Popular Culture
Popular Culture
• What is pop culture?
• What does pop culture tell us?
• Read more to find out…..
• Examples where we can identify pop culture
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Television
Films
Newspapers, magazines and books
Themes and amusement parks
This weekend, did you….
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Jog while listening to a IPOD?
Listen to music on your radio?
Watch TV?
Read a newspaper?
Eat a McDonald’s hamburger?
Go to a bar or movie?
Shop at the mall?
Participate in a sport activity?
If so, you did the things that most people in Western societies
do with their free time….these are examples of popular
culture.
Discussion
• What were particular pastimes of when YOU
were younger?....but are not so popular now…..
Popular Culture Defined
The everyday pastimes of a majority of
people in a social group.
Cultures Defined
• Popular Culture
– The everyday, typical pastimes of a majority of people in a
social group.
– What masses do in their free time.
– Differs by group.
• High Culture
– Recreational and cultural activities that are somehow more
serious and more profound than pop culture. Often seen as
cultivation of the mind and spirit.
• Folk Culture
– Pastimes shared through direct oral communication, stories,
jokes and children’s street games.
What does Popular Culture tell
us?
• It is a mirror which reflects the values and beliefs of
society.
• Toys and dolls are good examples.
Popular Culture
Characteristics
• Popular
• Commercialized
• Trendy
• Dependent upon tastes of youth (ages 14 yrs -26 yrs)
Television
• Hub of popular culture.
– 98% of homes in US have 1 television, most have 2
• TV is the most frequent participation of all pastimes.
• Most freely chosen and relaxing, yet least enjoyable
and invigorating of all.
• People in US watch about 7 hrs/day…7 full years in
the 47 waking years of someone living to be 70 years
old.
Television
• Tremendous impact on leisure behavior.
• Not only does mass media consume leisure
time, it also greatly influences the leisure
values of individuals.
• Kids: (9-11yrs old) spend about 21.5 hrs/week
watching TV.
Top 10
• Click here to see the Top Syndicated TV Shows
• Click here to see the Top Broadcast TV Shows
• Click here to see the Top Cable TV Shows
Why is Television So Popular?
• 30 minute situation comedies require little thinking.
• TV dramas where complex social issues are raised,
addressed, and resolved in less than an hour.
• TV shows often shape people’s views and influence
leisure choices.
• TV often seen as reality of life rather than fantasy. Can
create problems if viewers feel that their lives do not
live up to standards they see on TV.
Findings of Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi
• TV viewing can both help and hinder quality of family;
provides us with the family participating in the same
activity and doing it together, but no interaction value.
• Parallel leisure--low form of development; no interaction.
• Driven by a wish to escape negative mood states;
oftentimes TV watching made a negative mood worse.
• Viewers tend to feel passive and less alert after viewing
TV.
• Less rewarding the longer TV is viewed; law of
diminishing return; heaviest viewers felt the worse.
Discussion: Subject
Television”
• Has watching TV made life better or
worse for us in the United States?
TV Turn Off Week
Theme &
Amusement Parks
• Traditional amusement parks vs today’s theme
parks.
Newspapers,
Magazines and Books
• 84% of adults in the US read a daily newspaper.
• 1,626 daily newspapers worldwide with
circulation over 62 million readers.
• 54,000 book titles published annually in the
world.
• Why do people read a newspaper? Magazine?
Book?
Films
• More limited clientele than TV.
• Will theater movies disappear?
• Impact of home video on leisure.
• Why is attending a movie so popular for
teenagers?
• Slasher/horror films.
Films
• Top 10 Movies of All-Time
– Current Box Office Hits
– All Time Hits
• 1929: 110 million people attended a movie per
week.....4/5 of the US population went to a movie once a
week throughout the entire year!
• This continued until 1950's when TV began to be mass
produced.
• 1998: 23,000 walk-in theaters and 800 drive-ins.
– Drive-in tour
– History of drive-in
Films
Video rentals ....
– On average, a movie makes about 5
times more from its video sales than
ticket takings
– #1: Ladder 49
• Hollywood continues to prosper ($6 B/yr)
and serves as a major shaper of fads and
trends in US.
What are some popular activities that
Americans do in their leisure time?
U. S.
MTSU
Discussion:
Subject: “Pop culture differences”
• What is popular in one area may not be
popular in another…based on the ‘culture’ of
the area.
– Discuss what is popular in the US and why
– Discuss something that may only be pop culture
in the south as opposed to the north or vice
versa