There are lots of different ideas and definitions of these two terms - you will be expected to explore them and provide examples of them in your work and examination answers.
Popular culture would include most forms of mass communication or commercial forms of art such as pop and rock music, TV soap operas, romance stories, blockbuster films, tabloid newspapers etc.
High culture would include classical music, documentary, serious novels, avant-garde or experimental films, broadsheet newspapers, great art such as Van Gogh, Rembrandt etc
We should be interested in this distinction because certain theoretical groups such as Marxists and Feminists see popular culture as either big business (or the ruling classes) making money out of us and keeping us happy or in the case of feminists, exploiting us for money.
High culture, on the other hand, is seen as pure art, an expression of individual but universal ideas being communicated to other individuals who appreciate and interpret these pieces of art - stories, paintings, films - in their own, unique way. High culture can also be a force for oppression because it is held up as the model all cultural artefacts and art should aspire to.
Re-posted from: communicationandculture.co.uk
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