Interpreting Popular Culture - Essay Sample

Introduction

Popular culture in society refers to setting offset of practices, beliefs, and things prevailing in a community over time. And it is composed of activities and feelings incurred because of interacting with the leading objects. There are various popular culture types, for example, music, sports, technology, and slang (Valkeburg et al., 2016). Music is mostly played or sung in shows, and sometimes it is recorded to be played on popular radio programs and TV shows, it is sometimes accessed via phones. As the only sole way of passing information to the target audience, media and technology use music to propagate information to the target audience. Information about famous people and places can be passed on using media and technology. Social media remains the only most significant source of propagating information using music because of its extensive access by people (Molly & Kristin, 2017).

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Indian classical music is the only oldest music in the history of humanity, dating back to ancient times when sculpture where discovered. Chinese music is also another type of music that is old and dates 3000years back. Music has also been used to propagate political ideologies and propagation of consumerism, adverts on newspaper and television, or other social media platforms. Using musical adverts to convince buyers can make purchasing a particular product (Rabab'ah et al., 2016). Companies are also using music icons and celebrities to endorse their products because they influence society, which is a trend that has been taking place since ancient times (Domazet et al., 2016). Media and technology have also enabled musicians to reach a broad audience by using social media platforms such as YouTube to get more people and other platforms such as Instagram, where they give celebrity gossips. Through this, artists can interact with their fans, receiving real-time feedback to enhance their marketing strategies and shows.

History of Music

Music has a rich history dating from ancient times to date, where it is much improvised and sophisticated. Old music is only theorized from pre-historic sites, where flutes are often discovered. For example, the "Hurrian hymn to Nikkal" was found in clay tablets that dated back to around 1400BC (Valkeburg et al., 2016). Early Egyptians used to treasure their gods through singing and dancing. In ancient Greece, music was part of life. Mixed-gender choruses were sung during celebrations to entertain people and religious ceremonies (Valkeburg et al., 2016). In the middle ages, monophonic chanting was introduced in churches. Between 1400-1600, music was much more non-religious, and it focused on themes such as love. Around 1600-1700, music flourished so much in Europe where choirs were formed (Valkeburg et al., 2016). The last century was when modern music was born, where sound recording and music editing were realized, which led to the rise of classic and jazz songs. Rock music also evolved in this era (Valkeburg et al., 2016). By around 1990-2000, music had revolutionized that Djs were used in bands to mix songs. In this era, musicians started using electric guitars, pianos, and keyboards to manipulate their songs. This led many youths in this era to identify them with hip-hop music, which had rocked airwaves globally.

Theories

On the one hand, mass society's theory is one of the oldest ideas of popular culture made during the industrialization era. These theories have been perceived to be biased and originate from a perspective view. On the other hand, the idea of the cultural industry which critiqued the previous approach. The Frankfurt school of thought theorists has developed this theory. The theory of progressive evolution is mostly perceived to create opportunities for every person in capitalists’ countries. Other popular culture theories are globalization culture, which transmits ideas and values in enhancing social relations (Aditiya & Sahasaka, 2006); it is marked by cultures that have been learned from web browsers. The advantages that arise from this theory are that: makes institutions and countries gain profit in the long run, meaning they will benefit. It promotes interdependency between institutions and creates a country's economies because of the immense purchasing power from websites and social media platforms such as Linkedin, Facebook, and integrated twitter.

Ideologies of Popular Culture Criticism

Marxism theories are the most popular culture, developed by German philosopher Karl Marx for analyzing social-economic development. Marxism theories are used mostly for critiquing popular culture in the US and some countries in Europe because of commercializing products by the upper class in society (Jaggi, 2015). Philosophers like Marcuse and Ardono have become monolithic and felt musicians had dominated the media by wielding the upper-class economic benefits to amass wealth. Musicians have been used by the rich to market their products (Jaggi, 2015). Even though these scholars tend to critique celebrities for their involvement in product advertisements in media, most young people want to associate themselves with products related to these musical icons starting from fashion and copying their lifestyle. This has led to many millennials being influenced by celebrities and following them on social media platforms daily to know their whereabouts (Jaggi, 2015). For example, musician Chris brown has endorsed products like double mint and child's play clothing. In real life, anyone who has a kid wants to buy clothes from this cloth line company for his/her kids. Some pleasures of culture and ideology used by media are manipulative. For example, media owners use songs to entertain people in favor of the ruling class, and the media also impacts the circulation of ideas (Jaggi, 2015).

Mass media has enabled us; learn much about others' cultures and behavior through music. This happens by watching and listening to celebrities. Dominick (2013) “defined social media as a platform where people link and share information." Mass media being the mirror of society makes us assimilate what is being portrayed by musicians, thus replicating the media's information. The media has enabled me to learn different genres of songs from other parts of the world. It has even made people travel into different parts of the world just to get entertained.

Popular culture gives detailed information about who we are in society by how we behave and associate with celebrities, such as loving watching Hollywood movies because of someone you admire (Elizabeth & Thompson, 2006).

Culture enables us to know our race, class, and gender in society. The media has revolutionized how people perceive a culture either in an appositive or negative way. Valkeburg et al. (2016) stated that media's influence would keep on growing as the media keeps on evolving. For example, in my case on hip-hop music, I see black women as being stereotyped by how they dance in those songs videos. Popular culture gives the true identity of a person. Mass media is the only sole channel where people often get access to information and remains the only leading source of transmitting, thus enabling people to interact, hence knowing other people's way of life.

However, despite Karl Marx having criticized the popular culture in capitalist nations. Still, this culture plays an integral part in shaping society by ensuring that people attain their goals and objectives (Valkeburg et al., 2016). For example, when musicians endorse in return, they earn a lot of money; they also amass more followers on social media platforms. In return, businesses and companies will make more sells to their target customers. The use of celebrities is sometimes referring to as product placement. Culture also enhances social cohesion by making people of different cultures live together and improve learning and better understand other people.

People use media to get access to information or something that is lost back sometime back; for example, a woman in NewYork lost her phone in a cab and got picked by another lady. The lady started using that phone; unfortunately, the original owner bought a similar phone that looks exactly like the previous one. After logging into her account, she was shocked to learn that her phone was being used by a lady using her phone. This made her publish and post that lady's images on social "Tale of lost cell phone" (Newyork Times, 2006). Therefore this shows that technology can be used to retrieve culture preserved because it is assumed that the web doesn't forget. For example, if you want to access songs sung by the legendary King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and the reggae maestro Bob Marley you need to search them on the internet, and you have access to all of them.

Influence

The celebrities often tend to influence their followers to indulge in immoral acts, which sometimes go against social norms such as drinking and smoking; for example, these musicians tend to shoot videos of smoking. This is bad; because it destroys the society norms if they happen to watch songs and videos which have not been censored. Breihan (2007) defines censorship as the act of editing songs to remove the explicit part. As a youth, I have encountered so many straightforward songs on the internet. Despite all these shortcomings portrayed by music in popular culture, media remains the relevant tool of informing cultures and their importance to a particular and how people associate themselves with it. As discussed above, the media plays a significant role in integrating people with a specific culture.

Media promotes consumerism. After all, it promotes consumerism because people access their products without going to the shop using social platforms (Nielsen, 2016). Multinational corporations take this and increase their brand awareness to consumers by using celebrities to market their products. This is sometimes branded as influencer marketing because Celebs have substantial social media followers by swaying people to buy those products (Stubb et al., 2019). Technologies also ensure people are informed of things or various activities happening in many parts of the world. Media also raises awareness about particular social stereotypes happening within our vicinity or other parts of the world. The media brings or links up people of the same culture together; it also teaches people. For example, in the entertainment sector in popular culture where music lies, people feel entertained from music by linking up with musicians they love, thus enabling musicians to reach a large fan base (Popular, 2015). Popular music has broad appeal and is listened mostly by the majority of youth globally. The elite in society has been branded as people who love music.

Conclusion

Music to date had used by the majority of singers as a source of income, where musicians are now able to sell songs in CDS .and also Partnering with telecommunication providers to sell their songs as I tunes, as opposed to ancient days when it was just for fun and played during ceremonies. Technology has also revolutionized the media, and people are more interested in gathering and interacting on social platforms than when print media was the only media available. Technology plays a significant role in linking up people of the same popular group together, and therefore they can share their beliefs. Music also enables one to identify a specific popular group member, for example, in Jamaica, where Rastafarian religion has grown due to reggae music.

References

Aditiya , Sarthak (2006). Transport geography, Tribalism. London. Aditua Publications.
https://francis-press.com/uploads/papers/0CYaeI5A5NqXCoX21BQcFqWMTi7uIlf2lF4NKe4K.pdf

Dominick, J. (2012). The dynamics of mass communications (12th ed.).