Affects of Popular Culture on Today's Generation

2008 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Relationhip between media and society

People today blame popular culture for the “corrupting” of today’s generation. Many Americans do not think of the other factors that go into popular culture. There are in fact many factors that go into the things such as teen pregnancy, education failure, and violence of today’s youth. Factors such as money, home life, and enviorment. Not only do Americans feel popular culture is to blame, but also feels popular culture is having its affect too soon.

Before being able to discuss the effects popular culture has on children, what exactly is “childhood?” With the ongoing debate of abortion many people do not agree on when a child’s life beings. Does a child’s life begin the moment the sperm and egg meet? At the second trimester in a pregnancy? At birth? When thinking about childhood, many think about a young child going through the different stages to grow up into a mature adult. Many Americans do not agree on this, and do not even agree when a child’s life begins, so how can we define childhood and say when it begins and when the stage ends?

If childhood can not be defined then how can people blame popular culture for changing childhood or having a detrimental affect too soon? They can not because childhood is defined differently to different people. Therefore if it can not be determined when a child’s life begins then it can not be determined when childhood is over. With that said, it is impossible to say when a child is “adult” enough to handle the influences popular culture may have. To many people a child transitions into adulthood when they get their first job and start taking care of themselves, and taking on more responsibilities. However, the country says adulthood begins, legally, at the age of eighteen.

So what de...

... middle of paper ...

...uths of today to strive for more in life and to prove that popular culture does not necessarily affect all youths negatively. Also with all of the information and role models children have to look up to Americans can overcome the “corruption.”

Works Cited

Abelson, Phillip H. “A Major Generation Gap.” Science 256.5059 (1992): 945. Student Edition. Web. 28 June 2010.

Allender, Dale. “Popular Culture in the Classroom.” The English Journal, Vol. 93, No. 3. (2004). 12-14. Print.

Gladwell, Malcolm. “Brain Candy.” The New Yorker. 15 May 2005. The New Yorker Online. Web. 7 July 2010.

“Negative Effects of Music.” Media Awareness Network. n.d. Web. 7 July 2010.

“Parental Controls.” Time Warner Cable. n.d. Web. 7 July 2010.

Sternheimer, Karen. Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture: Why Media Is Not The Answer. Colorado: Westview Press, 2010. Print.

Show More
Related

  • Modern Golden Age: Is the U.S. in its Golden Age?

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    An artistic achievement that can demonstrate that the United States is in its Golden Age is its very influential fast growing entertainment business, a business very important to the U.S. economic activity. The U.S. entertainment has been popular around the world globalizing U.S. pop culture and the U.S. entrainment business economy. This globalization is a result of new innovations, that the U.S. itself developed, that allows film, music, and television, to spread worldwide. Because the U.S. is generally first to have such innovations the entertainment is commonly considered better quality thus appealing to the masses of people. Other factors that lead to the huge success of its entertainment business include their methods of distribution, which is through large and powerful foreign companies, and their large English-speaking market potential. High market ability and general international appeal of the U.S. entertainment business has put the U.S. in a “Golden ...

    Read More

  • The Influence of American Culture in the 1950s and 1960s in Canada

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    Pop culture in the 1950s and 1960s began to spread and infest the nation from front to back through radio shows, books and magazines, television programs, and even motion pictures. Whether it is culture in terms of political affairs, clothing or the latest musical sensations, the United States has always played the dominant role when it came to who knows what is best, first. Some cases of Americanizati...

    Read More

  • Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates: A Critical Analysis

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...r the threshold from childhood into adulthood. Puberty is not only a time of physical metamorphosis, it is also a time where one sheds his or her childish inhibitions – the “death” of childhood.

    Read More

  • John Locke Childhood Essay

    1216 Words  | 3 Pages

    I believe my concept of childhood was, in large part, formed by the way I was raised. My older sister and I were raised by a single mother in a small town in country Victoria. My mother is a socialist and feminist and I think that these beliefs informed her decisions on how to treat her children, choosing to treat us as capable individuals and allowing us to make, or at least have input into making, decisions about our bodies, our activities outside of school, and our lives in general. When reflecting on how I see children and childhood, I believe that my view of children as capable, confident, and independent, and my belief that childhood should be fun and free is due to the environment I grew up in.

    Read More

  • How Does the Line Between High and Pop Culture Become Blurred?

    2013 Words  | 5 Pages

    The term ‘popular culture’ is a particularly difficult one to define. The word ‘culture’ alone is, according to Ray Williams, “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language” (Storey; 2006, 1). Popular culture must also be a term that is equally hard to define. Popular culture is an ambiguous phrase in cultural theory. In its simplest form: popular culture can be seen as the culture of the working class and minority cultures such as; folk and youth culture.(Brooker; 2003).

    Read More

  • The Cultural Impacts Of American Pop Culture

    825 Words  | 2 Pages

    Popular Culture has changed drastically over the decades with the biggest question being whether or not popular culture is a positive or negative expression of our ideas and reflections. American Pop Culture has an extremely important role that influences the United States and around the world. There are countless topics that make up pop culture and it is nearly impossible to name all of them. Some of the topics are Television, Music, Religion, Politics, Arts, Economy, Education, Family roles and structures. Three of the cultures that I believe has changed the most and seems to cause the most controversy are television, music and religion.

    Read More

  • Culture Industry Theory

    2025 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is increasingly clear that media and culture today are of central importance to the maintenance and reproduction of contemporary societies. Cultures expose society to different personalities, provide models, which display various forms of societal life and cultivate various ways to introduce people into dominant forms of thought and action. These are the types of activities integrate people into society and create our public sphere. Media and technology surround our society; engrained into the fabric of our existence so much so, that it has become hard to find an aspect of life not influenced by its effects. For this reason, media controllers, wield extreme power and influence over the lives of everyday people. Although, they increasingly continue to feed the audience trash, despite their authority as the creator of our social/cultural interactions, and justify their actions by calling themselves industries. Reducing themselves to just businesses whose sole purpose is to create a profit. This admittance of what they feel to be their true purpose however does not hinder their control and power but instead adds to it. Creating a need for there to be some way to analyze and discuss whether they are using their position and power wisely. Filling this void, scholars have theorized ways for individuals to be critical of the media that they intake. One of these critical theories is the “Culture Industry” theory. Using Cultural Theory, as well as other complementary neo Marxist theories, it is possible to determine how Stacy Peralta, once urban youth culture advocate, became incorporated into the superstructure through media use, thus making him a tool for the continued commoditization of society, and a youth marketer for industries l...

    Read More

  • pop culture

    682 Words  | 2 Pages

    American popular culture is quite serious because we find the “voices” that write, play, film, photograph, dance and explain our American history. George Lipitz notes that historians can learn a lot about the process of identity and memory in the past and present by deciphering the messages contained in popular culture forms such as films, television and music. As stated by George Lipsitz, people can either work for the economy and state, and against the population who take in the messages or they can work in a positive way as memories of the past and hopes for the future.

    Read More

  • The Struggle To Achieve The American Dream

    1573 Words  | 4 Pages

    America’s youth is struggling to find success because they are suffering from an economy that was severely damaged by the previous generation. In many instances older generations insist that the reason young people are struggling to survive and succeed in today's economy is because millennials and those belonging to Generation Z are lazy and do not want to work hard in order to achieve their dream, or it is that those youths feel as if they are entitled to success so they complain when they do not have opportunities and jobs handed to them. In reality, the lack of success for the youngest two generations does not have to do with an attitude problem, but rather with an economy that is struggling to survive due to the actions of previous generations. According to Hardin and lifeboats ethics, there is a large divide between the rich and the poor and there is not a solution to decreasing that divide that would result in the survival

    Read More

  • Childhood Essay

    704 Words  | 2 Pages

    What is childhood? To some its the upbringing and quality of life given to the child within the first several years of the child's life. In its simplest form, childhood is classified as the age span which ranges from birth to adolescence. During those years of childhood, most children go through various different physical and cognitive changes. According to the famous cognitive developmental theorist Jean Piaget, in psychology, childhood consists of four separate stages of development. Those stages are sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. The sensorimotor stage extends from both to when the child first starts to grasp the concept of language. In the pre-operational stage is when the child starts

    Read More

  • Hegemony and Youth Culture

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Fourth Edition. Athens: University of Georgia Press. 2006. Print.

    Read More

  • Childhood And Adulthood Compare And Contrast

    899 Words  | 2 Pages

    Childhood is the stage of being a child, obeying to their parents, still living with your family and growing up. Adulthood is when we are grown up by getting a job, learn lessons, moving away from their parents, getting married, and having kids.

    Read More

  • Pop Culture Is A Reflection Of Social Change

    1293 Words  | 3 Pages

    Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change” (John Podhoretz). It encompasses the advertisements we see on T.V, the clothes we wear, the music we listen too, and it’s the reason Leonardo DiCaprio has not won an Oscar yet. It defines and dictates the desires and fears of the mainstream members of society; and it is so ingrained into our lives that it has become as natural as breathing. Moreover, adults never even bat an eyelash at all the pop culture and advertising that surrounds them since it has become just another part of everyday life. Pop culture is still somewhat seen as entertainment enjoyed by the lower class members of society; but pop culture standards change over time. A notable example of this is the sixteenth century author, William Shakespeare, since his works were considered pop culture, entertainment that could be enjoyed by everyone, but now they are considered literary classics. While pop culture encompasses most aspects of our lives, its influence is most obvious through each generations reaction to media,

    Read More

  • Negative Effects of Mass Media on Teenagers

    880 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses” (Thinkexist, 2010). The mass media, including news, movies, magazines, music, or other entertainment source has become a part of daily life for many people. As the quote mentions mass media and its power are capable of influencing people’s mind and behavior. Contents in the media introduced to young people make it difficult for them to distinguish between what is real and what is not, as a result stimulating confusion and blind imitation. The mass media plays an important role in the increase of violence, sexual activity, and risky behaviors among teenagers.

    Read More

  • Essay On Popular Culture

    1170 Words  | 3 Pages

    On an individual basis, popular culture helps establish and mold the subjective self. It influences the way individuals think, act and respond, and this becomes part of how people develop their personalities, preferences, beliefs, and their overall identity. For example, most people idolize certain fashion statements or fads which determines their preference of clothing. This process of self-formation coincides with both elements of personal choice and the responses and attitudes of others. Furthermore, the identity that an individual asserts is influenced by and helps determine the development of social relationships; it influences the communities and groups to which an individual will identify with and how that identification is processed. In the establishment of communal bonding, mass culture helps with, as Leavis describes, a “leveling down of society” (35). The lines of class distinction have been blurred which, to Leavis is not a good thing, but it unites us nonetheless. Popular culture also promotes unity in that it “blurs age lines” (29). As stated earlier, the products of popular culture are targeted towards a variety of audiences; adults read comic books, children watch adult films, etc. (Macdonald 29). Similarly, teenagers and young adults are brought together through night clubs, fashion, and music; college students come together to enjoy campus events; book fans wait in line hours for new releases, etc. Each of these instances produce feelings of belonging, acceptance and connection with members of society over a common

    Read More

More about Affects of Popular Culture on Today's Generation

Open Document