I had never thought of stamps as having any cultural significance before doing this weeks readings. Sure I have seen plenty of them, I have even bought stamps many times in my life but never have I really paid attention to them. I think most stamps I’ve seen here in Finland are ones that have some flowers or landscapes painted on them. Even if it appears quite natural to me that stamps carry images of culturally significant figures of a given society, I never thought of them as being a part of popular culture. Sure, they’re popular since they are required by the postal system and thus people have to consume the. Moreover, they carry culture, since they often have some cultural imagery on them, but does that alone make them popular culture?
The author comments this in the conclusion: “Popular culture as used here is broadly defined, since they are products of governments, and not the people. But the icons are seen and handled repeatedly by large numbers of people, and in that sense constitute “popular culture” (p. 136)
Do you agree with this? Do you think popular culture can be produced by the government and the product made into something that we simply have to consume in order to, say, send a letter? Doesn’t something have to be popular also in a sense that people like it??
Moreover, I was really surprised that stamps had played such a significant role in several conflicts in Latin America and were used as political tools. Personally, I think I would completely miss a statement if it was in a stamp. How politically effective do you think stamps are be today?
I think you raised a good question about the control that governments can have over popular culture, I would tend to think yes, and that it is quite prevalent in most places. I’m not sure if this is a good example but if we take things such as government-printed history books, they often seem to push through the ideals of the current administration. While also denying certain aspects of entire history from popular culture itself, such as history books in Turkey obfuscating facts about the Armenian genocide.
Hey Emilia!
I never paid attention to stamps either until I read the article. I don’t think postage stamps today would have such a large effect on politics as they did in the past. Letters were a major form of communication that I think has been replaced thanks to new technologies and better, more instant forms of communication. Even though letters are still being sent across the world, I would be surprised if stamps still had the same political significance as they did back then.
Hi there!
I was also surprised by how political postage stamps are! I hadn’t really observed them beyond a surface level before this article. I agree with your proposition about popularity requiring agreeance. However, I don’t necessarily believe that government produced elements of pop culture are automatically disliked. Child provided several examples of citizens coinciding with the political messages encrypted in their postage stamps. Your comment about citizens essentially being forced to participate and engage with propaganda was interesting!