Pop Culture and the Four Core Concepts of Media Analysis

Popular culture is defined as the "culture based on the tastes of ordinary people rather than an educated elite." It includes the entirety of mainstream ideas, attitudes, images, and perspectives. This culture is heavily influenced by the media, especially today where companies aim to sell you their product through meticulous marketing plans. These are specifically aimed at young people, as they are the ones who are most involved in pop culture. In class we watched the Frontline episode focusing on the marketing strategies of companies with a young target audience. This included YouTube stars, actors, film ads, and specifically how 'likes' and 'shares' have become a new advertising currency. As social media is mostly used by teens and young people, those tend to be the main forms of media used to market their products. This can be linked to the core media concept of the mass media selling audiences to advertisers. Companies often pay these media platforms, like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. to not only be able to advertise their products there, but also send them analytics focusing on the age groups that are liking their content, what they have personally liked on these platforms, where they are located, and more in order for them to get a more focused target audience, and to guide future business decisions and ad campaigns. This method can be further linked into the first core concept, that the construction process of advertisements is invisible to viewers, readers, and listeners. What we as consumers get, is the finished product. We don't get to see the amount of detail and statistics that go into making one ad, or one ad campaign. We don't know for a fact what the true aim or purpose of an ad is other than to try and sell us their product. We don't know if the intended effect is to get us addicted to the product, or simply create a loyal customer base. There are so many factors and angles we don't get to see. Because of this, consumers like us will try to interpret a meaning from these messages. Everyone will form their own opinions based on their cultural background, interests, age, religion, morals; meaning that one advertisement can have multiple impacts on people. That is why companies will have a target audience, and try to predict what their reactions will be based on these, and will approach this through the current pop culture. However, today it has reached that point where the media has almost full control over what pop culture becomes. This can be linked to the second concept of us depending on the media to understand the world around us and different cultures. So, when the media somewhat controls your ideas, attitudes, images, and perspectives; it makes it significantly easier to sell products to you, because they can just create an ad that will agree with all of those. It is because of this media control, that some people have begun to criticize the modern pop culture, calling it synth, or synthetic culture. In previous years, this culture was created by the people, for the people to enjoy. Now, it is created by corporations in order to sell products, and earn a profit.