We live in a society that is extremely Media saturated, try walking into a grocery store or doctors office or on the TTC without seeing televisions, billboards and advertisements. Our society seems to be engulfed in a new realm a twisted reality? Or is this reality? This realm for many seems at times to be a way to create new identities and hide realities. Mass communication has provided popular culture with a powerful potential in creating meaning. It is a great influence on individuals and allows people to children look up to truly believe that Popular culture involves collective imagination that allows people to bypass their association with traditional knowledge and create new realities.
I view popular culture as cultural activities or commercial products reflecting or aimed at the tastes of the general Masses of people.
According to Reynolds, popular culture arises from the interplay of media (including mainstream movies) and brand-name products, and it plays a significant role in generating identities and meanings that young people gravitate toward in these contemporary times, which are characterized by efforts of those in power to control the symbolic domain (par. 2).
Children learn behavioral values by imitating the authority figure they spend the most time around growing up. If children are left home to watch television more often then they are spending time around people this is what they will mimic and be influenced by. Many characters in pop culture are not realistic representation of people and therefore can lead children to unrealistic representations of the world we live in. For example shows/movies such as Dumb and Dumber or Zoolander, The Simpsons just to name a few... are not realistic representations but are a good way of comic relief and escape from normal everyday life.
I see this daily with my students, many of them seem to be caught up in a world that is not reality and they are engulfed in this pop culture and begin to imitate and act as the characters they are adoring. I feel that the problem with this is that they may not be prepared for the real world we live in.
Sources:
Reynolds, W. (n.d.). Why popular culture matters. Popular Culture. Retrieved from :http://bit.ly/1B25znl
I view popular culture as cultural activities or commercial products reflecting or aimed at the tastes of the general Masses of people.
According to Reynolds, popular culture arises from the interplay of media (including mainstream movies) and brand-name products, and it plays a significant role in generating identities and meanings that young people gravitate toward in these contemporary times, which are characterized by efforts of those in power to control the symbolic domain (par. 2).
Children learn behavioral values by imitating the authority figure they spend the most time around growing up. If children are left home to watch television more often then they are spending time around people this is what they will mimic and be influenced by. Many characters in pop culture are not realistic representation of people and therefore can lead children to unrealistic representations of the world we live in. For example shows/movies such as Dumb and Dumber or Zoolander, The Simpsons just to name a few... are not realistic representations but are a good way of comic relief and escape from normal everyday life.
I see this daily with my students, many of them seem to be caught up in a world that is not reality and they are engulfed in this pop culture and begin to imitate and act as the characters they are adoring. I feel that the problem with this is that they may not be prepared for the real world we live in.
Sources:
Reynolds, W. (n.d.). Why popular culture matters. Popular Culture. Retrieved from :http://bit.ly/1B25znl