* Constantly changing * Based in large, heterogeneous groups of people * Based mainly in urban areas * Material goods mass-produced by machines in factories * Prevailing money economy

* More numerous individual relationships, but less personal * Weaker family structure * Distinct division of labor with highly specialized professions and jobs * Considerable leisure time available to most people * Police, army, and courts take the place of family and church in maintaining order

* If a single hallmark of popular culture exists, it is change * Contributions to the spread of popular culture * Industrialization * Urbanization * Rise of formal education * Resultant increase in leisure time * All the reasons popular culture spread caused folk culture to retreat

* What about these houses might contribute to placelessness?

* Is the internet a “place”? Why or why not? Discuss with partner.

* Superficially, popular culture appears to vary less areally than folk culture * Canadian geographer Edward Relph’s proposal * Popular culture produces a profound placelessness * A spatial standardization that diminishes cultural variety * Demeans the human spirit * James Kunstler speaks of “geography of nowhere” in describing America * One place become much like another, robbed of its geographical essence * Pervasive influence of a continental or worldwide popular culture

* Does cyberspace contain a geography at all? * Place, as understood by geographers, cannot be created on the net * “Virtual places” lack a cultural landscape and a cultural ecology * Human diversity is poorly portrayed in cyberspace * Old people, poor people, the illiterate, and the continent of Africa are not represented * On the net, users end up “meeting” people like themselves * The breath and spirit of place cannot exist in cyberspace * These are not real places and never can be

* Still, cyberspace possesses some geographical qualities * Enhances opportunities for communication over long distances * Allows access to rare data banks * Encourages and speeds cultural diffusion * The Internet helps heighten regional contrasts * Uneven spatial distribution of Internet connections creates a new way people differ

* Increasingly, popular culture is globalizing * This is due to the effects of mass communication and the acceleration of international trade between Trans National Corporations * McDonald’s in China

* TNC’s know they cannot simply move Mcdonald’s to China or India and expect the business model of America to be successful in a different country. * Example

* Walmart also adjusts its product offerings to appeal to other markets. * /old- school/2015/02/19/ra ndom-things-found-at- chinese-walmart /old- school/2015/02/19/ra ndom-things-found-at- chinese-walmart

* Marketing firms also respond to differences in taste by location. * They use zip codes to analyze the cultural and group diversity of a given area. They then decide whether to place their store there. * Example: Nordstroms would not build a store in an area containing mostly lower middle class whites with a rural cultural background – What the Nielsen statistics would label as “Shotguns and Pickups”.

* Prosper: * West Plano: * Highland Park: * Garland: 75041

* Talk with your partners.

* By the 1990’s, the excesses of the consumer culture and corporate business practices began to outrage artists. * RTMARK was one of the first art collectives to challenge corporate and consumer culture. * RTMARK was a website where people could pose ideas for action, others could sign up to accomplish them, and still others could fund them. * The most famous stunt was the Barbie Liberation Organization.

* MM

* Shepard Fairey began his career as an artist by sticking up thousands of stickers at his college in Rhode Island. * That progressed to placing larger iterations of his “Andre the Giant” work almost anywhere he could. * He is a famous street artist who believes in reclaiming the visual landscape from the sinister forces of corporate messaging.

* Also interested in reclaiming public space from advertisers * Works in England * Is totally anonymous – may be arrested as a vandal * Known for his superior painting style/brushstrokes, witty and powerful images

* Neo Surrealism copies advertising and consumer items/characters * It then distorts them to show them as nightmarish and strange.

* The Yes Men are several young men who are an offshoot of the RTMARK group. * They stage stunts that encourage people to think critically about the motivations of corporations. * For example, they set up a fake website pretending to be the PR department of Dow Chemical. * They were contacted by the BBC for an interview, and agreed. * They then went on television saying that Dow Chemical would compensate the victims of the chemical disaster at their Bopal, India plant. * 33.53

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* Pick a corporation with which you have a moral or ethical issue – due to its treatment of employees, the environment, women, people in other countries, its shoppers or consumers, local businesses, etc. * Design an image that deconstructs the values of that corporation.