What are local and popular cultures? A culture is a group of belief systems, norms, and values practiced by people.

. Specialized behavioral patterns, understandings, adaptions, and social systems that summarize a group of people learned way of life. 1. Shared by a group of people 2. Way of life. 3. passed down/learned 4. Mix of beliefs, behaviors, customs, and rituals. 5. Includes material + non-material. Age, sex, status, occupation, nationality, ethnicity. Changed by- external influences, cultural exchange, generational, technology, environmental (ex: HIV/AIDS, global warming) Non-Material Culture Values- culturally defined standards that guide normal living. Beliefs- special statements that people hold to be true. Behaviors- actions people take Based on values and beliefs Norms Material culture- a wide range of human creations such as art, houses, clothing, sports, dance, and foods called artifacts. Cultural trait- single attribute of a culture Cultural complex- a combination of traits that form a distinct group Culture system- group of interconnected culture complexes

 Culture region- an area marked by a culture that distinguishes from other regions. Cultures Identified in two ways: 1. the people recognize themselves as a culture. 2. Other people (including academics) can label a certain group of people as a culture. Folk culture is small, incorporates a homogeneous population, is typically rural, and is cohesive in cultural traits. Popular culture is large incorporates heterogeneous population, is typically urban, and experiences quickly changing cultural traits. Local culture is a group of people in a particular place who see themselves as a collective or a community who share experiences, customs, and traits, and who work to preserve those traits and customs in order to claim uniqueness and to distinguish themselves from others. Some local cultures rely primarily on religion to maintain their belief systems, community celebrations, or family structures. Local cultures constantly redefining/refining themselves based on interactions with other cultures (popular/folk) and diffusion of cultural traits (popular/folk). Culture can be distinguished from habit and custom o A habit is individual o A custom is a repetitive act of a group. o A collection of social customs produces a groups material culture Dominance of popular culture can threaten the environment. Dying local cultures- reduce local diversity in the world and the intellectual stimulation that arises from differences in background.

 Popular Culture spreads faster in MDCs. Industrial tech permits production of objects in large quantities. Folk music- tells stories, life cycle events, and mysterious everyday happenings such as storms. First popular music came from the U.S. army radio station. Popular culture has an anonymous hearth or several hearths.

How are local cultures sustained? Assimilation- promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into a dominant culture. A custom is a practice that a group of people routinely follows. To sustain a local culture, people must retain their customs. In the age of globalization, where pop culture changes quickly and diffuses rapidly, local cultures have to goals: keeping other cultures out, and keeping their own culture in. This is done to prevent contamination and extinction. A local culture can also work to avoid cultural appropriation, the process by which other cultures adopt customs and knowledge and use them for their own benefit. Major concern for local cultures because aspects of cultural knowledge, as natural pharmaceuticals or musical expression, are being privatized by people outside the local culture and used to accumulate wealth or prestige. Neolocalism, seeking out the regional culture and reinvigorating it in response to the uncertainty of the modern world.

 Ethnic neighborhoods are usually in major cities, are tight-knit worlds apart from the other neighborhoods that are used to practice customs and traditions. The process through which something (a name, a good, an idea, or even a person) that previously was not regarded as an object to the bought or sold becomes an object that can be bought, sold, and traded in the world market is called a commodification. When commodification occurs, the question of authenticity follows. To gain the authenticity of a place directly rather than the stereotype of a place. How is popular culture diffused? Transportation and communication have altered distance decay. No longer does a map with a bulls-eye surrounding the hearth of an innovation describe how quickly the innovation will diffuse to areas around it. Time space compression explains how quickly innovations diffuse and refers to how interlinked two places are through transportation and communication technologies. Because technologies link some places more closely than others, ideas diffuse through interconnected places rapidly rather than diffusing at constant rates across similar distances. Popular culture diffuses hierarchically in the context of space time compression, with diffusion happening most rapidly across the most compressed spaces.