4 Characteristics of Pop Culture 1.Produced by cultural industries Ex; Disney Corporation produces movies, cartoons, amusement park, and merchandise. 2.Differs from folk culture Folk culture; traditional activities that are not financially driven. 3. It’s everywhere T.V, movies, radio, commercials. 4. Fills a social function It serves as a cultural forum. Ex; friends and family ask about your reaction to a new movie or show.

Patterns of how People Consume Popular Culture People seek or avoid specific forms of popular culture. Ex; some like reality T.V. shows others avoid them. Cultural Texts: Popular culture messages on T.V. shows, movies, advertisements. Encoding: Creating a message Institutions form text by relying on peoples identities and then target specific markets. Decoding: Interpreting the message Our social identities help guide our interpretations as decoders.

Magazines and Cultural Identities Advertising offices of Magazines make their reader profiles available to potential advertisers. Average age, gender, incomes. Some Magazines serve certain ethnic groups Ex; Hispanic Magazine targets Latino audiences. Cultural Texts vs. Cultural Identities People come together through cultural magazines and newspapers to affirm their relationship with their cultural identities. But not all popular culture texts are correlated to particular cultural group

Resisting Popular Culture Refuse to engage in them Not owning a T.V., refuse watch movies with violence. Ex; University of North Dakota’s fighting Sioux mascot; want to ban Indian imagery that’s considered hostile or abusive. Social Roles Pop Culture plays a big role in how we think about other groups, so there’s concerns about the representation of various social groups. Ex; Disney film Aladdin racist portrayal of Arab culture. Targeted at profits of corporations Ex; Iraqis buy pirated DVD’s of U.S. films, market doesn’t earn profit for these sales.