by John Clarke

About John Clarke

John Clarke is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University in the United Kingdom, and is also a Visiting Professor at Central European University in Budapest. He works on transformations of the welfare state, public services, and citizenship.

Popular

book Keywords for Media Studies

The popular is always enmeshed in shifting meanings, evoking both positive and negative connotations. Its basic sense of something that belongs to, is enjoyed by, or is of, the people indicates why this might be so, since “the people” have long been an object of fascination, fear, and fantasy. The popular is often explicitly or implicitly contrasted with other types of culture. So, popular cultures are set against elite or high cultures, marked by distinctions of “taste” (Bourdieu 1984). Elite forms of culture are seen as set apart by the cultural skills and knowledge needed to engage in them, or appreciate them. By comparison, popular products and practices are presumed to be accessible or available to large numbers of people.