Globalisation, Culture and Lifestyle Seminar Five:Culture and Stratification: high and low culture

Assignment One  Steger (2003:73) highlights a range of ‘pessimistic’ views of globalisation which characterise such processes as leading to ‘a soulless consumer capitalism that is rapidly transforming the world’s diverse populations into a blandly uniform market’. Drawing upon the appropriate context for your subject programme, critically discus the extent to which this assertion can be considered valid.  Focus on Disney  2,000 words

Key Lessons from the Lecture  Culture can be broken down into ‘high’ and ‘low’ forms  High culture is seen to be the best that a civilisation can offer while low culture is seen to be mass and populist  McConnacie (1988) suggests a three stage process for the development of high culture  Links to Bourdieu’s (1986) notions of cultural capital and distinction  Postmodernity delegitimizes high culture?

Seminar Tasks  Critically discuss the contention that popular culture reflects the worst of the human condition.  Critically discuss the extent to which notions of distinction and domination are apparent via event consumption.  To what extent do you think cultural stratification exists within a postmodern society?