Why Is Popular Culture Important

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MAC 101 Why is the study of popular culture important? The following essay will discuss why the study of popular culture is important. It will look at the main concepts of culture and then go on to discuss which subcultures are formed around different types of cultures. The essay will use Basketball as a sport culture for its case study. It will then go on to discuss the importance of ideology when relating this to basketball fandom. It will also give a short analysis on representation in Basketball players to finalise the essay. Popular culture is around us in our everyday lives, most of the things we take a part of or go out of our way to go do/see something is a part of popular culture. Culture is arguably one of the most convoluted words to define. Storey picks up on Raymond William's view that culture is 'one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language' (Storey; 2000, p1). Raymond William's breaks down the meaning into three broad definitions 'a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development, a particular way of life, weather of a people, a period or a group and finally the works and practices of intellectual and especially' (Storey; 2000, p1, 2). I will be using William's second definition of culture as it is one that stands out in the world we live in and is an area which is full of 'popular culture' arguably not so much with the other two definitions as 'Few people would imagine William's first definition when thinking about popular culture' (Storey; 2000, p2). Popular culture can be defined in many ways but storey emphasises that 'popular culture is simply culture which is widely favoured or well liked by many people' (Storey; 2000, p6). Despite all arguments on the definition of popular culture one statement is clear and this is that 'any definition of

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