Popular American Culture

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lar American CultureRunning head: Popular American Culture Popular American Culture SOC/105: Introduction to Popular American Culture August 27, 2012 Popular American Culture Mahatma Gandhi once said, “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people,” (BrainyQuote, 2011, p. 1). In this paper the area under discussion are the definitions of culture and popular culture. There is a vast variety of major trends that are apparent in popular culture. Three major trends in popular American culture are the FaceBook , reality television shows, and Barbie doll. Popular American culture affects personal decision-making and is another subject for discussion in this paper. Culture has many definitions. One definition of culture is the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties, especially by education (Encyclopedia Company, 2011, p. 1). Popular culture also has many definitions. One of these definitions is the dialect culture that prevails in a modern society. Shaping the substance of popular culture is in large part by industries that publicize cultural material, for example the television, film, and publishing industries as well as the news media. Popular culture is not described as just the summative product of those industries; instead, it is the result of an enduring contact between those industries and the people of the society who use their goods (WordIQ, 2010). One major trend in popular American culture is the Barbie doll. Barbie first appeared in 1959. Over the last 45 years there have been more than one million Barbies sold. The popularity of the dress-up doll spread to children in the United States to start and became so famous that Barbies started to be sold worldwide. Another major trend in popular American culture is reality television shows. Reality TV shows
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