Soul Train And Its Cultural Impacts Via Making 
Soul Train and its Cultural Impacts Via ‘Making’
The television program Soul Train was undoubtedly a watershed moment in entertainment media (specifically televised ‘bandstand’ formats). What started as an attempt to re-brand, or re-cast, blacks in mainstream American media quickly became a cultural, social, and economic phenomenon of its own. Although the show is seminole for a whole host of reasons in terms of achievement for black entrepreneurs, musicians, and the like, what I find more compelling is the way the program became an agent for black culture and its evolution from the shows inception to finale, as well as a way to make black culture ‘mainstream’ and thus appealing to a wider audience outside of racial constraints. This program was really the first of its kind that catered to an audience who had largely been neglected by mainstream media prior and it both influenced the common reality/culture of this audience as well as was shaped by it as the show progressed. This process of ‘making’, then, cuts both ways in this case as the media influences the audience and vice versa. What I think is the easiest observable form of this making is the influence that Soul Train had on fashion and dancing practices amongst its viewer audience. These were of course things that already existed independent of the program, including popular trends. However, Soul Train publicized these ideas and granted them greater ‘credibility’, in a way. As some of the commentators on the documentary would remark, they would all get in front of the TV when the dancers were being focused on and try and copy the moves, especially those that were particularly ‘revolutionary’ or unique. The show was beginning to influence the status quo of dancing and take a relatively small sample of the black community, Los Angeles, and broadcast their style of dance across the country as being the cool, newest, or most popular style. Another example is the ‘Soul Train Line’ which existed prior to the
The television program Soul Train was undoubtedly a watershed moment in entertainment media (specifically televised ‘bandstand’ formats). What started as an attempt to re-brand, or re-cast, blacks in mainstream American media quickly became a cultural, social, and economic phenomenon of its own. Although the show is seminole for a whole host of reasons in terms of achievement for black entrepreneurs, musicians, and the like, what I find more compelling is the way the program became an agent for black culture and its evolution from the shows inception to finale, as well as a way to make black culture ‘mainstream’ and thus appealing to a wider audience outside of racial constraints. This program was really the first of its kind that catered to an audience who had largely been neglected by mainstream media prior and it both influenced the common reality/culture of this audience as well as was shaped by it as the show progressed. This process of ‘making’, then, cuts both ways in this case as the media influences the audience and vice versa. What I think is the easiest observable form of this making is the influence that Soul Train had on fashion and dancing practices amongst its viewer audience. These were of course things that already existed independent of the program, including popular trends. However, Soul Train publicized these ideas and granted them greater ‘credibility’, in a way. As some of the commentators on the documentary would remark, they would all get in front of the TV when the dancers were being focused on and try and copy the moves, especially those that were particularly ‘revolutionary’ or unique. The show was beginning to influence the status quo of dancing and take a relatively small sample of the black community, Los Angeles, and broadcast their style of dance across the country as being the cool, newest, or most popular style. Another example is the ‘Soul Train Line’ which existed prior to the