...Popular culture is the entirety of ideas, viewpoints, attitudes, images and other occurrences that are preferred by an informal consent within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid-20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, these collections of ideas fill the everyday lives of the society. Although terms popular culture and pop culture are sometimes used in place of each other and their meanings partially overlap, the term "pop", which dates from the late 1950s, belongs to a particular society and historical period. Pop refers more in detail to something containing qualities of mass appeal, while "popular" refers to what has gained popularity, regardless of its style. Popular culture is often viewed as being unimportant and irrelevant in order to find diffently acceptance throughout the norm. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and counter-cultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted. Examples of popular culture come from a wide array of genres, including popular music, print, cyber culture, sports, entertainment, leisure, fads, trends, advertising and television. Sports and television are maybe the two of the most widely used up examples of popular culture, and they also represent two examples of popular culture with great continuing...
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...Popular Culture Carol A. Mielish SOC/105 June 30, 2011 Roger Fike Popular Culture Culture is created by people in a society because of their interaction with each other within neighborhoods, states, or countries. Understanding and interaction of people in a society shapes culture. Culture is the material products such as a car or a certain style of clothing, and nonmaterial products such as religious and political preferences of society. Popular culture is also the result of daily interactions, needs, and wants of any given society, which get us through our everyday lives. Popular culture pertains to practices such as cooking, mass media, literature, entertainment, and sports (Petracca & Sorapure, 2007). Various media venues influence much of our every day lives. Television, radio, and magazines are major trends influencing society’s purchasing decisions, body image, and lifestyle choices. Television is the most common leisure activity and has much impact on society’s purchasing decisions because of sponsored advertisements marketing products and infomercials selling products promising to make us look younger, slimmer, and more fashionable. Shopping channels such as QVC allow society to make purchases from the comfort of a living room or bedroom. Television provides unlimited varieties of products which society desires to enhance or make lifestyles easier and more comfortable. Body image seems to be a major concern for many people. Television and magazines teach...
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...Popular Culture Culture is defined as the behaviors and belief characteristics that define a particular social, economical, or ethnical group. While on the other popular culture is considered a working definition in that even though there is technical definition is constantly being redefined and fine tuned. Popular culture encompasses the most immediate and contemporary elements of a social, economical or ethical group. The most common definition of popular culture is a representation of a common ground of cultural activities or commercial products that cut across economic, social and educational barriers. A major trend that many are seeing more and more is the use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. The sites have allowed people to connect all over the world. Facebook has enabled the people to reconnect with one another after not seeing each other for years or even to find new friends. Twitter has allowed the masses of people to follow their favorite celebrities as they go about their lives. The population not only in America, but around the world is obsessed with celebrities. These social networking sites, especially Twitter, have allowed the people to see their celebrities on a more regular basis rather than just on the news or magazines. The people of the world have also continued their love of reality shows. Whether the shows feature real people or celebrities, the American population is glued to...
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...Running head: MUSIC TRENDS IN POPULAR AMERICAN CULTURE Music Trends in Popular American Culture University of Phoenix There have been many trends in American popular culture dating back since America was founded, anytime an activity or a lifestyle became popular people wanted to follow it and millions did. This is the case with music; it has evolved over time yet remains one of the most popular aspects of American Culture. From 1606-1776 religious music was the first music of early colonists in what was known as The Colonial Era. Traditional English hymns were brought to America and singing the psalms was an early form of hymns. Folk music and ballads were the rage from 1776-1860 in the Revolutionary War era. Popular music just before and during the Civil War had to do with political and military events such as; Amazing Grace, Battle Hymn of the Republic and Dixie and the Star Spangled Banner was written during this time. In 1897 different composers give birth to America’s popular music industry, ending reliance on Europe. The turn of the century arrived and there was a period of excitement for the American Music Scene. During this time the “Western” musical genre spreads throughout western states and featured steel guitars and singing cowboys (Johnson, 2007). The Blues were also created during this time by ex-slaves that sang work songs filled with irony, imagery and love, offering relief from the tensions in their lives. Jazz was also developed in the 1900s...
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...Popular American Culture Twame M. Williams Introduction to Popular American Culture SOC/105 May 20, 2010 Ms. Ardra J. Norman, LMSW Popular American Culture Popular American culture is what’s going on now. It is the way we do things in America now. It is the way we make decisions in life. Based upon our population, popular American culture surrounds itself around food, music, technology, schools, books, people, places, and things to do. The actual definition for popular culture is the elements of everyday life. When things happen in the world, people change. The media puts information out there for America to view and have options. People tend to follow the trends, the fads, the way that everyone else is leading the world to be. The inventory list that was created to form this paper started with how I viewed society and what was in it. Music, fast foods, grocery stores, clothes, and shoes are many artifacts that society and culture are built upon. In this list, comparisons have been made and some are most common than others. The knowledge and beliefs that people have show their attitudes and expectations of how society is run. When trends are set in a community, it is normally driven into them to be that way. Knowing that everyday life thrives upon all of this, it makes you see why changes are continuing to exist. Artifacts There are many artifacts tied into popular culture. Music is one of them....
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...Popular culture has been traits that have been passed down from generation to generation. Today many people have come to understand culture to be everyone in today’s society. In today society the trends are what make up ones culture. Most people care about what everyone else thinks than what one actually feels or wants. Culture The study of culture is very important to our society some have been studying his or her past identities for years. Studying culture allows us as humans to understand each other as different people. American culture may be defined as a modern day way of life. The word culture can have many different meanings, for some people it can be appreciation of literature, music, art, food, and clothing. “Ray B Browne defined it as the cultural world around us that is our attitudes, habits, and actions: how we act and why we act; what we eat or wear; our buildings roads, our politics, and our religion.” (Wilson & Wilson 2001 p. 4) Trends When referring to the three major trends in popular American culture; one’s opinion it would be television, clothing, and video games. People in today’s society worry too much about what other people think about them. Take a young teenager in high school if she does not wear a certain type of clothing she can be bullied about it. If she wears a certain style of clothes that a re consider too revealing she will be stereotyped. When talking about television in one’s opinion the commercials that come on are always referring...
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...Popular American Culture Eleonora Gars SOC105/WH11ELC01 January 18, 2010 Byron Williams Popular American Culture Culture is the essential character of a society that distinguishes if from other societal groups. The underlying elements of every culture are the values, language, myths, customs, rituals, and laws that shape the behavior of the people, as well as the material artifacts, or products, of that behavior as they are transmitted from one generation to the next. Cultural values and influences are the ocean in which individuals swim, and yet most are completely unaware that it is where. What people eat, how they dress, what they think and feel, and what language they speak, are all dimensions of culture. For some cultural critics working with in the mass culture paradigm, mass culture is not just an imposed and impoverished culture, it is clear identifiable sense an imported American culture. “If popular culture in its modern from invented in any one place, it was….. in the great cities of the United States, and above all in New York. (Maltby, 1989)” This claim that popular culture is American culture has a long history within the theoretical mapping of popular cultures. It operates under the term Americanization. In its most basic form cultural imperialism comprises the assumption that one nation deliberately attempts to impose its culture, ideology, goods, and way of life on another country. In the United States, critics of cultural imperialism...
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...Popular American Culture The Real Housewives of Atlanta, New Jersey, Orange County, Beverly Hills, and Miami; Love and Hip-Hop Atlanta; along with various other “reality” television are some of the guilty programming that draws my attention. The integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations or b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time (Merriam-Webster, Incorporated , 2013). Embracing culture, especially popular culture can have varying meaning depending on one’s environment. The recognition of the iconic one-liners, the names of “reality” television show stars that may otherwise go unknown to the American public is a key indicator of trends in American culture. Three trends in America’s societal popular culture seem to be the fascination with other individuals lifestyles or their reality, the shift in political participation could be considered a trend linked to the election of an African-American as president a president that made varying pop culture references during speeches (ESPN Internet Ventures, 2012), and a third trend may be the continuously growing popularity of hip-hop music. The impactful nature of the trends in pop culture from relating to politics to fashion sense, is impacted...
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...Popular American Culture SOC/105 March 11, 2013 Popular American Culture When examining popular American culture it is critical also to look at culture in its entirety. Understanding culture and popular American culture, and all its intricacies provides a view of the differences of each person we encounter daily. This paper defines culture and popular culture and also identifies three major trends in popular American culture, and how popular American culture affects personal decision making. Defining Culture The culture of the United States is predominantly a Western culture; however, we see the influence of Native Americans, African American, Latin Americans, Asians, and many other cultures. Culture identifies the behaviors, beliefs, and social forms, which are characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group and may include language, religion, social traditions, and music and arts. Define Popular Culture According to Petracca and Sorapure (2007), “Popular culture represents a common denominator, something that cuts across most economic, social, and educational barriers” (p. 3). Popular culture involves the immediate and contemporary aspects of our lives. These aspects are continuously evolving specifically because of the exceedingly technological world we live in, which exposes people to ever-present, various forms of mass media. The term media is commonly used to identify radio, music, Internet, television, print, film, and video, and it is in these forms...
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...Assess the view that the mass media are helping to create a single global popular culture (January 2013) Popular culture is a culture ordinary people can relate to and is enjoyed by mass audiences. It is also referred to as low or mass culture and it is a mass produced product and sometimes trivial in its content and has no artistic value. High culture is seen as set apart from everyday life and often highly valued and aimed at mainly upper class and middle class people. The mass media can be argued in creating a single global popular culture due to many different processes. Postmodernists would suggest that the difference between high and popular culture is weakening due to easier international transportations and expansions of media based industries. High and popular culture can be produced and exchanged more easily and the boundaries between them have become blurred. Strinati supports this and says that there is no real distinction between high and popular culture. Giddens also argues that forms of high culture are used to produce products for the mass popular culture market. One way in which the mass media has helped to create a single global popular culture in through convergence. This is a combination of the different ways of presenting a variety of the types of information such as video, text and music into a single delivery system. Compression has also contributed to this which is the way in which digital technologies can send many signals through the same sable...
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...Examination of Popular American Culture Sheri Wisniewski SOC/105 University of Phoenix Abstract In this paper I will examine popular American culture. My paper will define what culture is and what popular culture is. I will also identify three major trends in popular American culture and I will explain how popular American culture affects personal decision making. Keywords: culture, popular culture, trends Examination of Popular American Culture Definition of Culture What is culture? According to Merriam-Webster there are three definitions of culture. They are “the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time, a particular society that has its own beliefs, ways of life, art, etc., and a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture) Two of the definitions are very similar speaking about the beliefs, arts, etc. Those are the definitions I will be focusing on in this paper as I am going to be concentrating on people and not an organization. Definition of Popular Culture In the eBook Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture, “popular culture encompasses the most immediate and contemporary elements in our lives – elements which are often subject to rapid changes in a highly technological world in which people are brought closer and closer by the ubiquitous mass media.”(p. 3) Having access to media literally twenty-four hours...
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...Popular American Culture can easily be defined as those items that influence the American society as a whole. The things that influence those of us in America may not affect the European or Italian cultures in the same manner. These influences include public perception, attitudes and preferences. For instance, Americans are often identified with football. Football is a popular sport here in America and the fans of some teams have a culture of their own. The culture is set in tradition that has grown over the years. One of the assignments due this week was to complete an inventory of pop culture artifacts in my personal inventory. One of the common trends noticed in the inventory was the use of electronic devices as a part of my daily routine. I used my laptop to check weather, email, play games and review the news on a daily basis. I also used my cellular telephone to check email, play games and surf the Internet. I also noticed that I did these things around the same time each day. Personally I feel disconnected if I do not do these things several times a day. I did not use the laptop and my cellular telephone as much on Saturday but I made up for it on Sunday, to catch-up on the things that I missed. The common items in the inventory that appear more often than others are the Internet and my cellular telephone. Those items are used on a daily basis, almost hourly. The most common theme that I can identify is the need to know information immediately....
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...Popular American Culture Daniel Aguilar SOC/105 January 19, 2012 Patrick Brady Popular American Culture What is culture? What is popular culture? As I sat in front of my computer and thought about what this meant, it occurred to me that this wasn’t something I had really put much effort into finding out in the past. What is culture? Carla definition was simple. It’s defined as the shared pattern of behavior and interactions and these shared patterns identify the members of a culture group. Popular culture also known as "pop culture" is something that is a totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, and images. Simply put it’s the way we live our lives. Many of us have changed through out the year which is expected, so this is why I chose to go this route with this easy. At my age, as a charming thirty year old male, my trends have changed, so I take you back to the age of twenty-one where my life was everything about image, about the clothes I wore, the music I listened to and even the shows I watched. This was everything in life. First you have the designer clothes I wore such as Sean John pants, Rock-A-Wear shirts, and the air force one shoes, for my fashion incline the Nikes I wore. The type of clothes I wore meant everything. It defined me and who I was and how I wanted to be known as the individual who wore the latest fashion. Not because I wanted people to know I had some money in my pocket, but to let the people around me know that I was well off and...
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...Popular American Culture Popular American Culture Culture can be defined as set of traditions past on for generations. Popular culture can be defined anything items or forms of media influencing society in its entirety. American popular culture can influence other nation’s popular cultures in the same manner. These influences include public attitudes, perceptions, and preferences. For instance, the rest of the world recognizes the word “football” as what American’s call soccer. American football is the most popular sport in the United States and fans of football teams have his or her own cultures. Major trends in American culture I follow daily are social media, sports, and music. I am a Beachbody coach. I use social media to get my message of fitness out. I am on Facebook every day attempting to motivate my friends to get off their butts’ and prepare for their future health. Instagram, allows people to motivate me by liking or commenting my fitness pictures or videos. I am a huge sports fan. From the first time I watched an NFL game when I was 11 years old, I was addicted. I played football, basketball and ran track all through middle and high school. I listen to sports radio all day. Football is the one sport that I will ignore the world for. Music is a huge part of my life. While writing this paper, I am listening to Pandora. I have a mix of high culture with my Tchaikovsky and subculture/popular culture with my Dirtyphonic Dubstep channels. As a Beachbody coach,...
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...The Human Nature of Popular Culture Murderers, rapists, thieves, prostitutes, we hear their sickening stories in the news every day. We condemn them, despise them, ridicule them, and even at times, wish to hurt them ourselves. Yet, in many popular books, movies, and songs, we cannot help but admire, sympathize, and forgive these criminals. The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Perfume, The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind are two great examples of this psychological phenomenon. Both texts reveal the cultural environment on one hand and human nature on the other as stimuli feeding the internal drives of these monsters. In The Threepenny Opera, the main protagonist, Mac the Knife, is introduced as a murderer, rapist, and arsonist. The opening scenes of Perfume begin with the explosive cheers of a filled stadium awaiting the death sentence of Jean- Baptiste Grenouille. Yet, upon further inspection, both characters emerge as charmingly crafty masterminds that win the love and affection of those around them. Similarly, as readers and viewers, we too find ourselves drawn to these characters, as did Brecht’s audiences and Suskind’s readers in the twentieth century. Brecht and Suskind created this mass appeal through their deranged miscreants who personified human nature and related them to our everyday lives. Just as Mac the Knife and Grenouille searched for their ultimate pleasures, so would human beings if they could get away with doing whatever it takes. Both texts emphasize...
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