How does the social media contribute to the spread and advancement of pop culture?
One of the phenomena’s of today’s popular culture is the emergency of social networking. Everywhere you hear about twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. In a group of 100 people aged 18 to 45, 80% of them are on the social media (Baumann, 142). With the wide spread use of cell phones, and the increased number of people who have joined the social media everyone from grade school children to grandparents are tweeting or posting. Web grounded network services make it possible to link people across various regions. Through prompt messaging and e-mail, online communities are created. Facebook and other social networking tools are increasingly the object of scholarly research. Scholars have begun to reconnoiter the bearing of social networking sites, investigating the role played by such sites play in relation to popular culture and more specifically how it contributes to the growth and development of the culture. This paper seeks to examine how social media contribute to the spread and advancement of pop culture.
The main purpose for the creation of social network was to help individual across the continents to communicate easily and effectively within a very short time. Different people from different places in the world have different culture and their way of doing things. The creation of these social networks like twitter gave a way to the interaction of people from different cultures. The outcome of these interactions produces a corresponding exchange of cultural practices among the users (Berger & Arthur, 34).
Social networking is evolving rapidly and so is the pop culture. The power of social media to influence pop culture is diffuse and indisputable. Through the social networks, those who practice pop culture or those who advocates it have been able to advertise its contents to the entire world. They post what they are doing or what is in their minds and this information can be accessed by millions of people who are on the social media. Paying a close look at the way pop artists currently use the social media, one can with no doubt conclude that the social media is being used by pop artists as a media through which they advertise and popularize the culture (Rojek, 125). Through such advertisements and content about the popular culture that is constantly being posted on the social media, several people have been able to learn about the culture and have apparently resulted to practicing it.
In addition, social media enable people of common bonds but different culture to meet and express their cultural pride to each other. This creates a direct link and exchange of pop culture. The direct opportunity exposed by the introduction of these social media has led to the expansion of social circle. The expansion of social circle definitely implies the change in the popular culture of the involved party hence its spread across the continents.
Through the social media, one can access the personal profile of the pop star of choice through the information posted on their social network wall. Proving a suitable example on this, the use of Facebook is widely and commonly used to post personal information to friends that you may have never met before or even to the public. The pictures uploaded as profile pictures may give the other individual an insight of different pop culture of how the people from that entertaining industry wear and the type of language they speak. This has led to the spread of pop culture to the different places on earth (Epstein & Dan, 420). When a musician posts her pop song on social media such as you tube, it is accessed by millions of people around the world within a very short period of time. The pop culture is in return spread and influence the way people behave or wear from the looks they watched. The pop stars are trying to expose their culture to the society and thus its spread to the other parts of the world.
In addition, the use of social media has significant effects on the pop culture. The fans of these actors may communicate with their chosen pop star and be able to receive instant feedback within a very short time. The fans may post their interests and the type of work they want to be released and within which time they will be expecting the work to be complete through the social Medias such as the flickers and twitters (Berger & Arthur, 68). The use you tube has advanced the level of video and music downloads from the pop stars. The fans may stream through the online services provided by the YouTube and other common downloading engines. The exchange of this pop culture is thus enhanced through such methods.
The pop stars may also spread their culture to the people through posting of information and pictures on music or movies portals provided by the subscribers and inventors of these social media. This enables a fast and secured method of interaction to prevent other form of cybercrimes that may result. In a concluding remark on this point of discussion, pop culture is fastest growing and most spread across the world within the shortest time possible and has a great impact to the society in general.
The social media has also been used for recruiting new members into the pop culture. After connecting with the people who practice pop culture, people have been lured to joining it and have apparently been recruited into the culture. This can be termed as the main reason for the rapid growth and progression of the pop culture (Rojek, 82). After being recruited, the individuals are encouraged to continue learning more about the culture and practicing it. The possible advantages that one might possibly derive from the culture are also unveiled to them and all these happen through the social media which provides a healthy ground for the interaction of cultures. This scenario is further intensified by the strong electronic bond that has been created by the contemporary technology such that an online interaction is almost similar to a one-on-one interaction.
Another very important way in which the social media has contributed to the spread of culture is its use in raising awareness about a concert organized by certain superstars. It is fascinating how celebrities are using the social media to interact with their fans and inform them on various upcoming events, the entry requirements and the location. Some celebrities even go to the extent of raising money to finance a certain event or bail themselves out of a certain financial crisis through the social media. They make their problems public and calls for members of the public to assist. The public offers a helping hand as they are aware that they benefit from the wellbeing of the celebrities (Petracca, 132). This has enabled pop artists to continuously obtain the support and maintain the conditions that they require in order to continue propagating the pop culture. Fans have also continuously been made to feel that they are personally involved in the lives of celebrities and this has been of utter importance in the growth of pop artists and culture in general. According to Lawrence, “the media creates celebrities” and this is particularly very true as far as social media and pop artists are concerned (Hugenberg, 34). Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian did not become famous simply because of being perfect performers but rather become famous due to the exposure that the social media gave them.
However, the social media has had its drawback too. It has replaced traditional interactions of cultures. Additionally, many have misused it in communicating certain information that might not really be considered by the society to be moral. A good example is the posting of explicit pictures that might be harmful to other users of the social media (Baumann, 95). This might create more social problems and this is not what the founders of the social sites envisioned. Despite its healthy contribution to the growth of pop culture, the social media has led to a scenario where individuals overlook their own cultures in favor of pop culture (Sternheimer, 214). Some have even adopted some aspects of pop culture that may not actually be acceptable in their individual society. The society might consider such individuals to be outcasts and this might not auger well for the individuals’ lives.
Works Cited
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Berger, Arthur A. Pop Culture. Dayton, Ohio: Pflaum/Standard, 1973. Print.
Epstein, Dan. C20th Pop Culture. London: Carlton, 1999. Print.
Hugenberg, Lawrence W. Basic Course Communication Annual. Boston, Mass: Academic Library, 1989. Print.
Petracca, Michael. Common Culture: Reading and Writing About American Popular Culture. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2007. Print.
Porterfield, Sally F, Keith Polette, and Tita F. Baumlin. Perpetual Adolescence: Jungian Analyses of American Media, Literature, and Pop Culture. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009. Print.
Rojek, Chris. Pop Music, Pop Culture. Cambridge, U.K: Polity Press, 2011. Print.
Sternheimer, Karen. Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture: Why Media Is Not the Answer. Boulder, Colo: Westview Press, 2013. Print.
