Popular Culture and Social Media

So why have a chapter on popular culture in an intercultural communication book? "Popular culture is intimately connected with education, mass communication, production, and a society's ability to access knowledge" (Campbell, Intellectbooks.com). From an intercultural communication perspective, popular culture is usually our first exposure to other cultures. It is the place that we learn about those who are different than us. Martin Nakayama believe that "popular culture is a lens for viewing other cultural groups". Research tells us that people use popular culture to learn about other cultures, to re-affirm their own cultural identities, and to reinforce stereotypes. In other words, popular culture plays a powerful role in how we think about and understand ourselves as well as others.

For our purposes, the characteristics of popular culture are considered to fulfill social functions within a culture and are considered a cultural socialization agent. As a socialization agent, the messages and images that appear on television, radio, in print, hand-held devices, on large screens, the internet, and other forms of new media, can have a tremendous influence on how people view themselves and others. Because of this, the governments in some countries ban certain types of programming or only allow programming with specific agendas.

Convergence

Each era is marked by changes in technology. What happens to the "old" technology? When radio was invented, people predicted the end of newspapers. When television was invented, people predicted the end of radio and film. New technologies don't mean that the old technologies simply vanish, people still read newspapers, listen to the radio, and watch TV, but now it's possible to do all those things through one device - be it computer or smartphone - through the medium of the internet. Convergence is the process by which previously distinct technologies come to share content, tasks, and resources. Not clear about this yet? Think about your smartphone. It can take pictures, act as an alarm clock or a flashlight. You can access and read this textbook, send text messages, listen to the music, watch videos, and check the news.

The idea of convergence is not limited to technology though. Theorist Henry Jenkins breaks down convergence into five categories: economic, organic, cultural, global, and technological. Although all five categories are fascinating, we will consider just two categories: cultural and global convergence.

Cultural Convergence

Cultural convergence has two different aspects. One is that content flows across several kinds of platforms. For example, novels that become television series or movies (Dexter or To All the Boys I've Loved Before); manga, webtoons, graphic novels, or comics that become movies or series (Love Alarm or The Black Panther); even amusement park rides that become film franchises (Pirates of the Caribbean). And then there's Harry Potter who exists in books, films, toys, amusement park rides, candy bars, and more!

Another aspect of cultural convergence is participatory culture or fan culture (we're using the term culture loosely here)—that is the way that consumers can annotate, comment on, remix, and otherwise talk back to culture in unprecedented ways. Participatory fans are on the forefront of blending all the different elements of our shared culture and often doing it across national boundaries.

Global Convergence

Global convergence is the process of geographically distant cultures influencing one another despite the geographic obstacles that separate them. Nigeria's "Nollywood" cinema takes its cues from India's "Bollywood," which of course came from Hollywood. Old Tom and Jerry cartoons and newer Oprah shows are popular on Arab satellite television channels; successful American horror movies like The Ring and The Grudge are remakes of Japanese hits. The hit television show "American Idol" was a remake of a British show.

The advantage of global convergence is worldwide access to a wealth of cultural influence. Its downside can be the threat of cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism is the way that developing countries are "attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating center of the system (Schiller, 1969). In other words, less powerful nations lose their cultural traditions as more powerful nations spread their culture through their media and popular culture. Cultural imperialism can be a formal policy, or it can happen more subtly, as with the spread of the outside influences of popular culture.

When culture becomes a commercial commodity, the fear of the homogenization of cultures rises. People from different parts of the world can learn to dress, eat, consume, and communicate in the same ways. Localized cultural diversity could become endangered as a dominant, globalized culture becomes the norm. As Martin & Nakayama note "There is no easy way to measure the impact of popular culture, but we need to be sensitive to its influences on intercultural communication because, for so many of us, the world exists through popular culture".