Introduction
Many people misconceive that modern popular culture entirely propagates immoral ideologies, including violence, racism, and drug abuse, among others. However, the society should remember that modern popular culture defines behaviors that are famous in the modern world regardless of their morality.
This implies that opinion leaders and mass media can propagate morally right behaviors leading to positive effects (Crothers, 2010). This paper will, therefore, focus on the positive effects of modern popular culture and evaluate whether media affects society or society affects the media.
Positive Effects of Modern Popular Culture
Morally Right Popular Culture
Burke (2009) argues that modern popular culture has been used to propagate positive ideologies, especially in churches, motivational forums and non-governmental organizations. Churches have profoundly preached religions across the world transforming millions of people to Christianity, Hinduism and Muslim. For example, the Catholic Church has publicized Christianity in China, reducing the level of paganism. Media has played an imperative role in publicizing Christianity in the society until it has become a modern popular culture.
While most people seek to be associated with a religion, paganism is considered to be a moral defect in most countries. In another instance, modern popular culture has embraced motivation and popularized it. Great motivational speakers have been supported by the media to publicize their career.
For instance, Les brown, which is a popular motivational speaker, has appeared in many media houses which publicize his program across the world. These are typical instances where media propagates positive ideologies in the society.
Uniformity
When people act according to modern popular culture, they tend to follow what their colleagues consider to be fashionable and acceptable in the society. This implies that people will aim at following the famously accepted behaviors. It, therefore, follows that people who follow modern popular culture develop uniformity when they are tackling issues. As a result, government can predict their behavior, enabling it to govern effectively.
Businessmen can also predict the behavior of customer by accessing modern popular culture. For instance, businessmen could make a lot of profit if they invest in fashionable clothes that have been accepted widely in the modern culture.
This could be possible if they monitor the modern popular culture and put in mind that popular behavior results to uniformity. Many people will, therefore, struggle to wear the fashionable clothes and abandon the unfashionable ones.
Media and Society
The relationship between media and society is mutual since the media rely on society for financial maintenance while the society relies on media for information. The question seeking to inquire on how these parties affect each other has raised controversial discussions. In my view, the mutual relationship existing between society and media lead to a system where media and society affect each other probably to unequal degrees.
For example, media companies seek to get moral support from their funs to achieve competitive advantage. As a result, they broadcast programs that purport moral ideologies in the society. For instance, some media companies invite doctors to talk about negative impacts of drug abuse to the society as well as the way forward.
This program could be aiming at reducing the level of drug abuse in the society and create a good picture of the media company.
On the other hand, mass media affects the society profoundly because it acts as an opinion leader. In this case, media is capable of swaying the interest of the society by providing opinions about critical issues. However, it is important to state that the effect of media on the society is profoundly greater than the effect of society on media.
Conclusion
Contrary to the misconception that modern popular culture propagates negative ideologies, it is evident that it publicizes morally right behaviors. Additionally, media and society affect each other since they exist in a mutual relationship where they need each other for survival. However, the media impacts on the society in a greater manner than the society affects media.
References
Burke, P. (2009). Popular culture in early modern Europe (3rd ed.). Farnham, England: Ashgate.
Crothers, L. (2010). Globalization and American popular culture (2nd ed.). Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.