Analyse the Influence of Institutional Power on the Acceptance and Rejection of Popular Culture
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Popular culture may be defined as the ideas, customs and art produced and shared by a society or group of people which is widely liked or admired by a person or group. It is something that is distinct from high culture, as it is consumed by the masses by being the ideas, customs and values embedded in the way people do, see and talk about things. Despite its nature of being widely liked, therefore becoming a particular style or taste of societies, popular culture is largely influenced by institutional power, ultimately resulting in both its acceptance and rejection. Institutional power refers to organisations that are able to make decisions that promote or regulate popular culture. These organisations are found in the micro and macro world and include the government, legal systems, religious groups, media and families. Institutions such as these form official and unofficial censorship which also relates to notions of acceptance and rejection.
Rock and roll is a perfect example of a form of popular culture which has been influenced by institutional power. Throughout its development from a local to national and then finally a global level, rnr has been met with resistance from pressure groups, who harbour a “fear” concerning the influence that rock music will have on its newly found teenage consumers. The first perceptions of rnr were that of the negative kind, which categorised rnr as inappropriate and encouraging anti-social and rebellious behaviour. The term rock and roll originally was an African American slang term for sexual intercourse, which gave the genre of music a negative connotation. The cult of sex, drugs and rock and roll soon became an issue for the institutional powers, who did not appreciate the less conservative line of thinking which rnr exposed the younger generations to. It could be argued that this resistance on behalf of institutions was a generational issue, on the grounds of unofficial censorship. In the 1950s, rnr became the currency of youth, thereby creating a whole new culture which left the older generations outraged. The pelvic thrusts of Elvis, Beatles wigs and the controversial marriage of Jerry Lee Lewis did not help to improve the dilemma of the authorities. Heavy criticism was paramount during the first few years of its introduction to the mainstream world, with Bing Crosby commenting that rnr was so much trash and the Moral Majority in the USA who began lobbying to have some music segments banned.
As long as rnr has been around, there have been attempts to control and censor it. Australian authorities have led the way in trying to control rnr. Attempts at moral control through limiting access to the perceived immorality of rnr seem laughable in retrospect. In reality, though, an examination of the history of censorship reveals a change in society. What was once confronting became incorporated into the mainstream, as values and beliefs changed. In 1956, two youths were fined for dancing in Pitt Street, Sydney after seeing the film Rock Around the Clock. A day earlier, Birmingham, England had become the third British city to ban the films show outright. A month later, the American city of Pittsburgh banned rnr from its major arena. A year later, a judge in Newcastle, NSW, would say to a teenager before him on car stealing charges that Elvis Is not the beginning and end of everything. 1957, was the year that a man by the name of John J Sutton wrote to Sydneys Sun newspaper claiming that “the morals of the modern generation, with the exception of a small minority, have nearly reached an all-time low, and rnr has done nothing to improve them”. The result of this statement led to a frenzy of traditional institutions such as parents and church figures to control rnr. In May 1957, Botany Council banned rnr from its halls,