Richard Hoggart: Working-Class Culture & Media Analysis

Richard Hoggart's Insider View

Richard Hoggart, unlike F.R. and Q.D. Leavis, was raised in a working-class family in Leeds. This background allowed him to offer an 'insider view' of communal working-class urban life, consciousness, culture, and experience.

Hoggart's Approach to Popular Culture

Just as the Leavises applied methods of close reading to mass culture, Hoggart offered close readings of popular music, newspapers, magazines, and fiction. Crucially, he did so without necessarily condemning them. In fact, he argued that working-class life could be 'a full rich life', a sentiment reflected in the title of one of his chapters.

Cultural Theory: Diverse Perspectives

The Anthropological View of Culture

When discussing T.S. Eliot, it was noted that fundamental to an anthropological approach was the view of culture as 'that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.' Hoggart can be seen as viewing the working-class community he describes in terms of this complex whole.

Arnold's Vision of Culture

For Matthew Arnold, in an ideal civilization, culture serves to help humanity develop the importance of its inner life in a more balanced way. Arnold believed the role of culture is to bring sweetness and light to everyone, not just a privileged few.

Leavis and Thompson: Dividing Culture

F.R. Leavis and Denys Thompson categorized the culture of the 'common people' into two types:

• Traditional Organic Culture: Valued by Leavis and Thompson.
• Mass (Consumer) Culture: Disapproved of by Leavis and Thompson.

Hoggart also divided working-class culture into two categories:

• The older (pre-1930s) working-class culture of his youth.
• The Americanized mass entertainment of the 1950s.

Defending Popular Song

Hoggart notably defended working-class appreciation of popular song against the dismissive hostility of Cecil Sharp’s Leavisite longing for the 'purity' of folk music. His arguments became central to the project of cultural studies. He contended that songs only succeed, 'no matter how much Tin Pan Alley plugs them,' if they can meet the emotional requirements of their popular audience.

Hoggart's Distinctive Commitment

Hoggart’s approach to popular culture shares common ground with Leavisism; both acknowledge a notion of cultural decline, and both advocate for education in discrimination as a means to resist the manipulative appeal of mass culture. However, Hoggart’s approach distinguishes itself through his detailed preoccupation with, and, above all, his clear commitment to, working-class culture.

Comparative Views on Culture