Mass Media and Popular American Culture Group Paper
There are many different factors that make up our culture today. Mass media is a creator of our culture today. Relationships between media, advertising and the formation of normative cultural values are all contributors to our culture today. The internet and globalization have also played a huge role in our culture; all of which have their own meanings, but ultimately build our culture.
Mass media is a plays a big part in the enculturation of society. Humans have always lived in a world of communication. Media dominates and demands people’s attention. One real life example of the impact media has had on our culture is the 1963 Kennedy assassination and funeral. Political issues and debates revolve around the media.
Culture today has changed drastically changed. We rely heavily on media for forms of news, Reports and a generalization of what’s going on in our community. This has changed the way we communicate with each other. Media technologies enter cultural settings in ways that extend the characteristics tradition values and settings that are already in place while at the same they also challenge and transform the foundations of culture (lull 1988).Media doesn’t change our culture but it help to transform our culture.
Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and creates the culture. We as a community and individuals are always bombarded with messages in billboards TV, radio and many other ways. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important. Mass media is also a creator of celebrities. With out TV radio internet and movies no one would know these actors and singers and they wouldn’t be famous. In the past only political and business leaders as well as notorious outlaw were famous. Only in recent times have actors singers etc. become celebrities or stars. The current