What's Real and Not Real in Pop Culture?

In exploring how to understand idea and meaning of pop culture, John Storey had to first explain and define 2 important terms, culture and ideology. This helped give a better understanding of what makes pop culture so unique.

The concept of ideology caught my interest because it seemed to continually address that some texts give a "distorted image of reality" (Storey, pg. 2) Whether it be from a reality show or television drama, the media is constantly trying to present a certain message that is far from reality. 

For example, the reality show the Bachelor/Bachelorette. Yes, it can be an enjoyable show and yes, it attracts a lot of viewers but it gives an unrealistic representation of how to "find love". It seems to be one of those circumstances of how the media distorts the reality of situations that are real but makes them into something less realistic. Other examples would be shows like Real Housewives, and The Hills.

Television dramas also base some shows off of real life situations and exaggerates them into a different form of reality. For example, Greys Anatomy. It's a fictional drama so it's obviously not real but there are real life circumstances that get exaggerated. Also, it gives a very different idea of what doctors and hospital life is like. I know several people who want to be a doctor because on Grey's Anatomy it looks "cool" and "fun". If that's what they want to do then that's great, but if the want is solely based off of watching a television show, then they are seeing a different form of reality.