The aim of this thesis is to analyse and problematize the concept of culture and its changes during the 1960s. By examining articles out of the periodical Ord&Bild 1962-1972, I show how an aesthetically marked concept, closely related to the concept of art, changes into an anthropological perspective where attention is drawn to the social, economical, political and ideological aspects. This change is viewed in relation to the works of three prominent cultural theorists from the 1960s: Raymond Williams, Marshall McLuhan and Herbert Marcuse.

The change that the concept of culture undergoes can be illuminated in several ways. Epistemologically questions of art, its objectivity and relation to reality, are replaced by questions of the function of art and of its role as reproducing ideas and norms of a bourgeois society. Economical and social aspects are used as critical factors in discussing the role and conception of culture, a perspective that gives the discussion a political and ideological edge. Another related track of change is that attention is brought to the relationship between culture as norms and values and culture as art, also known as “high culture”. This means that the idea of an universal culture is criticized for its excluding tendencies. By the end of the decade, the concept of culture has lost its universal meaning and is, among other things, used to endorse and emphasize a specific identity. Culture is key concept in a critical discussion about society and is also seen as a way of changing this society. Culture can then be viewed as a “concept of struggle”.

The change that the concept of culture goes through is related to changes in the society as a whole, as well as to underlying ideas and visions about the society. The change must not be understood as a consequence of the political escalation during the 1960s, but is to be seen as a development parallel to this radicalization of society.