'You will get more from Tolstoy than from Game of Thrones':emerging cultural capital, highbrow culture and cultural hierarchy
Abstract
There is a broad consensus that cultural hierarchies are undergoing a significant transformation, particularly shift from consecration of traditional highbrow forms to new 'emerging' and 'cosmopolitan' forms (Prieur&Savage 2013). This new mode of distinction crosses cultural genres, uses repertoires of authenticity and irony (Peters et al. 2018, Pedersen et al. 2018).
The cosmopolitan nature of emerging cultural capital also opens the under-researched issue of the relationship between countries' cultural fields. The global spread of popular and critically acclaimed cultural goods like Netflix and HBO series partially conceals differences among countries in their cultural hierarchies and dominant modes of consumption.
It seems plausible to understand cultural space of countries outside the cultural core as driven by the latent struggle between traditional local-focus national principles and cosmopolitan global orientation. Question is how are particular cultural hierarchies shaped by both global and national cultural field.
This topic will be explored thru study of cultural hierarchies of Czech university students. The research combines survey data and semi-structured interviews to explore hierarchies of cultural taste and modes of appreciation.
It will focus on the relationship between traditional established culture and emerging cultural hierarchies, with attention paid to institutionalized national culture. Preliminary analysis shows continuing deference to traditional highbrow culture (in line with Bourdieu's (1984) cultural goodwill) fused with mostly unquestioned consumption of mainstream popular culture with no sign of ironic, knowledgeable or savvy modes of consumption.
It opens the question of uneven travel of cultural goods and modes of appropriation across varied national contexts, and the importance of hierarchical understanding of cross-national cultural flows.