The relation between popular cuture and music - Cemal Resit Rey concert hall as a sample

Mass communication media have started to be quite influential in our every day lives in the wakeof the advances in communication/information technologies. Having accelerated interaction and change, this process has increased the permeability of borders in social, political, economic and cultural departments of life on a global scale. In a smilar vein, Turkey has experienced inevitable cultural changes due to the effects of mass communucation media and her increasing foreign relations. Especially television and internet have come to be the most influential means of acculturation, bringing one way of life in one part of the world onto the others. While all sorts of cultural-artistic activities have become easily accessible, the emergence of popular concerns over the spread of global cultural traits have put the term ?popular culture? in the center of these discussions. Popular culture, shaped and spread by mass communucation media, has also brought about concerns fort he disapperance and degeneration of local cultures eventually. From such a perspective, this study aims to investigate whether popular culture and cultural degeneration have emerged as a result of a need. The first two chapters explore the concepts of culture, popular culture, art and music together with their historical progress in Turkey. The concludingchapter presents the results of a questionnaire employed in Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall, which does not present the products of popular culture but pure artistic activities. The questions have been affected aim to find out the extent the audience in this particular concert hall has been affected by popular culture. Their age, education and their preferences on television programs, magazines, boks and cultural-artistic activities have laid the groundwork fort his study. Key Words: Culture, art, music, popular culture, consumption culture, Cemal Resit Rey Consert Hall.