Mass Media And Pop Culture

Mass Media and Popular American Culture

Mass Media and Popular American Culture Group Paper

There are many different factors that make up our culture today. Mass media is a creator of our culture today. Relationships between media, advertising and the formation of normative cultural values are all contributors to our culture today. The internet and globalization have also played a huge role in our culture; all of which have their own meanings, but ultimately build our culture.

Mass media is a plays a big part in the enculturation of society. Humans have always lived in a world of communication. Media dominates and demands people’s attention. One real life example of the impact media has had on our culture is the 1963 Kennedy assassination and funeral. Political issues and debates revolve around the media.

Culture today has changed drastically changed. We rely heavily on media for forms of news, Reports and a generalization of what’s going on in our community. This has changed the way we communicate with each other. Media technologies enter cultural settings in ways that extend the characteristics tradition values and settings that are already in place while at the same they also challenge and transform the foundations of culture (lull 1988).Media doesn’t change our culture but it help to transform our culture.

Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and creates the culture. We as a community and individuals are always bombarded with messages in billboards TV, radio and many other ways. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important. Mass media is also a creator of celebrities. With out TV radio internet and movies no one would know these actors and singers and they wouldn’t be famous. In the past only political and business leaders as well as notorious outlaw were famous. Only in recent times have actors singers etc. become celebrities or stars. The current level of media saturation has not always existed. As early as the 1970 and 1960s TV only consisted of 3 channels/broadcastings. The broadcastings primarily focused on middle class 2 parent families, even though back then most middle class families didn’t own a TV. Now you can go into the poorest family’s house and find a TV.. Mass media is a permanent part of modern culture. The Culturalist theory, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, combines the other two theories and claims that people interact with media to create their own meanings out of the images and messages they receive. Culturalist theorists claim that, while a few elite in large corporations may exert significant control over what information media produces and distributes, personal perspective plays a more powerful role in how the audience members interpret those messages.

Relationships between media advertising and the formation of normative cultural values have a big impact on how we view our culture today. The news television shows print ads and radio advertising shape our culture. Television advertising and even the sitcoms we watch promote our normative cultural values.

The ads tell us what is cool and good and they tell us that the famous actors we look up to feel that these products are important. In the shows on TV we see all the actors are using these products we feel are important. Even the news ands up showing us these products when we see the live shots of the murder scene we see the McDonalds in the background, or the car chase ends when the drunk crashes into Blockbuster. The music videos show us the fashions we have to have to be cool and the cars we are supposed to drive if we want to get the ladies.

The advertising is subtle and starts slow but works its way in to our culture sometimes slowly. You can see it from the beginning of the rap and hip-hop culture. It started out very small a couple of artists and a few fans. The vision caught on slowly and the culture stayed in the urban arias where it originated. Over time the music made its way to the mainstream radio, and moved from an inner-city culture to the suburbs, and then into the rural areas. This example is particularly potent because it was so obvious when it came to my home town of Casper, WY. There were no gangs or any sort of inner-city culture in my little town of 60,000 people until the music entered mainstream music, video, and movies.

The internet has brought the world a fast and easy way to receive information from one another. For the most part, if a person does not know something, they are quick to search the internet. The internet isn't only an excellent source to research information, but it can be a great way to access local and world news. The internet exists across the entire planet, so the new ranges from the United States to China! The information is usually reliable