Popular Culture

"A second way of defining popular culture is to suggest that it is the culture which is left over after we have decided what is high culture." This quote is from John Storey's Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, pg 5.

As I seek to figure out why popular culture is such an integral part of Children's literature, this quote strikes me as a missing piece to the puzzle.

Children are a valuable part of society. Without them, society, in essence, would end. On one hand children are privledged--If we pay attention to all the advertising dollars spent on telling parents what their children need and telling children what they must have, then we know that children are privledged. On the other hand, children are neglected. When we look at how many hours children spend a day in day care, we can realize that children often are missing a consistent foundational example.

Grey's Anatomy this week, a father says, "I went soft. I quit being a father when he needed a father the most." Talking about after divorce.

Storey uses Raymond Williams to define culture as one of 3 things.
A means to refer to "a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development"
A means to suggest "A particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group"
A means to describe "The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity"

Storey feels that popular culture must be one of the last 2. I disagree when it comes to children. Although they are the second definition, I think they are because they are attempting to be the first. Children spend some time with adults. They spend time with their parents, but they spend more time with one another. Therefore, while they are told which things to value intellectually, spiritually, and aesthetically, they must as young adults decide for themselves which things they will value. So, they often make these decisions as a group, a population. Young adults often decide that they don't need what others have deemed high culture. They do not need to privledge the same things other's privledge. Young adults will choose to show intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development through their own media, and right now those media are often related to the internet. Young adult authors realize this. They understand that instead of using high culture intertextual examples in their texts, they should use the lessons learned from media as a means to convey meaning.