Mass Media and Popular Culture Paper Essay Example

to the media whether we believe it or not.

Whether, it is a teacher, news, friends, etc. , children listen to media and probably have more access than we as adults.

Since the beginning of mass marketing on television, it has started to slowly influence the normative culture values of today. Television has been considered to be the best way to reach the mass audiences by trying to reach out to each individual and their particular personality. There is an interdependent relationship between advertising and media.

However advertising has not “created” these values it only influences them. In the late 1980s ABC, CBS, and NBC mostly reached out to the widest (whitest) audience to bring in the most money (Wilson, 2001).

The younger networks such as Fox, WB, and UPN’s ratings were driven by the ethnic minorities which in time would develop an urban niche. The minority watched these shows because they could relate to the programs which they feel accurately portray their culture. This began a new trend in television shows and it may have helped change the future for the minority.

For example, before President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, the idea of having a black president was only depicted in movies, novels, and television. Various celebrities, actors, and comedians have portrayed a black president on screen.

Comedians developed parodies about a black president because of the growing popularity, and it was used to explore the cultural gap. In 1983, Eddie Murphy did a stand-up routine in “Eddie Murphy Delirious” he enacted a parody of a black president (Carter, 2009).

Also in 2009 Gilbert Arenas portrayed a black president in an ad

marketing an Adidas sneaker he designed and named it the “Black President. ” The depictions of these various fictional black presidents may have accustomed Americans to accept a black man as president.

Terms such as Americanization, Westernization and even globalization are only a few of many that have been employed to label the phenomenon of America's growing cultural dominance in the world (Pells, 2000). With the development of microprocessors, the Internet is perhaps the most significant technological innovation of our time, playing a considerable role in the growth of globalization. The internet and globalization has really improved interpersonal communications in the sense of expediency and efficiency, the internet or perhaps the technology that internet brings forth has placed limits on any type of relationships.

The Internet provides a cheaper, faster and easier method of communication, an alternative that has created a “global audience”, as mentioned by Renato Ruggiero, director general of the World Trade Organization. The down side to this technological edge is, instead of having personal relationships that run deep through experience together there is are missing links to interpersonally communicating. Following, you may find that with the fast pace of technology, you only have time to chat, text or send an e-mail and the interpersonal relationships are lost there in.