Media and Popular Culture how media messages have

Media and Popular Culture how media messages have an impact on people’s behaviour Foreign Journalism Berdak Bayimbetov

POP CULTURE Popular culture ("pop culture") refers to the systems and practices used by the majority classes in a society. FOLK CULTURE vs POP CULTURE

Role of Media on promoting popular culture? • Media is a reflection of culture or social reality • It transmits cultural values or dominant ideology • It is capable of satisfying the cultural needs of a diverse group of viewers • TV is an ‘agent’ of socialisation - we construct our identities based on different representations

The Content Various forms of popular culture include (and delivered thru): • • • music, film, television, advertising, sports, fashion, toys, magazines and comic books, and cyberculture.

Ernesto Che Guevara (Че Гевара)

Gangnam Style

Popular music • The many difference styles of popular music reveal all geographic patterning in the level acceptance • Elvis Presley, Sting, Lady Gaga, PSY and etc. are figures of popular culture

Sport

SPORTS • The nineteenth century gave us football, ice hockey, baseball, soccer, and basket ball—our major spectator sports • Our folk ancestors played games, but most were limited to children and little time was spent on them

Anonymity

CULTURAL FAMILIARITY Through media, people can share ideas and images from all parts of the country, which allows for cultural familiarity PRO – cultural familiarity helps to create a common culture CON – if one culture is more dominant, cultural familiarity can threaten local cultures through different regions of the country

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE • A current trend is the spread of the global village (an international community where people are tied together by mass media, popular culture, and telecommunications) – ADVANTAGES: enable us to know more about the lives of people in places we might not otherwise know about – DISADVANTAGES: enables industrial countries to export their culture, which swamps local cultures

CYBERSPACE • Perhaps the personal computer and Internet access have created another new type of place • Certain words we use imply it has a geography—”Cyberspace” • The information superhighway connects not two points, but all points, creating a new sort of place

Cyberspace • Does cyberspace contain a geography at all? – Place, as understood by geographers, cannot be created on the net – “Virtual places” lack a cultural landscape and a cultural ecology – Human diversity is poorly portrayed in cyberspace • Old people, poor people, the illiterate, and the continent are not represented • On the net, users end up “meeting” people like themselves • The breath and spirit of place cannot exist in cyberspace – These are not real places and never can be

Cyberspace • Still, cyberspace possesses some geographical qualities – Enhances opportunities for communication over long distances – Allows access to rare data banks – Encourages and speeds cultural diffusion – The Internet helps heighten regional contrasts E. g. e. Republic, Second life…

International diffusion • Popular cultures of North America, Europe, and Australia have become similar and in constant contact – Latest Paris fashions appear in American department stores – Fast-food franchises of Mac. Donalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken diffused to Russia – Motel chains such as Holiday Inn took root in Tibet and other countries

International diffusion • In many lesser-developed countries acceptance of Western popular culture occurs among a socioeconomic elite • Many people across the world now share aspects of a global culture