The Business of Pop Culture

part 1
Analyze: Artifact of Popular Culture
Evaluation Title: The Business of Pop Culture

We have seen throughout this course how popular culture influences our attitudes, both positively and negatively. In this final paper, you will examine an artifact in pop culture to determine its message and effect.

For this assignment, select an artifact that, in your opinion, unfairly creates a negative bias or promotes a negative stereotype about one population of society. The pop culture artifact can be a media source (song, movie, television program), a product or other tangible associated with pop culture. Provide a link to this artifact (or an image). Explain why you have selected this artifact, and why you feel that this creates a negative bias. Describe how you would re-design or re-write the script of this artifact to change the way others would view this population.

In your paper:
Provide a specific link to pop culture artifact used for this paper or an image of the artifact.
Discuss the artifact in depth. Explain the stereotypes or biases that you see being perpetuated in the artifact.
Discuss the role of popular culture in communicating harmful or incorrect stereotypes or biases. Using the concepts, terminology, and ideas within Units 1-7, recommendations for how people can identify and correct views that are incorrect or harmful.
Re-design or re-write this artifact to change the way others could view this population without the negative bias. Be sure to support this revised artifact with factual examples of the culture.
Specifications:

Submit a 1200-1500 word essay addressing the questions above.

In your essay:
Be sure to structure your essay with an introduction paragraph that includes a thesis statement, well-organized supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion that reiterates the main points of your argument.
Your argument should be supported by reputable research cited in APA format both in the body of the paper and in your references section.
part 2
Discussion post: Adorno
Instructions:
After you have completed the Unit 7 material and have considered the role of the culture industry, consider the following questions.
Describe Adorno’s views on standardization and pseudo-individualization.
Share a unique example from pop culture (movies, songs, books, etc.) that follows this structure (do not reiterate the same examples shared by classmates).
Do you find merit in or agree with Adorno’s theory of popular culture? Why or why not?
APA format for the references
Respond to these two posts
In the response post, include the following:
Respectfully share your own perspectives and ideas with classmates you may disagree with.
Add new ideas to the discussion instead of just agreeing that something in the reading was interesting or reiterating what others said in the discussion.
Find an additional source online or in the library that adds a new perspective to what has already been said.
Offer an opposing viewpoint that is supported by fact and research.
1. The German philosopher Theodor Adorno held theories that heavily scrutinized pop culture and how people appealed to whatever capitalism presented to them. This idea brought about his theory of standardization, in which he argues that capitalist societies have categorized the individual in a way that the individual can be controlled within various structures (Fagen, 2022). His idea of pseudo-individualization essentially means that people are sold a false sense of choice within the capitalist cultural paradigm (Degan et al., 2022).

Social media, in its entirety, is a prime example of Adorno’s theories. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Youtube, etc. They all follow the same formula that draws in their users by the masses. Big-Tech platforms like these lure people in to use their services with the draw of social connection with one another. They then give us the pseudo-individualized option to have our own “profile” and “personalized content,” which is another way for this capitalist system to find out what we’re interested in through mass data collection that can be sold to advertisers.

Sadly, I do agree with Adorno’s theories. It seems that his theories have more merit as our western consumeristic society continues to thrive in this modern age. The masses do not care enough to stand up against capitalist structures. These structures have naturally stuck to the same formula for decades to the point where the majority of people are comfortable and content as this system continues to be prosperous and provide for our needs.

2. Adorno’s view of standardization is that popular music sounds alike in many aspects. Pseudo-individualization is popular songs sounding alike have some element of uniqueness that allows it to differentiate in the slightest (Storey, J., 2009). I would like to use the example of grunge music in the late 80-1990s. Bands like Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots only to name a few had a very common undertone. But in the same breath, there was a uniqueness to each band that sold out shows and caused a fury of flannel across the globe. Each band had a depressive tone either from somber lyrics or low, dirge notes, but drum beats that would make you bop your head and tap your foot. What was a marketing ploy dubbed the Seattle sound, “grunge” went from joke to description of feedback and distorted guitar sounds (Grambush, J., 2019).

I have to agree with Adorno’s theory of popular culture, that the product of the culture industry breeds conformity (Storey, J., 2009). Take a look at a suburb and drive through any random housing development. Note how many houses look identical and did you notice that the street names are types of trees, presidents or animals. Allotments are in my opinion the epitome of conformity with all the houses looking the same both inside and out with the exception of the exterior color.

Last Completed Projects