Research Proposal
The modern world has long entered the era of technological advancement that broadened the scope of popular culture manifestations. Today, not only films, television, music, or marketing are regarded as the primary cultural contributors, but also social media, online platforms, and other digital domains become significant participants in the life of average Americans. Popular Culture has a strong influence on society by forming a system of beliefs and attitudes.
Moreover, its overwhelming ubiquity and accessibility due to digitalization emphasize the ultimate expansion of the trends that are portrayed as a norm (Reed 80). The message that the majority of popular culture entities send to the public predominantly forms the opinions about the publically acceptable lifestyle. It is vital to explore the issue of the relationship between popular culture and society to understand how it affects people’s behavior and what outcomes such connection might generate.
Social media, films, music, and other manifestations of popular culture impose an image of a rich person as the only one who can live a decent life. Therefore, the idea of prioritizing wealth over personal fulfillment is generally adopted by different sources of the modern American popular culture and leads to harm to average Americans’ financial stability and stagnation of personal development. This argument will be developed by employing causal argument by stating a cause and arguing its effects (Lunsford 242). Popular culture imposes the priority of money and wealth over primary human values.
It causes such effects as the financial crisis of average Americans, inhumane behaviors, and overall diminishing morality in younger generations. People struggle to fit in the image of a wealthy, thus successful person and often fail, ending up in a debt crisis. Such characteristics as personal growth, professional development, or fostering humane qualities are generally omitted or obscured by the idea that money rules Everything. Ultimately, young individuals grow up in a society that does not set high intellectual and ethical standards that imposes a significant threat to the future of society.
The issue is relevant to contemporary American society due to the speed of technological advancement, which shapes the types of relationships and behaviors of the masses. Constant exposure to informational influences inevitably leads people to shifts in their opinions and beliefs. Multiple studies are devoted to the investigation of the relationship between society and popular culture (Buhmann et al.; Dittmar et al.; Reed).
However, there is little evidence available on the topic of the prioritization of wealth over personal growth in popular culture. It is vital to investigate the causes and effects of this issue to present a credible overview of the current situations. The outcomes of the study will contribute to the understanding of the economic and psychological effects of popular culture’s influence on people.
For the study, conventional research papers and books will be used to analyze the scope of investigation of the problem developed by scholars. Besides, the researcher will utilize articles from online newspapers, such as Broadly and The Atlantic, to assess the presence of the problem in mass media as one of the influential spheres contributing to the investigated issue. The format for the project is a conventional research essay that will address the problem by discussing its cause and the effects it generates. The utilization of reliable sources will contribute to the credibility of the conducted research.
Conclusion
The powerful influence of popular culture on society is inevitable and is a significant issue discussed by scholars over the past several decades. Social media, films, music, and other manifestations of popular culture portray financial success as the only way to be happy.
Such tendency causes several adverse outcomes, such as financial crises of the average Americans, decline in well-being and personal fulfillment among people as the result of materialistic trends, and the diminishing morality in youth. It is vital to provide control over the prevalence of potentially harmful content in popular culture from a long-term perspective. It is possible to reverse the power of culture’s influence to a more positive direction to make a change and ensure that the world is not only about money.
Works Cited
Buhmann, Alexander, et al. “Popular Culture and Communication Practice.” Communication Research Trends, vol. 34, no. 3, 2015, pp. 2-25.
Cook, Eli. “How Money Became the Measure of Everything.” The Atlantic. 2017. Web.
Dittmar, Helga, et al. “The Relationship Between Materialism and Personal Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 107, no. 5, 2014, pp. 879-924.
Edelbaum, Susannah. “Our Obsession with Wealth and Youth Is Making Us All Soulless and Insane.” Broadly. 2018. Web.
Lunsford, Andrea A. et al. Everything’s an Argument. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013.
Reed, T. V. Digitized Lives: Culture, Power, and Social Change in the Internet Era. Routledge, 2014.
Valkenburg, Patti M., and Jessica Taylor Piotrowski. Plugged in How Media Attract and Affect Youth. Yale University Press, 2017.
Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew. “Invisible Monsters: Vision, Horror, and Contemporary Culture.” The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous, edited by Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, Routledge, 2017, pp. 275-289.
“What Popular Culture Tells Us About Wealth.” Marketplace, n.d. Web.