The Influence of Popular Culture on Society's Self-Perception

In "Where the girls are: Growing Up Female With the Mass Media," Susan Douglas analyses the effects of mass media on women of the nineteen fifties, and more importantly on the teenage girls of the baby boom era. Douglas explains why women have been torn in conflicting directions and are still struggling today to identify themselves and their roles. Douglas recounts and dissects the ambiguous messages imprinted on the feminine psyche via the media. Douglas maintains that feminism is a direct result of the realization that mass media is a deliberate and calculated aggression against women. While the media seemingly begins to acknowledge the power of

In Breazeale’s text, “In Spite of Women”, he touches on how the magazine, Esquire, focuses on incorporating content that is solely directed to the attention of the heterosexual man. In the magazine, Breazeale states that it is an attempt to make men fantasize women only sexually which leaves men with the power and control that they believed that had lost post-depression era. Throughout Kenon Breazeale’s text, he shows how that for there to even be a male consumer, there must be women involved. So, while the magazine touched on things like food, apparel, and home décor, Esquire needed to incorporate erotic images of women in order to capture the attention of heterosexual males. In Breazeale’s text, his purpose is to focus on Esquire to emphasize men’s dominating nature over women in society. In my rhetorical analysis, I will concentrate on analyzing how Breazeale argues that Esquire magazine utilized erotic text, cartoons, and illustrations about women to place the consumer role on males.

The quality of American television has become a national disgrace. Young women in America who are displeased with their appearance more likely then not can trace those feelings directly back to images from the mass media on television. The unrealistic representations of women that the mass media bombards young women with indicates that the television has become a source for a distorted understanding of gender roles among adolescent women. These images warp young women’s views of their own gender identity. The mass media on television should in an attempt to provide more positive gender identities for adolescent women depict women on television in more realistic ways, should stop

In the recent history, feminism and pop culture have become more closely entwined than ever before. This can be partially because of the growing interest in culture studies as an academic discipline, but it can also be explained by the fact that, there’s a whole lot more popular culture to watch. Pop culture has become our common language, a universal way of uniting the world. Pop culture is also a key route to making the concept of feminism both resonant and relatable. In this paper, I am interested in the relationship and connections between pop culture’s representations of women and girls and the depiction of feminism through the lens of pop culture. There’s a

The Netflix documentary Miss Representation by Jennifer Siebel Newsom explores how the media contributes to influence the young girls and boys in America. Every day in America we are showed this unrealistic look of what the so-called perfect image of women is supposed to be from the TV shows we watch, the movies we see, to the magazines we read, to the online social media outlets we visit. This documentary shows the negative effects it's having on teenage boys and girls in America, Miss Representation interweaves between the stories of teenage girls, telling their own experiences and how the media has portrayed the image of women to them. They share their stories from pressures they feel they have to live up too from how the media shows them

Stylist magazine features high end content that includes fashion, travel, beauty, people and careers news. Judging from the general content included in Stylist, such as aging creams, expensive perfumes and its ‘intelligent approach-covering a broader range of culture and tackling issues women face in their professional and personal lives’-it is evident that Stylist succeeds in attracting their intended target audience. Stylist aims to target affluent 20-40 year old female commuters and according to their media kit, Stylist’s typical reader are women of the average age of 33, with 7 out of 10 unmarried and with no children. Despite attracting this particular target audience it can be argued that- with Stylist’s vibrant front covers and fun features such as temporary tattoos,ways to deal with hangovers and make-up tutorials,Stylist is luring in younger readers thus expanding their audience as a whole.

What dictates the social roles, the individual responsibility everyone has in society, and stereotypes, an overgeneralized and oversimplified belief of a particular person or group, in America’s 21st century society? Can rationale and critical thinking be held accountable for the establishment of ethical beliefs involving people and their sex, gender related value systems? The following readings covered in this essay are both found within the textbook, Signs of Life in the U.S.A.: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers; the Introduction: Popular Signs written by coauthors Sonia Maasik, a writing programs lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Jack Solomon, an English Professor at California State University, and located within the second chapter of the textbook, the brief article, Dove’s “Real Beauty” backlash, written by Jennifer L. Pozner, the executive director of Women In Media & News (“Sonia Maasik”)(“Jack Solomon”)(194). Mass entertainment culture, the popular interests of the majority broadcasted in the media, can be attributed for constituting and sustaining the potentially hindering culture myths, a fictitious but widely accepted belief of a certain culture, regarding all genders. These cultural myths are not exclusive to men and women as they also involve transgender individuals and others who identify as another gender not classified under ‘cisgender.’ An extensive analysis of mass entertainment culture and

Throughout history women have been depicted and treated as an inferior to the male all aspects of life. It is without debate, that to this day, like many other countries, the United States of America is a patriarchal society, valuing men over women and using various tactics to oppress women by constructing gender roles. These gender roles are thrust upon people before birth and are reinforced through society within the media. This object here is to provide an overview of the portrayal of women in magazines from the late 1800’s to present day. As the years progress, so do the number of women’s rights. While women are still fighting for equality, the birth of feminism has done much to close the gender gap. Mass media, magazines in particular, facilitated in fostering a stereotype which became the standard, and continues to be, used by society. A society that continues to oppress and suppress its women. However, as the mass media has the capability to demystify, or to bring down and/or destroy a particular group or person, they also have the ability of mystification, or emulating a person or group into society’s graces. I plan to review how women were portrayed since this country’s inception with an analysis of how gender equality might be possible today.

Using the Social Structure and Personality perspective (SSP), we can view the media as an agent of socialization, a nexus between adolescent girls and society’s expectations of how the “ideal” adolescent girl (and/or woman) is supposed to look and behave by society’s standards. The Social Structure and Personality perspective states that our position in the strata affects our individual experiences and characteristics (Rohall, Milkie, and Lucas 2014:38-44). In this sense, we can correlate

On another note, we can also see how this magazine attracts women. Most women care for clothes and jewelry, others care for the artistic aspect of another culture. I’ve scanned through the entire magazine, and I have not seen a gadget that a man might be interested in, which is why we can infer that women are most likely to be the audience that this magazine aims to attract.

In today’s society, is the media mirroring our behavior, or are we mirroring the media’s portrayal of us? That question was posed in the documentary “The Merchants of Cool”, narrated by Douglas Rushkoff. This program examined the teenage culture and how the media is used to manipulate and portray our generation. With examples from Sprite, MTV, WB, and other massive media outlets, evidence is shown that our media-teenager relationship is tainted with sex, music, rebellion and a broad image of what it is to be “cool”. Most of the images portrayed of teenagers aren’t the best. With TV shows such as “MTV Spring Cruise”, teenagers are shown as sex-driven, reckless kids. TV corruption is just one of many examples of the blurred line between reality and perception in media and advertising.

The expansion of the magazine industry in the post war years gave the American public easy access to ideologies that were being presented in advertisements.3 Also in the post war years, cultural shifts magnified longings for immediate gratification, with the middle-class becoming more open by a leisure-oriented consumer ethos.4 Carrie Pitzulo, author of Bachelors and Bunnies: The Sexual Politics of Playboy, states “with more disposable income and a diminishing sense of identity, growing numbers of men looked to magazine’s to confer an identity to guide them through the expansive consumer market”. These male-targeted publications presented an image that encouraged men to reinvent

This magazine is geared toward women; therefore the majority of the main topics and advertisements are also aimed at the women who read the magazine. Instyle highlights the aspect of gender roles, where women are expected to be held on a “pedestal.” This pedestal is holding women to the standard of wearing nice clothes, high heels, and make up all the time, while at working long hours. For example, the magazine has an advertisement for secretaries for shirts that pop while sitting at a desk. Instyle reinforces the gender role that women hold lower jobs than men, and mainly hold desk jobs such as

In the article, “What Is Popular Culture and Why Study It,” Deanna Sellnow describes to one the importance of pop culture in our world today, how it shapes people’s identities, and the reasons they should be aware of our culture today. Whether people realize it or not, Sellnow says that pop culture screams at them from every angle of their lives. Although pop culture can be the things seen and heard in one’s surroundings, it is most prevalent through media. Movies, magazines, and music are all examples of mediated popular culture that is cheap entertainment for the enjoyment of the mass population. Many people are influenced when they tune in to the messages these things are sending. Some of these messages may challenge

I have always believed that modern women were discreet about subjects, such as wanting more money, sex, and exercise; however, prior to reading Cosmopolitan I was unaware that this content was available for males to purchase and gain more insight on women. My initial perception of Cosmopolitan was that I would be bombarded by articles on clothing, make up, and celebrities; instead, I stumbled upon articles about emergency funds, cycling, and the best sex toy in the market. Upon analyzing women’s magazine Octobers Cosmopolitan I was able to examine articles that went against my expectations and views on the opposite sex because I discovered women are concerned with their finances, lust, and bodily improvement.