Popular American Culture

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Popular American Culture Jason Palmer SOC/105 November 25, 2013 Narketta Sparkman, PhD, HS-BCP Journal Activity: My interactions with popular culture can largely be documented via my entertainment choices. For television my DVR is diverse ranging from Monday night wrestling to Saturday night lifetime movie premieres that I record to watch with my fiancée. My music choices are pretty mainstream consisting of the current top 20 pop music lists. I just recently started reading a popular series by Janet Evanovich because I saw a movie that was based on the first book in the series “One for the Money”. This is a great example of how popular culture influences my choices because if it were not for my enjoyment of the movie I never would have picked up the books. Culture is made up of characteristics such as the beliefs, behaviors and objectives common to the members of a particular group. Culture is the way in which a group of people define themselves and make the decision whether or not they are going to conform to the ideals of mainstream society. For this reason culture consists of many different characteristics such as: customs, values and language. According to Petracca & Sorapure (2007), “popular culture encompasses the most immediate and contemporary elements in our lives” (p. 3). Examples of popular culture include but are not limited to sports, movies, television, music and books. It encompasses things that are lack innovation and does not cause one to question their way of thinking. “The audience must not expect that their experiences will reflect the conventions of what has gone before and served them well in the past. Popular culture is impersonal” ("Popular Culture", 2013, p.2). Another part of culture consists of subcultures and countercultures. A subculture refers to those who share some qualities that the majority of society

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