.

3. film is centrally concerned with the issue of life chances

- opportunities each individual has to improve their quality of life.

4. film expresses numerous social groups

5. castes represents closed status groups that area set apart due to the strict social and
cultural blockades that exist to enforce a lace of movement or mobility between
differing castes and their socially prescribed characteristics
6. Class remains a central force in the world but the divisions and stratifications
within it are also significant and perceptible.
 Monopoly – tv production
Mass culture ----mass or middle class
19th-century
- industrial laborers worked long hours, they
did not generally work the dawn-to-dusk,
seven-day-a-week schedules of agrarian
toilers—cows need milking even on the
Sabbath—and industrial laborers had
more money in their pockets.
Industrial Laborer -Production Workers : Help
production workers by performing duties
requiring less skill.
Duties include supplying or holding materials or
tools, and cleaning work area and equipment.
- Enjoy entertainment venues
- engage in hobbies
- crafts and recreation
• Life became more than survival,
family and religion.
• The concentration of people in urban
areas, attracted by jobs in the
factories, also gave rise to more and
different kinds of popular art forms by
concentrating potential audiences.
Adorno contends that what is actually
occurring is a type of "defrauding of
the masses". Horkheimer and
Adorno deliberately chose the term
"culture industry" instead of "mass culture" or
"mass media". "The culture industry
perpetually cheats its consumers of what it
perpetually promises." Cultural industries: Film, television, radio,
music, books and press. ...
Creative industries: Design, architecture
and advertising.
According to international
organizations such as UNESCO
and the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade, cultural
industries combine the creation,
production, and distribution of
goods and services that are
cultural in nature and usually
protected by intellectual property
rights.
 television content has a precise socio-psychological effect on spectators in which it
contains hidden meanings and messages to the audience
 Advertisement

 television is a venue to position the audience to see the world and the prevailing
social system in a precise ideological way
 Information - news

 television show as light as a situation comedy is loaded with layers of meaning

 message of mass culture can be found in all forms of music that are marketed for
consumption since act of music is a source of emotional or bodily pleasure
 television is like a popular music that is standardized, mass form of entertainment
characterized by predictability and sameness
 contemporary music is dominated by the commodity form is inherent in the
product of reality show
 growth of a talent TV industry that serves as a nexus for a wide array of
commercial and corporate interests
 television show as light as a situation comedy is loaded with layers of meaning
 Comedy programs, variety shows

 message of mass culture can be found in all forms of music that are marketed for
consumption since act of music is a source of emotional or bodily pleasure
 Singing contest program

 television is like a popular music that is standardized, mass form of entertainment

characterized by predictability and sameness
 contemporary music is dominated by the commodity form is inherent in the
product of reality show
 growth of a talent TV industry that serves as a nexus for a wide array of
commercial and corporate interests
 Talk shows