The Relationship Between The Era Of 1950 And Today 's Lifestyle

American society today has been shaped by years past. After the Second World War, U.S. inhabitants dedicated their lives and time to shape and improve America’s culture to the way it is today. Through the decades of the 1950s and today, the society has changed through scientific and technological advances. On the other hand, aspects of the culture have not changed because its citizens have yet to advance in those areas.

When most people think of the 1950’s or 1960’s, they think of Elvis, Greasers, jukeboxes, Woodstock, and rainbow peace signs and hippie love. Although these symbols are somewhat accurate (and very popular), not many people think about the changes society and culture went through. The 1950’s and 60’s were a time of great change and freedom for many Americans. Everything from World War II, to the gay liberation movement, to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped to change society. Many of the views American’s had on topics such as war, gender roles and sexual preference were changed greatly after these events and have led to our culture being what it is today. The 1950’s and 1960’s were a time where great changes took place that helped to

Overall the 1950s and today are very similar in some ways, but also very different in others. With a 67-year different the 1950s has changed but also things have stayed the same. Since the 1950s, some similarities are discrimination, teen interest and problems with North Korea. Some differences since the 1950s is the average poverty rate, average unemployment rate and the average income for families in the United States.

In “Life According to T.V.” written by Harry Waters and published in Newsweek in 1991, Waters examines the effect that television has on everyday lives. He says that TV has given Americans an unrealistic view of how life works. From jobs to minorities to how women are portrayed to crime rates nearly all aspects of TV are unrealistic or exaggerated. George Gerbner was used to back up Water’s theory on how television impacts people. Water states that heavy viewers of TV are more unrealistic in their view of the world than light viewers because they are exposed to more of the unrealistic ideas portrayed in TV shows than light viewers. The jobs on TV are often expressed as high ranking jobs like lawyers, doctors and athletes rather than blue collar or service jobs such as small businessman or teacher. According Waters the elderly are depicted as being sick and weak when they are actually the opposite. Women are also portrayed as mothers and lovers more often than successful working women.

Life today is very fast-paced. Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere and will push you out of the way to get there, like it's some kind of race. In our personal lives, we have our cell phones, and maybe a home phone, scheduled play dates for our kids, microwaves, satellite TV, home security systems that don't involve dogs, solar landscape lighting, automatic underground sprinkler systems for our lawns, and compact fluorescent lights to replace the incandescent bulbs that waste energy. In the business world, you have meetings that you can attend by using a video phone, PowerPoint presentations to help you get your point across at the meetings you can't get out of, instant messaging to speak to clients and other businesses around the

     But, for most part, author feel television is 'drug'; that is corrupting today's society. Many of us fail to recognize how it has caused the decline of family rituals, the avoidance of relationships and the destruction of the family. Our addiction to this daily habit cause us to escape the real world.

The values of the modern American society have changed drastically from how they were sixty years ago, in the 1950s. The values of today’s society consist of relationships (social), appearances (clothes), and items of possessions (technology).

Many people inaccurately assess the 1950s and 1960s. Historians, in particular, tend to describe the 1950s as a decade of prosperity and the 1960s as one of turbulence. According to most, peace and harmony defined the 50s while violence and protest conjured the 60s. This isn't true because controversy existed in the fifties, many achievements occurred in the sixties, and both decades had its political ups and downs. With all the criticism surrounding it, the 1960s remains one of the most controversial decades in American history.

Life in the 1950s was a time where when a women was married and has kids she would stay home taking care of the meals, and children. Men would be the ones to go out and find a good job that helps with money problems. Also sometimes married women would hire a nanny to also help around the house. In the 1950s men respected women more than they do today because women were supposed to be beautiful and elegant. Also men were able to be a gentleman around women.

It is essential to examine the cause of media’s increased influence on self-estem and body dissatisfaction before debating the possible solutions. First of all, as Geissler indicates in the essay, “We live in a fat-fearing and food moralizing culture where magazines, movies, and a multimillion dollar ‘health’ and diet industry all pump out the message ‘thinner is better’.” (330) The ideal of slender

     What role does television play in society? For decades we have seen many parts of our world rapidly going through changes in technology. Today’s society has been transformed by means of communication and the available information through mass media. Most Americans rely on television for news, sports, and entertainment. Television is just one of the many examples of how technology has changed our lives. Since the invention of the television in the early 1900’s, it has played a very important role in our lives. Having a television set in the home has become very essential in today’s society. We depend on it to entertain us with its sitcoms and to inform us about current world issues. The

In the article “Distorted Images: Western Cultures are Exporting Their Dangerous Obsession with Thinness,” author Susan McClelland’s mainly focuses on how many young women idolize the women they see on T.V. The media is making many women feel as if they need to look a certain way to fit in with the world. Also the fact the western culture is spreading to other countries is a big issue because sicknesses, like bulimia, were not an issue before. Many women in other countries are starting to look at the women in the United States and want to be just like them. In this article, the author says that television, magazines, and media show

An award-winning writer and internationally recognized expert on the family, Stephanie Coontz, in her article, “What We Really Miss About The 1950’s,” states that “In a poll by the Knight-Ridder News Agency, more Americans chose the 1950’s than any single decade as the best time for children to grow up.” However, Coontz has her own view of the 1950s, and she illustrates her own opinions about this decade using strong and logical facts. While the nostalgia of the 1950s is vastly strong in some people, some fail to notice the negativity and the reality of it.

During the 1950’s art took a major turn in history from traditional styles depicting people and scenes of everyday life to abstract thoughts and ideas that were transformed onto a canvas to express emotions and ideals in society. People, events, and society have always impacted several styles of art, but the consumer culture in the 1950’s impacted art in a new completely unique way. Post WWII society was more industrialized and more focused on developing and selling new products. The postwar generation had more disposable income to spend on the latest and greatest products and the market turned to advertisements in mass media to get their products out there to consumers. With televisions and films increasing in popularity the market flooded these forms of media with catchy flashy ads that showed favorable people like movie stars using products. With the increasing use of mass media, the culture shifted to consumerism which effectively shifted art as well. Art was directly impacted by the consumer culture because of society’s use of advertisements, photographs, and films which artists like Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol used those elements in their own works to portray the change of societal standards in a new modern style of art called pop art.

After going over how meaning is made in television, in chapter seven, Mittell goes over how these meanings on television can impact the way that we, as viewers, think about our lives and the world. Mittell goes over the two most popular approaches that are usually used to understand the relationship of the meanings conveyed through television and the real world, as a way to escape the world and as a reflection of the world. The escapist and direct reflection approaches, according to Mittell, are not accurate. The escapist approach, which states that people watch television to escape from real life, falls short when considering the news, sports, talk shows, and other reality television programs due to their connection to real life. The direct reflection approach, which states that programming on television is true to viewers’ lives, fails to take into account fantasy programs and the representation distortion that happens in non-fiction programs. Mittell argues that the best way to understand the relationship between television meanings and the way television viewers see the world is to use the refraction approach. The refraction approach states that television meanings refract the world, where programs alter the world around it and its meanings through particular techniques and forms like cinematography and editing.