Introduction To Digital Humanities Text Analysis

Pop culture, what does this term even mean? It seems to be a word that contains subjects of media, social structure, and society as a whole. According to the dictionary, pop culture is defined as “cultural activities or commercial products reflecting, suited to, or aimed at the tastes of the general masses of people”. In the society we live in today, we are constantly surrounded by pop culture, either that is with television, magazines, different sources of social media and/or exposure to others. Due to pop culture being such a dominant contribution into our world today, it has effected many parts of society. The domination of social media has created idealistic views that are stressed upon female adolescents in particular. Upon media’s influence, traditional tactics and work have been modified in order to keep up with our technology oriented society. This alters the schools and education systems. Through the use of television, social media and other means of pop culture, serious study is necessary due to the negative effects it has on the younger generation and the effects it has for their futures.

Through David Letterman, Rudy and Ron’s fear as well as Edilyn’s confusion, Wallace examines television’s role in American culture especially in making pop culture. In fact, this

The spread of television has affected American households universally, which started in the 1940s but has continued to make a dramatic surge. There is a trend at that is being captured across televisions in households everywhere. Politics, reality television, social media and public information is being broadcast from household to household. Television has in a way become a mode of how we think and interact with each other. Television is starting to leave that bubble where it was strictly entertainment, now television is becoming a source of what we must believe. The consumer demand for television as spiked dramatically, in the way we view ourselves and perceive others in the world around us is through a television screen. Although we are

Popular culture is consumed through interaction in the social media that includes television programs, movie theaters and virtual social networks. From the media, interests lie in the political developments and discussion concerning governance. These media satisfy appetite for political information while guiding an understanding on the national issues and choices made.

In the first chapter of The Rhetorical Power of Pop Culture by Deanna Sellnow, the author defines popular culture and explains the importance of studying the subject. Sellnow begins with a short explanation of ethics to convey that the influence popular culture has is not always used ethically. Secondly, Sellnow compares the different contexts of culture, elitist and diversity, to explain what popular culture is not. Popular culture is compiled of everyday things that influence people through subtle messages such as what is appropriate and inappropriate, good and bad, and so on.

    The form of communication created by the television is not only a part of how our modern society communicates, but is has changed public discourse to the point that it has completely redefined it, argued Neil Postman in his convincing book Amusing Ourselves to Death. He viewed this as very harmful, and additionally so because our society is ignorant of it as they quickly becomes engulfed in its epistemology. When faced with the question about whether the television shapes or reflects culture, Postman pointed out that it is no longer applicable because "television has gradually become our culture" (79). What kind of culture is this? Postman warned that it is one in which we

“The average American home has more TV sets than people, and our TV sets are turned on an average of nearly 7 hours per day and we see about 20,000 TV commercials per year (Herr, 2007).” (Sellnow 7). This sentence alone just shows us that we are around popular culture more than we may think. In the first seven pages of “What is Popular Culture and why study it?” Deanna Sellnow talks about how popular culture influences everyone in the world. The whole passage is to explain how popular culture persuades all the people in the world. There are different ways that Sellnow explains in the passage, that popular culture shapes people from how you should act and how you should not act, to what you should believe and what you should not believe. For

Popular culture is the artistic and creative expression in entertainment and style that appeals to society as whole. It includes music, film, sports, painting, sculpture, and even photography. It can be diffused in many ways, but one of the most powerful and effective ways to address society is through film and television. Broadcasting, radio and television are the primary means by which information and entertainment are delivered to the public in virtually every nation around the world, and they have become a crucial instrument of modern social and political organization. Most of today’s television programming genres are derived from earlier media such as stage, cinema and radio. In the area of comedy, sitcoms have proven

As America headed into the 1980s, two decades of social and political upheaval have left the nation rattled and the economy weakened. The Iran hostage crisis shook America's confidence and many looked for a new kind of leader to steer the country into the new decade. Ronald Reagan led America into a new era of prosperity leaving the soul-searching of the 60s and 70s behind. The nation was ready to enjoy itself and with plenty of new toys to play like VCRs and video games, Americans spent more time at home and soon something called cable TV would make it even harder to leave the living room. With the new innovation of the TV, one of the ideas for a channel was a marriage between music and television. This new idea for a channel devoted to something called music videos would end up revolutionizing and often scandalizing an industry that had no choice but to embrace the fact that music in the 1980s had to have a face with videos. By having these music videos, they would change the way we look at music and the way we look at the world. This cutting- edge idea was a new medium perfectly suited to a new generation and that idea was called, MTV. This leads to the question: How did MTV influence pop culture of the 1980’s? This topic is worthy of investigation because the coming of MTV has had a significant impact on the way people see pop culture. Before researching the topic, the writer had limited knowledge on MTV and only knew about the music itself. In the paper, the writer was

Can T.V. shows be the reflection of our society or influence the behavior of the members of our community? Since 1936 when television broadcasting begin, it priority was to inform and to entertain our society; subsequently, a massive amount of rules and regulations were created to control the material presented in TV, which principal goal was to safeguard the moral and ethical standards of it time. Nevertheless, from its beginning to the present home entertainment television standards contents have change; likewise, the moral an ethics values of our society have change and continuing changing from generation to generation. TV shows from the 50’s, 80’s, and the present exposed many changes in the way human role are exposed, the language

Dave Parry presents a more suitable definition for digital humanities opposed to the other two. His definition of DH is to view the digital humanities as new approaches of scholarship, as modifications in not the tools in humanistic studies, but in the scholarship itself. Regardless of the concentration of work being done, using the digital creates a whole new way of working. Parry finds the first form of DH quite dull because he’s not fascinated in study that looks for the frequency of words. Rather, the author wants a more significant role for the digital humanities than being a way of analyzing text faster.

Popular culture can be defined as “The knowledge of current or up-to-date events. It can refer to music, television, film, sports, and anything in the public domain.” (reference.com.n.d.). MTV operates globally and one may argue that MTV shapes their audience tastes however in present times the public has vast options and therefore can easily dictate by choosing the channel that best suits their tastes and wants. MTV’s power to adapt to change has worked to their advantage as they have been able to capture their target audience throughout their existence.

Today’s society focuses more on the idea of mass media and of things that are portrayed with this. Because of advancements in technology, a person could simply turn on a television set, a computer, or just their phone to find out things that are going on in the world. In dealing with pop culture, one would see that the ideas and objects generated by a society are being promoted by the media. Mcdonald's and other restaurants use this to promote their items.

The concept of hegemony used in the media is of central theoretical importance and, as Bernadette Casey notes ,it enables television to construct a limited range of views of the world, specifically promoting the ideas of the dominant societies (2008). The term , defined by Casey as control of one state over another, was further supported by Gramsci’s theory (1971),where it is argued that culture and politics are linked together through leadership , establishing control through persuading people in their dominant values. Casey further examines this theory in terms of television practices, where viewers are encouraged to regard the capitalist needs as the needs of the society in general (2008). In relation to these studies, the essay is going to analyze the hegemonic concept in a particular part of the mainstream television, the American TV series, Sex and the City.

The television is also a very important aspect of popular culture that affects the American Identity. Watching television is such a common part of contemporary society, that most Americans adopted it as a part of their daily routine and watch television for at least an hour a day. Stanley Crouch, a poet, music and cultural critic, writes that whenever people pretentiously and proudly announce, “I don’t watch television,” they should follow it up with “I don’t look at America either” (Masciotra 79). Television has become a part of many people’s lives. When the mass population watches the same TV shows, movies, etc. they can all relate to each other, and thus unite them as an American. We look to TV shows to see how other people like us act