Folklore To Populore Analysis

Another important aspect to the study of the mythic West and its function in America as an imagined community is that of a ‘shared history’, “elements of a past remembered in common as well as elements forgotten,” (Glassberg, Public History 11) as it makes the cultural ties and unity among the nation’s members stronger.

David McCrone prefers the concept of “myth-history” instead of “shared history” to characterize a community’s history (51; 59), because the notion of ‘history’ is subjective and can easily be shaped by a community according to its interests and wishes. By using ‘myth-history’ instead, McCrone demonstrates that a nation’s history should not be interpreted as an factually account of its historical past but as a narrative told

In his essay “Folklore to Populore”, Ray Browne offers the following definition: “Popular culture consists of the aspects of attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, customs, and tastes that define the people of any society. Popular culture is, in the historic use of the term, the culture of the people.” (25) While this might seem very broad and extensive, Browne’s definition highlights the fluidity and ambiguousness of pop culture and demonstrates that pop culture over time has covered a wide spectrum of genres. Furthermore, as the concept implicitly reveals, the notion of ‘popular’ refers to the culture “that which is widely diffused, generally accepted, [and] approved by the majority.” (Nye, 23) This suggests that pop culture not only represents mere entertainment, but is a reflection of the values, beliefs, ideas, and concerns of the majority of the nation’s

Anderson, 6) in the minds of the members of the imagined