Holmes and Redmond: Understanding celebrity culture

Holmes and Redmond discuss the dominant themes of star and celebrity analysis, with reference to the work of Gamson, Rojek and Turner who argue that 'the desire for fame, stardom or celebrification stems from a need to be wanted in society where being famous appears to offer enormous material, social and psychic rewards.'

The notion of 'me me me' fame, argues Holmes et al, relates to egotisitical or fractured nature of post modern identity - by which the modern self is based on possessive qualities that measure self worth by their own consumption choices (fashion, beauty etc).

'Leif Memphis - a persona of the epitome of the successful, narcissistic star, made to be in love with his own idolized image. The possessive 'I' of the persona wants to be famous and wealthy but also shows unhappiness with his world, reaching out for what he thinks will bring him wholeness.'

Holmes and Redmond introduce the idea of fandom in the analysis of celebrity; claiming that in the modern world where face-to-face communication had decreased, 'fandom involves an illusion of intimacy that aims to compensate for such lonliness.' They argue that the celebrity is not only a desired object but also a link to connect people.

Talk about fame
Building on the ideas of Braudy (1986), Holmes and Redmond suggest that social interaction and media discourse constitute the very concept of celebrity. 'The famous are constructed, circulated and consumed through the busy channels of media production, as well as the social networks with which they intersect.'

Academic work then, is suggested to explore why celebrity culture is the symbol of cultural decline and how it matters. It is argued that academic 'objectivity' when analysing celebrities is often difficult, when there's often a connection between researcher and famous figure to begin with.

Several points are made in relation to discourses of cultural value:

1. It's impossible to discuss modern celeb without addressing judgements made about the person in question.
2. Issues of cultural value structure different opinions on celebrity - some people defend them, others criticise
3. Compiling an academic collection on celebs has connections with the processes of fame which structure celeb mags

Joshua Gamson: The Name and the Product - Late Twentieth-Century Celebrity

Gamson discusses the making of celebrity in the late 20th century, focusing on how the industry has changed, how the production of celebrity has changed and how media texts' coverage of celebs has changed readers/viewers positions on the industry.

Key points:

- Celebrity has become increasingly industrialized
- Hype, purchase, manipulation, self-promotion and association have become central elements in celebrity discourse
- Most critical to these developments was a shakeup of the movie studio industry - independent studios began to grow, rise of 'agents' meant greater powers to cultivate 'talent'
- Film stars became 'proprietors of their own image' which they could sell to film makers

Gamson identifies key changes in the PR industry post-World War II in which several components affected celebrity:

1. Specialised strategies to target perceived needs and desires of audience. Advertising adopted marketing that focused on consumer lifestyle and attitudes.
2. Practices and interests of journalists and PR operatives have got closer - news has become more dependent on PR sources
3. Technologies to provide visual image that 'imitates the representation of an event/person' have become highly developed. Press releases provide ready-packaged stories.
4. Early 70's saw a boom in magazine and newspaper coverage of 'people and personality'.

Gamson talks about how being famous = commercial product. The links between celebrity and selling in the early 50's meant that celebs began to be represented not only as useful to sell and endorse products but as a business itself by selling - celebrity became 'merchandise', 'property' a 'commodity'.

Celeb-production: where once an agent's job was to discover talent, it’s now about finding a market and manufacturing a celeb to suit it

The argument that celebs portray a certain image and finding the 'real' behind the image still applies today. Behind-the-scenes looks into the world of celeb and documentaries have attempted to show the 'real' but again, that is questionable. Gamson talks about how readers/viewers are often given a set of 'tools' or 'instructions' by media texts in order to not only find the 'real' behind the image but also view the fabrication process of how celebs are constructed to amuse.

Irony is one of the clearest developments in the late 20th Century - particularly in magazines aimed at young, educated people. 'Inside gossip' and mockery has become commonplace in many magazines, where the audience is invited to 'take its power further with a new, cynical distance from the production of celeb and celeb images.'

Celebrity texts now reposition readers to 'see the joke’ of the performed self of celebrity. Cynicism, irony and invitations behind the scenes keep readers/viewers tuned in.

The Media and Consumer Culture

Last week's lecture and workshop focused on the concept of consumer culture; the things we buy, how we are influenced to consume and how we define ourselves by what we buy.

We considered the following in discussing consumer culture:

- The development of modern cities
- Growth of the middle classes
- The emergence of leisure time
- Advertising and PR

Turning our attention to how the media and consumer culture operate alongside each other, I've been looking at how Style magazine exemplifies this culture in operation.

As this is also the focus of my research report, this will potentially form the basis for my textual analysis, when considering the cultural significance of the magazine.

Firstly, a bit of background on Style. It is one of several Sunday supplements which come with The Sunday Times newspaper. The magazine, like most 'consumer' titles, covers fashion and beauty, celebrity, music, lifestyle, food and homes. It also has several key features each week on particular issues e.g. this week's features include ethical fashion, the secret party life of Kabul and the latest craze 'cringe parties'.

To me, Style exemplifies consumer culture much like the majority of similar magazines, but the way in which certain products and brands are presented is not as obvious as examples like glossy weekly Look. Because there is a clearer element of real editorial content e.g. news features (often on quite serious subjects) it is harder to determine where editorial stops and advertising starts. By this I mean that often features will talk about issues within the fashion industry and include specific names, brands and designers as part of the write-up. Although presented as 'newsy', there is advertising and branding apparent in much of the content.

The key features of Style are recurrent weekly:

- The weekly update from Shane Watson together with the 'going up - going down' scale of fashion and lifestyle 'must-haves'
- Fashion news including trend watch, 'one to worship' and 'blog off' (what the web thought of a celebrity outfit/outing etc)
- 'People like them' - an update on the world of celeb parties, launches and designer latest
- Artist/band profile feature (this week it's Plan B)
- Fashion pages which include 'your style' (advice), key looks and weekly fashion shoot spread
- Beauty pages which often profiles a particular artist and their work as well as the latest products and tips
- Inner style pages which focus on health issues, emotions, problem advice and personal stories
- Life style pages which feature someone’s home interior each week, food recipes, a restaurant review and wine reviews
- Advertising for luxury brands such as Gucci, Tiffany’s, Dior, Prada as well as high street favs M&S, TK Maxx and Boots

The kind of experience offered by Style is very different depending on the reader. For me, a full-time student who earns next to nothing and is up-to-the-eyeballs in student debt, the experience is very much one of admiration, awe and jealousy. Not in a bad way - just in the way that I cannot afford most of the products and featured items in the magazine and so end up with a sense of lust and longing.

Again, personally I feel this is a good thing. Although not necessarily the prime target in terms of the consumer - many of the features such as fashion and lifestyle are things that I would like to aim for in the future - the finer side of life and all that. Whether or not that becomes a reality is another ball game but the desire is there for me as a poor student!

On the other hand, the target reader of Style is likely to be not only a little older and more financially stable than me, but also in a position whereby they could genuinely go out and consume whatever takes their eye in this week's edition. For them, the experience is something that is more familiar to them - something which they're accustomed to - and so they can relate to the consumer aspect of the magazine more closely than I can. This is reflected in the advertising which appears in the magazine - high-end brands that only someone with a very comfortable lifestyle could afford or those who buy into the lifestyle amidst crippling debts!

Performatism

What is Performatism?

Performatism was a term coined by German-American Slavist Raoul Eshelman in 2000 and refers to one concept of post-postmodernism. It attempts to show that works in a new epoch are constructed to bring about a unified, aesthetically mediated experience of transcendence.

Performatism does this by creating 'closed works of art that force viewers to identify simple, opaque characters and experience beauty, love, belief and transcendence under artificial conditions.'

Eshelman defines performatism as:

"An epoch in which a unified concept of sign and strategies of closure have begun to compete directly with - and displace - the split concept of sign and the strategies of boundary transgression typical of postmodernism."

He applied this model to literature, film, architecture, philosophy and art and suggests four features of performatism:

1. Semiotic mode of performatism requires things to be integrated into the concept of sign.
2. Aesthetic device to performatism is double framing - the fit between the outer frame (work itself) and the inner frame (an ostensive scene).
3. Human performative characters consolidate their position by appearing opaque to the world around them.
4. Theist mode - time and space are framed so that subjects have a chance to orient themselves around them and transcend in some way.

My understanding of the concept is that it moves on from the ideas of post-modernism - which sees 'art' as undermined by narrative or visual devices to create uncertainty about the status of the work and how it is received. Instead, performatism looks at 'art' (in the literal sense as well as buildings, film, literature)from the outside and considers the wider context of its form and position.

Derrida suggests that discussion of 'intrinsic aesthetic value depends on that value being set off from the extraneous context around it.' By this, I think the idea is that the text itself and the wider context come together to determine a response without having pre-determined 'idea' in mind.

Key theorists:

Raoul Eshelman
Jacques Derrida


Reading list:

Derrida: "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" (1966)
Eshelman: "Performatism, Or The End of Postmodernism" (2008)
Gans: "Signs of Paradox. Irony, Resentment and Other Mimetic Structures" (1997)
Hutcheon: "A poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction" (1988)
Culler: "On Deconstruction - Theory and Criticism after Structuralism" (1982)
Epstein: "Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Culture" in Slavic Literature, Culture and Society; Vol. 3 (1999)

I still don’t know what ‘postmodernism’ is

This weeks’ reading – ‘Postmodernism and The Other Side’ by Dick Hebdige – was tough going. Again, I found myself taking relatively few points away from pages and pages of text laced with long words and even longer sentences. And my conclusion – I still don’t really understand ‘postmodernism’.

But that’s ok because neither does Hebdige – and he wrote the thing! What I did manage to siphon from the reading was that the term ‘postmodernism’ is problematic because it is ‘stretched across disciplines.’ People use it to refer to so many aspects of life such as describing the decor of a room, the design of a building or a TV commercial – so it seems very difficult to pin down exactly what it means.

Hebdige questions ‘periodisation’, saying that ‘to talk of ‘post’ is to talk of the past’, and so where exactly ‘postmodernism’ fits in our history is another puzzling debate. In our struggle to work out ‘postmodernism’, it appears we will probably never crack it because ‘modernism’ itself is undefined so how are we supposed to decipher the ‘post’ if we can’t even suss out the ‘modern?’

Three negotiations are highlighted by Hebdige in terms of distinguishing ‘postmodernism’:

• Against Totalisation
• Against Teleology
• Against Utopia
(I really don’t understand the words – they just sound important!)

My final observations of the reading lie in Marxism. It appears that Hebdige refers to many early Marxist thoughts and ideas and his own ideas on ‘postmodernism’ seem to be a continuation of some Marxist lines.

I find myself agreeing with Hebdige (on the points I understood anyway) because my lack of understanding ‘postmodernism’ clearly shows it’s such an ambiguous term and one that is hard to pin down to a simple thought. And I believe that until we can define ‘modernism’ we are unable to work out what ‘postmodernism’ is, who or what it refers to, and when exactly, in time, it took place.

Useful/interesting quotes:

A Marxism of whatever kind could never move back from or go beyond ‘modernity’ in the very terms in which it is defined...

Hegemony is a precarious, ‘moving equilibrium’ (Gramsci) achieved through the orchestration of conflicting and competing forces by more or less unstable, more or less temporary alliances of class fractions.

It becomes more and more difficult...to specify exactly what it is that ‘postmodernism’ is supposed to refer to as the term gets stretched in all directions...

A smidgen of Stuart Hall on popular culture

Hall's 'Notes on deconstructing 'The Popular'' focuses on the topic of popular culture; addressing the issues of movements and periodisations linked to popular culture and discussing the problems with definitions of both terms.

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."

Frankfurt School-style critique of the consumer magazine industry

I have chosen the 'glossy-weekly' magazine industry as the basis of this critique, inspired by the ideas and 'thoughts' of the Frankfurt School scholars Adorno and Horkheimer.I feel that this is one strand of the media industry that demonstrates how mass-produced cultural products are standardized and leave little choice for the reader.

The nature of the women's magazine industry is centred around providing all the latest celebrity gossip, 'real-life' trash, latest fashion and offering reams of useless 'agony-aunt-style' relationship advice. The agenda of every single one of the 20+ weekly mags is to encourage women to buy them and buy into the celeb/lifestyle culture by thinking they have to keep up with the gossip and latest trends.

Adorno and Horkheimer's beliefs that mass-produced culture is standardized can clearly be applied to the 'weekly-mag' market. The shelves of magazines each week are filled with exactly the same stories - all claiming that their's is the exclusive. Take Katie Price - her latest marriage to Alex Reid was splashed over all the mags that week and it's the same for every other celeb drama. They're all talking about Cheryl Cole, Brad and Angelina, who's pregnant this week, who's split up, who's getting it on etc etc etc. If you covered up the name on every cover, you'd never tell which was which - they're all soooooooo similar.

The idea of pseudo individulisation - cultural products made to give the user the impression of choice, when really there is none - can also be applied to the magazine industry. Just count the number of weekly women's mags on the shelf - clearly there is plenty of choice. But is there really? If they're all talking about the same thing and thrusting the same 'must-buys' under your nose, then where's the choice?

The Frankfurt School shared concerns that the 'masses are oppressed through culture' and that cultural products are 'perpetuating false conciousness'. I think these thoughts can be applied to women's mags because the sheer volume of standardized magazines could quite realistically lead readers to accept that this is our culture - everyone's interested in celebs and lifestyle - and that's the way it is.

Benjamin's suggestion that individual reactions to mass products are pre-determined also rings true. We're lead to believe that we must keep up with the latest fashion and celeb gossip else we won't fit in with the rest of society. It's sad but its true - women's mags have their own agenda and ladies, we're falling for it!

Hmmmmm......point proven, I think.

'Sweetness and light' (in the eyes of Arnold)

So, up until last night, I was really struggling to find a media text which I thought offered the 'sweetness and light' that Matthew Arnold - school inspector, minor poet and critic of cultural decline - talked of. Arnold argued that culture is 'the best that is thought or said' and culture improves us and is the key to education.

So, very uninspired at that point, I visited the cinema to see the much-anticipated Clint Eastwood epic Invictus - starring Morgan Freeman as the incredible social and political champion Nelson Mandela.

It took little more than 10 minutes of the film for the penny to drop. The film takes the very essence of cultural and social divide in South Africa and tells the incredible story of one man - oppressed by white South African culture for more than 30 years - and his mission to build bridges and unite the country through its passion for rugby.

So, why does it offer me 'sweetness and light?' Well, I think it can offer all those who see the film an insight into the terrible ways in which cultures can divide a nation and how we should be more accepting of differences in social and political beliefs.

Several moments within the film gave me reason to think 'yes, that is the best that is thought or said'. Mandela utters the words 'I am the master of my faith, I am the captain of my soul' - he sees the wrong committed during the apartheid but he fails to let his own pain and suffering stand in the way of making a change to a whole nation, divided for so long by different cultures.

The film communicates many values which I think make it such a great example of Arnold's 'sweetness and light'.

Forgiveness - Mandela is so openly forgiving of the people who kept him captive for nearly 30 years because of his skin colour and background. I think this is the most valuable lesson we can learn.

Acceptance and tolerance - of other people and their beliefs; race, skin colour and social background should not blur our perceptions of those around us.

Determination and courage - to succeed in our aims in life and overcome the biggest of boundaries to fulfil what we truly believe in.

I certainly came away from the film inspired by the story of such an important figure in democracy, human rights and social reform and I hope that everyone who sees it takes away valuable lessons that Mandela has preached his entire life.

What's cheap and sentimental? The tabloids of course!

Stepping into the shoes of the famous elitist F.R. Leavis, the following analysis will completely rip apart a media text which I think the man himself would do if he was still with us! The question: choose a media text that you think Leavis would consider cheap, sentimental and appealing to base emotions. The answer: tabliod newspapers.

So, why do I (and why would Leavis)consider tabloids to be cheap? Well the obvious answer is they are literally - 20p for the Daily Star, 30p for The Sun - compared to The Times/Guardian (90p-£1). But their content is cheap - rumour-led, celeb-based, paparazzi-style gossip. And that's exactly the point - it's all just gossip (look at so-and-so falling out of London club drunk, another cheating footballer gets found out), who cares? (Except for the few million who buy tabloids daily, obviously.)

The pages and pages of celeb gossip and novelty human interest pieces appeal to the very base emotions Leavis describes. A bit of humour, a snigger at the Page 3 air-head's boobs and a sneer at anything else with a hint of serious-news-issue about it. In the eyes of Leavis, it's a paper for the working class, the unruly 'masses' that he feared were a threat to 'culture'.

So, onto the values of the tabloid paper (this shouldn't take long). 'Great literature has values we all recognise and share, and that makes them great' (Leavis). Well, in that case, I'd say that tabloids aren't great literature as I'm struggling to see the values that I share with The Sun. Does it even have any values? It shows commitment to appeal to the supposed values of it's readers - a light take on life, something to brighten up their day. But actual values - I'm stuck!

If I was Leavis, I would say that tabloid newspapers uphold the 'values' of the middle-aged, working class male (whatever they are!) with an interest in sport, women and a dislike of politics. They provide no educational material (no chance of making the 'canon' then) and have no place in middle-class society. They appeal to the populace, who have no air of culture about them whatsoever!

Sufficiently ripped apart I think!

A spot of reading

F.R. Leavis, in Mass Civilisation and Minority Culture, argues that only a small minority of society are able to appreciate ‘culture’ (art and literature) and offer first-hand judgment, in any period. This minority are depended on to keep the traditions of culture going in the modern day:

“Upon them depend the implicit standards that order the finer living of an age, the sense that this is worth more than that, this rather than that is the direction in which we go...”

Leavis refers to ‘culture’ as language, something he believes the art of fine living depends upon. Culture today is at crisis, he believes. ‘The Machine’ has changed society and it is argued that this transformation will inevitably cause harm to the ‘traditional’ standards of living. The suggestion that we are becoming ‘Americanised’ is exemplified by the Press – mass-produced and standardised and film culture – ‘illusions of actual life’.

Turning to literature, Leavis argues that the benchmark for ‘cultured people’ is not as high as it used to be:

‘...the average cultivated person of a century ago was a very much more competent reader than his modern representative.’

The plight of culture is ultimately blurred. Distinctions and dividing lines (between classes/high and low culture) have merged and the boundaries are no longer set in stone. The prospect of culture, then, is ‘very dark’, as standardisation sweeps across the world. Leavis accepts that a ‘mass culture’ might be better than its predecessor but sees the ‘utterly new’ as a fruitless alternative. So, what are we to do? ‘Keep open our communications with the future’.

This belongs to my culture...

So, we were asked in our first Media Cultures lecture to come up with a media text that expresses or 'belongs to' our culture. As you may know, it took a while to get my head around the word 'culture' itself, let alone find something which represents what I think the word means!

Anyway, I've decided that many of my interests, passions, ambitions and aspirations are encapsulated in Style, the Sunday Times’ magazine. Unlike many of the ‘glossy weeklies’ (yes, I admit to taking a peek now and again), Style offers me everything I could want: fashion, styling, latest trends, upcoming musicians and so much more.

On top of all the fabulous things above, Style appeals to me because it does them all in an interesting, arty, indie-chic way that no other magazine I’ve found does. The photographs are beautiful, capturing beauty, style but more intriguingly, the emotion and feelings of those in the frame. Yes, it addresses the issues that most women’s magazines do (relationships, careers, well-being) but it does so with more imagination, detailed research and creative writing. Another two of my interests feature in Style; interior design and good food! Okay, so I live at home and I’m no Jean Christophe Novelli but a girl can dream can’t she? By not giving me affordable, student-budget lifestyle choices; Style gives me everything I hope to have one day and something to strive for.

I feel that Style is part of my culture in many ways. Firstly, as a figure of the female species, its part of my lifestyle culture; fashion, beauty, living, dining and socialising. Although part of the ‘grown-up’, quality Times family, the magazine is aimed at aspiring young professionals (a la moi) with common interests. And it seems to fit my own approach to culture – a bit of this and that. It dabbles in all circles and its content varies weekly. A final thought is that Style is part of my professional culture – it belongs to the journalist in me. It digs out the real issues behind all the make-up, designer clothes and celebrity frolics and it discusses them in an informed, intelligent yet compelling fashion.

My cultural, social, style, lifestyle and career aspirations all rolled into one magazine – perfect!

Your culture = your identity?

Does it really? I don’t think it does. They’re closely related; your identity and personal interests will clearly influence the forms of culture you engage with and likewise, the cultures you exist within will play a part in shaping your identity. Culture is something we share with other people whereas individual identity is unique to every one of us. But maybe we have more than one identity (stick with me here!)

I believe I’m part of several cultures, and I guess a lot of you feel the same. On a wider scale, I’m part of British culture; I championed Brit-pop when I was a youngster, I love a nice cuppa tea, fish ‘n’ chips, Sunday dinners, country pubs, reading the papers, trawling the high-street and embracing all other stereotypical British connotations. I’m part of student culture (well, I try); socialising, drinking, trying to get discount on everything, being permanently in debt, moaning about being in debt – you get the idea! Music culture - a huge ‘circle’ of its own – is another I dip in and out of. I wouldn’t say it’s my most cherished, but I do engage in irregular bouts when a new band pop up or a song on the radio catches my attention.

I’d say a big part of me is attached to equestrian culture. Something with which I engage because it’s part of my individual identity. But interestingly, there are some aspects of this ‘culture’ which I don’t feel part of. Stereotypically, equestrianism is seen as an ‘elite’ sport, polo for example is traditionally the sport of the wealthy (Charlie, Wills and Harry all do it!) Horses, upkeep, training, competing – all cost money. But I wouldn’t consider my family to be wealthy and so I don’t see myself as fitting in with this ‘elite’ circle. My experience of this culture is different.

So, I think it’s safe to say that there are thousands of ‘cultures’, ‘circles’, ‘groups’ or whatever you want to call them out there and everyone is part of one or a number of them. The extent to which you engage in any particular culture differs, largely due to your own interests and curiosities. Some cultures we know instantly that we ‘fit in’ and many we don’t and probably never will. My closing thoughts then; we’re made up of several ‘faces’ of identity which fit the different cultures we’re part of. Some are personal to us as individuals and some we share within a cultural group – either way, culture and identity fall hand-in-hand, each influencing and shaping the other.

What does it mean?

I hope I'm not the only one a little baffled by the word 'culture'. I mean, I could probably attach a meaning to it but there's so many, and which one is the right one? I'm comforted by the words of theorist Raymond Williams in Keywords:

"Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language." (1978:87)

Williams makes three distinctions of the ambiguous term. Firstly, suggesting that culture can be seen as an ideal - 'the best that is thought or said'. Secondly, culture can be a documentary - 'of how we live or have lived' and finally, he argues that culture is a social term - 'the stuff that surrounds us'.

I agree with all of the distinctions, but for me, the latter closely resides alongside my own understanding of culture. I see culture as being something going on around me, something which I can engage in and with in many ways, if and when I choose to. It's something which has long existed but it evolves as society and people change. I hope, at some point later, to discuss and challenge the traditional binarisms of culture: high vs low, elite vs commonplace and mass vs popular.

But, for now at least, I feel my understanding of the term culture is beginning to take shape. I'm sure this story will change my thoughts and ideas and I hope it will challenge my preconceptions. We shall see...

And so the story begins...

A story of culture. My culture. Other people's culture. British culture. Student culture. The list is endless. My aim however, is to share my thoughts and feelings, questions and answers, ideas and experiments of and about culture in its various forms. I'm looking forward to how the story unfolds...