Main points (there are lots) argued include:
1. Culture changes in periods but so do people, who are reformed and transformed.
2. Historical changes influencing popular culture such as revolutions, capitalism and changes to press.
3. Definitions of 'popular culture'and the 'problems' with these definitions.
4. There is no fixed category of culture, therefore there is no fixed subject to attach it to 'the people'.
5. Popular culture is about stuggle; for and against the powerful and something which evokes consent and resistant in different amounts.
6.Problem with 'tradition' in popular culture - its vital but meaning changes over time (e.g. the swastika)
Hall combines a historical reflection/critique of ideas on popular culture with his own definitions and thoughts, and then analyses and challenges the cocncepts by highlighting the problems with each of the terms. I think this was a really useful method because although he argued his points well, he remains critical that no definition is infinate and that problems can be found in all studies of popular culture.
Hall's conclusions argue that the term 'popular culture' is and has always been problematic and that there are many other 'factors' which contribute to its definition such as audience, traditions and class. He believes that popular culture is where 'struggle for and against a culture of the powerful is engaged'.
I find myself agreeing with much of what Hall discusses in the article; based mainly on the fact that I found it very difficult to pin a definition on the term 'culture' to begin with (and still do to be honest). I think he is right that there are many contributing relations such as 'the people', historical changes and traditions; which add to and also provide problems when trying to define what popular culture is. I agree that popular culture is about struggle; some people will readily accept what the 'masses' do and others will disregard things that don't 'fit in' with their own interests/ideas.
Several quotes I found useful within the reading because they summarise Hall's main points well and show how the definition of popular culture is difficult to close down:
"The study of popular culture keeps shifting between these two, quite unacceptable poles: pure 'autonomy' or total encapsulation."
"There is a continuous and necessary uneven and unequal struggle, by the dominant culture, constantly to disorganise and reorganise popular culture; to enclose and confine its definitions and forms within a more inclusive range of dominant forms. There are points of resistance; there are also moments of supersession. This is the dialectic of cultural struggle."
"Culture is not already permanently inscribed with the conditions of a class before that struggle begins. The struggle consists in the success or failure to give 'the cultursl' a socialist accent."
.jpg)
