Find an article, podcast, or video on the web that critiques some element of popular culture through a mass culture theory approach (Note: The piece does not have to directly say "mass culture theory" but should clearly invoke the ideas of mass culture theory). It should have been published within the last 5-10 years.
- Provide a brief synopsis of the piece and the link (1 paragraph)
- Identify how the article is making a mass-culture theory argument (1 paragraph)
- Then provide a counter-argument that identifies some of its flaws--especially those that are relevant with the Problems of Mass Culture Theory video (1 paragraph).
Relevant Tags: mass culture theory, [name of popular culture being explored]
Example: Bennett on Today's Music
This article is a partial interview with the famous singer, Tony Bennett. In it, Bennett says that modern music has gone down the drain in that they don't produce "quality" music. He believes that the music industry is just pumping out music geared towards youth and is solely focused on making money. He also believes that the general audience is largely "ignorant."
All of these comments represent the mass-culture theory approach in that somehow the capital focused companies are producing lots of irrelevant music. They are not investing time and money to produce real music (supposedly like what Bennett himself produces). Ultimately, Bennett is arguing that the public has simple and unsophisticated tastes that the companies are capitalizing on.
Of course, this line of thought doesn't really consider how people who listen to modern music appreciate or make sense of it nor does it consider what is authentic about Bennett's music that is somehow inauthentic about modern music. How does he know what "quality" is or means? After all, he is not the sole musician and there is much variation among musicians in his time and since. The only difference is that some of his music has withstood the test of time, but he would have been also labeled "popular" in his time and seen the same criticisms that he now places upon today's musicians. He relies on elite taste rather than fully exploring individual artists and music and exploring how fans actually experience such music.
Barboza, David. "How China Built 'Iphone City" with Billions of Perks for Apples Partner." N.p., 29 Dec. 2016. Web. 8 Feb. 2017.
ReplyDeleteThis article is about a hidden bounty of benefits about the production of apples most profitable product, the iPhone. In this article, we learn about Apple and how it's the world’s most valuable company's and one of China's largest retailers. It was said that the city of 6 million people in an impoverished region of China the factory there is owned and operated by apples manufacturing partner they go by the name of fox conn, they can produce 500,000 iPhones a day. We learn that the local government is doling out more than 1.5 billion iPhones to Foxconn. Although Apple came later than many other technology companies, it now generates nearly a quarter of its revenues from sales in China and has some of the fattest profit margins in the business. A 32 GB iPhone 7 cost an estimated $400 just to produce, yet it retails for roughly $650 in the US and Apple manages to earn 90% of the profits in the smart phone industry worldwide. There are many issues with in this situation. It doesn't make sense that there are thousands of phones being made a day in factories that are being sold for more than it cost to make.