Pop COOLture

Communicating Popular Culture

The term Popular culture also known as pop culture is the entirety of ideas, images, perspectives and other phenomena withing a given culture heavily influenced by the mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the lives of the people in the society. The most common pop culture categories are: entertainment (movies, music, television, games), sports, news (as in people/places in news), politics, fashion/clothes, technology, and slang. Popular culture has a way of influencing an individual's attitudes towards certain topics.

According to some definitions, popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and the dumbed down thing 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, or corrupt.

In his book, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, John Storey offers six different definitions of popular culture.

In one definition, Storey describes mass or popular culture as "a hopelessly commercial culture [that is] mass-produced for mass consumption [by] a mass of non-discriminating consumers.” He further states that popular culture is “formulaic [and] manipulative,” not unlike how he views the process of advertising.

A product or brand has to be “sold” to an audience before it can be entrenched in mass or popular culture; by bombarding society with it, it then finds its place in popular culture.

An example given by Storey which I think is a good one is, Britney Spear; her road to stardom and place in popular culture were based on marketing strategies to build look along with her fan base. As a result, she generated millions of fans, her songs were played frequently on numerous radio stations, and she went on to sell out concerts and garner the public's fascination through her meltdown. Like the creation of Britney Spears, pop culture almost always depends on mass production for mass consumption because we rely on mass media to get our information and shape our interests.