Popular culture is a societal accumulation of cultural products that change from time to time. In most societies, popular culture is largely based on the tastes of not the educated elite, but the ordinary people. As such, it is an expression of the collective practices, beliefs, objects, and experiences that we came across in every day of our life. As Fedorak defines it, popular culture is our voice, our lifeblood, our beliefs, our likes, and dislikes, as well as our everyday practices as the majority of ordinary people (Fedorak 2009).
Consequently, popular culture is all around us and, therefore, we engage with it in our various activities such as our physical interactions, virtual interaction through social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp and in entertainment and sports. Other things such as the food we eat and the clothes that we wear also constitutes popular culture as they are a form of imagery language that people use to communicate and share cultural experiences. Communicating has never been simple, however, the modern technology has revolutionized the speed and extent to which these experiences are shared throughout the globe. These technological advancements have enabled us to consume popular culture through social networking, digital art, television, films, music, and multimedia installations among others. Such communication technology advancements have not only enabled us to interact with individual personalities and diversified cultures but also, to react to popular culture via our perspectives in our daily encounters.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Studying popular culture has been very instrumental to me. It has been one of my favorite areas of study in the exploration as well as the theorization of sociopolitical foundations of the intersections of modern popular culture. Its aesthetic dimensions and critical possibilities have been crucial in advancing my understanding of our current moment in the society and, therefore, popular culture not only reflects the spirit of my era, but it also expresses and validates it. Besides giving meaning and institutionalizing the current state of our societies, popular culture is instrumental in shaping and informing people of the near future. For this reason and the fact that digital media such as movies, music, social networks, and television among others continue to institute popular culture as a primary educational site where young people learn about the world and themselves, I will not change my choices of popular culture.
Popular culture has been a crucial tool to us the youths in shaping, understanding and representing our identities. Today’s popular culture is a symbolic order that has been developed by different name brands we consume in our daily lives as well as various media outlets. In particular. The Hollywood film industry is instrumental in creating the identities and representations of our cultures that prepare students and citizens alike in acquiring individual power over their consumption of media, which is essential in this era that we are making decisions that are largely influenced by what we read or watch in the media (Danesi, 2008). As such, a critical analysis of popular culture is imperative not only in understanding ourselves, but also the world around us. A deeper understanding of popular culture is likely to change both the level of my consumption and attitudes towards it in the future.
I can affect social change through creativity and innovation of the popular culture. By critically analyzing the current popular culture, I can come up with different appealing aspects of the culture that once adopted by a large number of people would impact their lives significantly. In addition, it will also enable me to influence the views of those I interact with in respect to popular culture hence significantly affect social change. The above would be possible because popular culture is dynamic, transferable, and varies from one society to another.
References
Danesi, M. (2008). Popular culture: Introductory perspectives . Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield.
Fedorak, S. (2009). Pop culture: The culture of everyday life . Toronto [Ont.: University of Toronto Press.