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Popular American Culture

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Popular American Culture
Popular American Culture
SOC/105
December 05, 2012

Popular American Culture
Many people do not know what popular American culture is. Popular American culture surrounds everyday life. Some popular American culture influences the way many people live his or her lives day by day. According to Petracca and Sorapure (2007), many say that popular American culture influence on society should be considered negative (p. 4-5). This conclusion is based on violence and sexual explicitness in movies and song lyrics. Popular American culture is border than just music and movies. This essay will provide insight that popular American culture can also have a positive influence on society and personal decision making.
Culture can be described as characteristics from a specific ethnic group. Everything about this specific races or group defines their culture, (e.g., language, music, food, etc.) Popular American culture falls into another sector of life. “Pop culture is the shared knowledge and practice of a specific group at a specific time and place (Petracca & Sorapure, 2007, p. 4)
Many trends in popular American culture cause both a negative and positive affect to society. One major trend of popular American culture that has taken over the nation is smartphones. Cell phones have come a long way with today’s technology. Almost anything can be done with a smartphone. Another major trend is the Digital Video Recording (DVR). The DVR has allowed people to record shows and watch them later. Many television shows ratings have gone up because of the use of DVR’s. Even though television show ratings have increased, it has been said that it is not because of the use of DVR’s. Popular shows are still popular because of the fans that watch the show when it airs on the television for the first time (Hatala, 2009). The biggest trend in todays is social networking sites. Facebook and twitter are two major networking sits used among people. These sites allow people to interact


References: Hatala, J. (2009). Top 10 Pop Culture Trends of the Decade. Retrieved from http://pop-damage.com/?p=4219 Petracca, M., & Sorapure, M. (2007). Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American popular culture (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
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