Popular Culture What is pop culture What does

Popular Culture • What is pop culture? • What does pop culture tell us? • Examples where we can identify pop culture • Television • Films • Newspapers, magazines and books • Themes and amusement parks

This weekend, did you…. • • Workout while listening to a IPOD? Listen to music? Watch TV? Read a newspaper? Eat a Mc. Donald’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.

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. • Children (9 -11 yrs old) spend about 21. 5 hrs/week watching TV.

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.

Key Research Findings About Television and Leisure 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.

Other forms of pop culture • Newspapers & Books vs. e-books • Movies: Movie theaters vs. Netflix vs. On-Demand • Hollywood continues to prosper ($6 B/yr) and serves as a major shaper of fads and trends in US. • Music/Concerts

Discussion: Subject: “Pop culture differences” • What is popular in one area may not be popular in another…based on the ‘culture’ of the area. • Regional Sports • South – College Football • Mid-Atlantic States & NY - Lacrosse