Pluralist Perspectives.
This perspective is representative of a group of writers who, while emphasising the idea of competition between different groups in society, reject Marxist interpretations of culture. The general term for these non-Marxist Conflict theorists is "pluralist" because they see societies as made-up of a variety (or plurality) of different groups and classes, each with their own different interests and agendas.
Thus, pluralist writers stress the idea that societies are made-up of various groups who develop their own cultural values and norms, some of which they have in common with other cultural groups. This perspective, therefore, focuses on the idea of cultural diversity, an idea we will develop in more detail at a later point.
The pluralist view of culture, therefore, rejects the idea that a mass culture exists in modern societies (and certainly not one that has the negative connotations of Elite theories of culture). Pluralists reject the idea that cultural forms can be understood in simple "good or bad" terms. For example, the idea that lower class culture in pre-industrial society was somehow superior to lower class culture in industrial society is dismissed as both a gross over-simplification and the product of a romanticised view of lower class life.
Trowler ("Investigating The Media", 1991) captures this idea when he notes:
"The reality is that for working men and women in pre-industrial society life was usually nasty, brutish and short. Modern society has made most people literate and this has enabled them to be discerning consumers of an ever-expanding cultural output. This includes not only literature in the conventional sense, but also TV and radio output, films, journalism and so on. People are also far more politically literate and aware of the world around them than was the case in the past. This allows them to appreciate and choose from a wide range of options. Class distinctions have become less and less important in influencing the choices made by individuals in this respect. Members of the working class are as likely to be watching Panorama as anybody else, while soap operas are now appealing to the middle class as well as the working class.".
The main characteristic of pluralist perspectives, therefore, is the focus on the choices people make from a range of possible cultural forms. Clearly such choices will be made against a background of the individual's personal and social circumstances (their cultural socialisation), but they reject the idea that cultural activities are simply passive forms of consumption. Instead, they emphasise the expanding range of cultural developments and forms.
They also reject the idea that some cultural forms are inherently superior to others (a form of cultural snobbery, perhaps). In short, the cultural choices people make reflect a complex, changing world in which cultural activities develop or die-out on the basis of their relevance to peoples' lives.