Our culture is changing constantly, adding new ideas, styles, and customs, but some things never change. One trend that has become popular in American culture is supersizing; bigger is better. Supersizing from food to buildings the trend is growing. Sport utility vehicles and minivans have allowed the American public to expand into a society that does not need these large vehicles on the road. Wal-Mart and other big-box stores have created a society of over-buying.
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.
Popular American Culture Yuliana Diaz SOC/105 Dr. Cheryl Y. Avant Popular American Culture Currently, people cannot turn to the right without being influenced by technology, it can be said that the popular American culture in 2011 is mainly leaded by technological devices and their products. Oxford University Press defines culture as “the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation, people, or other social group” (“culture,” 2011) there are many factors that affect the different cultures around the world such as trends, which are elements of popular culture. Popular Culture and Trends “Popular culture encompasses the most immediate and contemporary elements in our lives.” (Petracca & Sorapure, 2007, para 8) although it does not give a specific definition, it states that popular culture is contained by the everyday elements people use, for example the Internet, which has become a powerful tool for anything thinkable in peoples’ lives. Another powerful “element” is the telephone, it became more than a useful communication tool, (the main reason it was invented for), it is used as a productivity, organizational, and recreational tool in the American popular culture. Popular culture also can be a term that refers to what other cultures look up to, from a personal experience, people who grew up in another country always say how the American culture has the most influential trends around the world.
From one generation to the next Culture is portrayed, through verbal communication, material objects, ritual, institutions (including schools), and art. This will discuss and identify patterns in popular American culture, describe sorts of items which are more common, describe values which are being communicated and will determine the level of which the values of popular American culture have directly impacted decision making. Popular American culture is constantly changing and it is particular to place and time. Pop culture is patterns of humanity and the representative structures that give such activities significance and meaning. Popular American culture is defined as popular written literature and broadcasting, popular music, popular dance and theater, certain decorative arts, sports and recreation, and other cultural aspects of social life distinguished by their broad-based presence across ethnic, social, and regional groupings.
The dictionary basically states that pop culture is, “cultural activities or commercial products reflecting, suited to, or aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people.” (http://dictionary.reference.com). Popular culture is everywhere. You know it when you come to the Internet, listen to music, watch television or go to a movie, concert or stage show. You know the artists, the actors and actresses, sports personalities and the games they play. Today, anything with a buzz is deemed pop culture.
Owing to the reform and opening-up, our country nowadays has been influenced by western culture to a certain extent. American culture is one of the most influential because America exports its culture, especially popular culture, through a number of media. And American popular culture has especially deep influence on the teenagers. So most of us are familiar with or fond of American popular culture like music, TV, movies, dance, sports, fashion, cultural idols and so on. Some people may think that American pop culture lacks depth and wouldn’t be popular for long.
Influence of Visual Media Paper (Film, TV) Jerdel Weaver-Hardy HUM/176 June 3, 2013 Professor William Hecht The development of mass media over the years has shaped American culture in many ways. Providing us with many variations of visual entertainment such as television, TV has provided American’s to actually visualize through advertisements. American culture has the opportunity to view a new product on the market before we purchase it. We can keep up with the latest trends as to what to wear. Over the years television has changed immensely we no longer have to physically get up to change from one channel to the next.
Culture can be defined in many different ways; however, culture is mainly defined as patterns of behaviors, interactions, cognitive constructions and learning through a process of socialization (Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, 2010). Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred through an informal consensus within the mainstream of any given society (Petracca & Sorapure, 2007). Pop culture can influence millions of individuals because the culture includes all types of cultures into one big culture or living. America has by far influenced many individuals and countries through major trends. A couple of American popular cultures include digital technology, film and television, and politics.
This generates commitments to objects instead of people, creating a more separate and powerful sense of self, which turns social relations into competitive interactions. Consumer culture has introduced disposability into the minds of consumers, which means more than throwing away produced goods, but also being able to throw away values, lifestyles, stable relationships, and attachments to things, buildings, people and received ways of being and doing (Harvey, 1990,285). American consumer culture came into being after WW1, when successful American corporations faced the threat of overproduction. Corporations needed to make sure consumers would buy their products and found ways to turn luxury products into functional products. Through advertising, product placement, celebrity endorsement and even social movements, corporations found ways to convince consumers to want things they didn’t need.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_culture Popular culture From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Popular Culture is the entirety of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes,[1] images, and other phenomena that are 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, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society. Popular Culture is often viewed as being trivial and "dumbed down" in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted. [2][3][4][5][6] History and definitions The term "popular culture" was coined in the 19th century or earlier.