The advancement of technology
through time has changed how one accesses and creates culture. Culture “is everything that occurs in a
society-all of the customs and practices handed down from generation to
generation”(Culture and Communication-4).
Culture in the old days was split into two categories: Elite culture and
folk culture. “Elite culture consisted
of fine art, literature, and classical music.
Folk culture consisted of street carnivals, tavern drinking, and
folktales”(Culture and Communication-4).
In today’s world, these two types of culture are blending more and more
together, creating popular culture. The
average class citizen can now access cultures that only wealthy people could,
due to the advancement of technology.
“Although some elite culture exists today, ordinary people can at least
observe some of it on TV shows featuring the “rich and famous”…”(Culture and
Communication-4). The democratization of
culture allows for anyone to make their own art or music and with technology,
they can share their work across the Internet for anyone to see. The ability to spread culture around the
world with a click of button allows for culture to be mass-produced. The media progression cycle explains how this
process works in three steps. Culture starts
in the elite stage, eventually enters the popular stage as the nation develops,
and then lastly the culture is spread to any segment of the population
(specialization stage). “Alvin Toffler
describes this trend as the “demassification of the mass media,” and he
believes it will continue as we complete our move from the industrial age to
the information age”(Culture and Communication-6). Many argue that this mass production of
culture is too consuming, and that real/skill requiring art is lost among the
countless other works shared to the media.
However, culture is defined as everything that occurs in society. Therefore, no culture is being lost; it’s
just evolving as society and technology
The concept of culture would not
exist without communication.
Communication allows for individuals to share information, feelings, and
concepts to create culture. Sharing is a
key word in communication because it “implies that the source and the receiver
are actively working together for common understanding”(Culture and
Communication-7). There are many
different types of communication:
intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, and mass communication. All of these types of communication include a
source, a channel, and a receiver. The
channel is how information gets from one to another, whether it’s by talking,
writing, drawing, texting, calling, etc.
This allows for culture to spread through society. The more channels there are to communicate
through, the more one can share their culture.
Communication is an ongoing process of “what information, ideas, and
attitudes are shared, how much is shared, when they are shared, and what tools
are used to share them”(Culture and Communication-7). Communication is not always understood or
transmitted to the receiver. This is
called communication noise. There are
three types of noise: channel noise, (the message did not send or is
unreadable) semantic noise, (misunderstanding of the message) and psychological
noise (choosing whether to read the message based on one’s beliefs on that
topic). Psychological noise can also be
defined as interoperating information the way one wants to see it. “Philosopher Marshall McLuhan pointed out, “everyone
has his own set of goggles,” and we all think that what we see with our set of
goggles is what everyone else sees”(Culture and Communication-11). The way different individuals interpret information
creates differences in culture. This is
why there is not just one big culture that everyone believes in, but many
different cultures. Communication and
culture go hand and hand with each other, one would not exist without the
other.
sharing
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