popular culture

A loose collection of types of dance, literature, music, theatre, or other art forms intended to be received and appreciated by the mainstream public. The concept is driven by contemporary technologies of reproduction and distribution in the form of televised programming, printing, photography, digital compact disc, motion pictures, radio, and commercial marketing. The concept also reflects changes of style, or fads, nostalgic or critical revivals of earlier periods, popular institutions, and the appropriation of other forms of elite art and folk art, and popularized foreign cultural forms.