Blackwell Reference Online

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Cultural appropriation describes the use and exploitation by a majority or dominant group, of cultural knowledge or expressions originally produced by a minority or dominated group. It is applied to media and popular communication when ideas, images, sounds, and narratives produced by one group are appropriated for personal, professional, or commercial gain by members of a more powerful social group. Linked to colonial histories, racist discourses, and disparate access to power and resources, cultural appropriation can occur within and across specific national communities and within a range of popular communication practices (→  Communication Inequality ).   Cultural appropriation must be distinguished from other types of →  popular communication and cultural exchange. Cultural appropriation bears some relation to processes of assimilation, acculturation, hybridity, and cosmopolitanism, but is distinctive in important ways (→  Acculturation Processes and Communication ). The term “cultural appropriation” came into widespread usage in communication studies in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its theoretical development marked a shift away from the anthropological concept of acculturation ; the gradual adoption of majority norms, values and practices by a minority or subordinate social group. The concept of acculturation as a model of cultural contact presupposes a degree of cultural ... log in or subscribe to read full text