Copyright by Kathryn Ann Metz 2010 - The University of Texas at ...

up part of public culture from this perspective, constituting localized versions of
cosmopolitanism.
The lines between folk and popular, traditional and mass culture appear
increasingly amorphous today. Institutionalized folk competitions grow to extreme
proportions. Popular culture infiltrates “authentic” and traditional communities, leading to
new and creative fusions. Appadurai and Breckenridge demand a rethinking of these
boundaries, especially in the context of a world and communities “where traditional culture
is often the result of conscious deliberation or elaboration” (1988: 8). Their election of the
model of public culture is meant to provide a more thorough space in which to address
notions of space, time, and globalization as they shift and shape our worlds. As sites where
meanings are “generated, circulated, contested and reconstructed,” (Fraser 2007: 9),
articulations of public culture create and recreate assorted, loaded meanings.
As in the case of Habermas‟ public sphere, the circulation of public culture produces
new ways of constructing community and of relating the members of community to one
another (Fraser 1993; Tucker 2005; Shryock 2004; Spitulnik 1994). Of particular note is the
more democratic and widely circulated nature of mass-mediated culture, as opposed to the
more elitist notion of the public sphere as initially formulated. Joshua Tucker observes that
despite the narrow, homogenous space that Habermas describes, one notes the presence of
multiple groups within the public sphere that engage diverse ideas “of collectivity, remaining
largely separate from one another, and coming to common visions via a variety of methods”
(2005:25). Tucker continues by proposing that, in contrast to Habermas, mass media may
constitute a legitimate tool for public formation with “potential for the creation of effective
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