In the reading, "What is Pop Culture?" by John Storey, the author does state a general idea of what pop culture is, but he does not go further to give an exact definition of what pop culture really is. The reason why he doesn't go for the straight definition of what pop culture really is, is because, simply, there is not a designated definition. The term pop culture can change, and will change from day to day. It's as easy as, what is popular on a given day, to what isn't popular on the next day. It gets confusing because you may ask yourself, as the reader, do I really know what pop culture is?
Through out the reading, Storey uses many different sources to explain to his audience what pop culture is exactly. It is good that he uses many sources to define what pop culture is, but on the other hand, it does confuse the reader because there are just so many ideas put thrown into one general reading.
On the end of the second page, the beginning of the third, Storey puts in an excerpt by Karl Marx to identify what is pop culture, according to Marx, of course. To sum it up, Marx is basically saying that the economical production of a society has a direct correlation to the culture the society produces. This is a bit confusing for me to understand because I do not think that is how our society produces pop culture today. Think about it: is our pop culture throughout society produced mainly on our economy? In possibly different societies this may be true, but in today’s americanized world I believe pop culture stems out through the newest trends, the newest technology, and the newest media.
We're going to read Marx for Thursday and talk about this very thing. I'll be interested to see whether you buy his argument about the economic base of culture once we go over it!
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