Popular Culture And Social Media

2997 Words12 Pages
Popular Culture and Social Media 22 December 2011 Racism and Popular Culture: When looking at the term popular culture one may not instantly think anything is wrong with that especially since the term is so mainstream these days; but once you have studies a little the concept of popular culture you are faced with questions like: What is popular culture? What is culture? What is the difference and why does it matter? The goal of this paper is to answer these questions and to discuss one of the underlying implications in answering those questions: Now from a marketing standpoint it makes some companies great money. Having worked in the music industry for example, if music is placed in the pop culture genre it automatically costs more to market than if it was labeled R&B, or Rock. Yet if one was marketing Opera that needs to placement it already has one and its audience is understood to be ‘cultured.’ When answering the question what is popular culture? Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (2006) it reads, “As Tony Bennett (1980) points out: “as it stands, the concept of popular culture is virtually useless, a melting pot of confused and contradictory meanings capable of misdirecting inquiry up any number of theoretical blind alley,”’(Storey1). It further sates, “Part of the difficulty stems from the implied otherness which is always absent//present when we use the term ‘popular culture.’ This is the premise that has prompted this discussion…otherness; by itself otherness is fine because the world is a melting pot of various cultures, backgrounds and it what makes the world beautiful and flavorful. Imagine if there was no salt just sugar or no sweet just bitter. If you didn’t know the difference then I guess there would be nothing to miss, but once you are exposed to something new or different there is no automatic ‘lessening’ of its quality when
Open Document