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  • Published: 27 July 2021

Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries

  • Pablo Bello   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2343-9617 1 &
  • David Garcia   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2820-9151 2 , 3 , 4  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  8 , Article number:  182 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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  • Cultural and media studies

The digitization of music has changed how we consume, produce, and distribute music. In this paper, we explore the effects of digitization and streaming on the globalization of popular music. While some argue that digitization has led to more diverse cultural markets, others consider that the increasing accessibility to international music would result in a globalized market where a few artists garner all the attention. We tackle this debate by looking at how cross-country diversity in music charts has evolved over 4 years in 39 countries. We analyze two large-scale datasets from Spotify, the most popular streaming platform at the moment, and iTunes, one of the pioneers in digital music distribution. Our analysis reveals an upward trend in music consumption diversity that started in 2017 and spans across platforms. There are now significantly more songs, artists, and record labels populating the top charts than just a few years ago, making national charts more diverse from a global perspective. Furthermore, this process started at the peaks of countries’ charts, where diversity increased at a faster pace than at their bases. We characterize these changes as a process of Cultural Divergence, in which countries are increasingly distinct in terms of the music populating their music charts.

Introduction

Digitization is arguably the biggest change the music market has undergone over the last decades. In 2016, digital sales already accounted for more than half of the revenues of the music industry (Coelho and Mendes, 2019 ). There are innumerable aspects on which digitization has impacted how we listen, produce, and commercialize music. For example, digital music is distributed at a null marginal cost, meaning that digital audio can be reproduced ad infinitum without an extra cost on the side of the record label. For the consumer, streaming has had homologous effects. In streaming platforms, listening to new music does not carry an extra monetary cost, as a listener only pays a flat monthly fee to subscribe to a platform like Spotify Footnote 1 . This way, time and search costs are the only ones remaining in the way of music exploration. On the distribution side, online catalogs of music are orders of magnitude larger than those of physical stores due to the lack of space constraints, making a more diverse offer of music (Anderson, 2006 ). There is evidence that the increased availability of music has been accompanied by an enhanced diversity and quantity of music consumption (Datta et al., 2018 ). In this paper, we explore the evolution of global diversity in the past years and find a clear trend towards global diversity in the music market.

Concerns of Cultural Convergence have been part of the public debate for decades. European governments, in particular, have made attempts to protect national cultural industries either directly (e.g. radio quotas) or indirectly (e.g. subsidizing national film production) (Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ; Waldfogel, 2018 ). Because digitization granted easier access to imported goods, predictions were that national cultural products were doomed, especially in smaller countries. Nonetheless, scientific research has not yet provided a definitive answer to whether this fear was well-grounded or not. There is evidence that digitization might have accelerated cultural convergence across countries in popular music (Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014 ; Verboord and Brandellero, 2018 ) while others find an increasing interest in national artists (Achterberg et al., 2011 ; Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ). Discrepancies most likely stem from the inconsistency in the sample of countries included in these studies and the limited granularity of data available. Therefore, the question of whether digitization and streaming are currently propelling cultural convergence is open for debate. For similar cultural products, such as YouTube videos, global convergence is limited by cultural values (Park et al., 2017 ).

The recent availability of datasets on music consumption across large numbers of countries has provided a way of overcoming some limitations of previous studies. In a recent example, Way and his collaborators, look at Spotify users’ listening behavior and find that “home bias”—the preference towards national artists—is on the rise globally (Way et al., 2020 ). A source of concern is the possible influence of a platform’s endogenous processes on the behavior of its users. For instance, what appears as an enhanced preference for national artists could be the result of changes in the recommendation algorithm. Alternatively, increased popularity of playlists like the New Music Friday, which are biased towards national artists (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018a ) could produce a similar effect. Although far from common, major changes in the recommendation system of Spotify happen, the latest one being announced in March of 2019 (Spotify, 2019 ). As a result, recommendations are now more personalized, which, if the nationality of a user is taken into account, could generate increasing divergence between countries by feeding users with national music. According to Spotify, up to one-fifth of their streams can be attributed to algorithmic recommendations (Anderson et al., 2020 ), which may be enough to sway macro-level trends in music consumption.

We deal with platform-specific confounders by supplementing our analysis of Spotify data with a dataset from iTunes. It must be noted, however, that changes similarly affecting both platforms may exist, such as the increasing use of recommendation systems or catalog expansions, as well as the mutual influence that would make these observations non-independent. Another caveat of using platform-specific data is the fact that users of such platforms might not be representative of the entire population. Spotify users are disproportionately young and male when compared to their countries’ population (Datta et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, the composition of users of a platform is in constant change and the timing of adoption correlates with individual listening habits. For instance, in Spotify, late adopters have a stronger preference for local music than those who joined the platform early on (Way et al., 2020 ). To minimize the impact of these issues, we reduce the sample of countries from the 59 available to 39, keeping those in which Spotify is strongly established. Therefore, we expect the population of users in these countries to be more stable than in recently incorporated ones such as India, in which market penetration is quickly expanding. Additionally, this can be considered as a within-sample comparison (Salganik, 2019 ), which, given the large user base of Spotify, is of interest in and on itself.

In this paper, we tackle the question of whether digitized music consumption is globalizing or not by looking at the ecology of the national music charts of Spotify and iTunes in the past few years. In other words, by observing the global diversity in the charts we can discern whether popular music is converging or diverging across countries. More diversity across countries would be a sign of Cultural Divergence. On the other hand, a decrease in diversity would be indicative of a process of Cultural Convergence across countries. We utilize the Rao-Stirling measure of diversity and its components (Stirling, 2007 ) to describe these trends. We find upward trends in the cross-national diversity of songs, artists, and labels, starting in 2017 in Spotify as well as in iTunes and ending in 2020 for Spotify. Popular music is thus diverging across countries in what we define as Cultural Divergence. To complement previous studies, we also look at the diversity of artists and labels and find that these have increased in parallel. Ultimately, this paper describes trends in popular music across a large sample of countries, giving a more clear perspective of the cultural dynamics in the digital era.

Research background

Winner-takes-all.

Cultural markets often exhibit a highly skewed distribution of success (e.g. Keuschnigg, 2015 , Salganik et al., 2006 ). In the music market in particular, a few hits expand across the globe while the majority of popular songs only hoard local success (see Fig. 1 ). Such inequalities are partly due to the scalability of cultural products, a property that refers to the fact that most of their cost is fixed – although this property does not apply to all cultural markets, being the art field an exception – while marginal costs are relatively low. For instance, once a song is recorded or a book is written, the cost of making another copy is insignificant when compared to the initial cost of producing it, measured in time, creativity, or money, making these products scalable to large audiences. As a result, demand is highly concentrated on the best alternatives, even when they are only marginally better than the rest (Rosen, 1981 ).

figure 1

Bars represent the percentage of songs that got to the charts of exactly x countries. The green line represents the total number of streams that songs on each bin have accumulated while in the charts, as a measure of popularity in the period of analysis (2017-mid 2020).

Oftentimes this is an oversimplified view, since quality in cultural products is hard to define, and it is perceived (between others) as a function of previous success, thus creating path dependencies in the popularity of cultural products and artists. This process can be viewed as one in which information is accumulated, with consumers relying on it to moderate the quality uncertainty of their selection of cultural products (Giles, 2007 ). Information is aggregated in the form of consumer reviews, sales rankings, or top charts. In a pathbreaking experimental study, Salganik et al. ( 2006 ) found that information on other listener’s musical preferences results in an amplified inequality of popularity when compared to a world of independent listeners. Using social cues in the form of aggregated information might be beneficial for individuals in cultural markets in which preference is a matter of taste, but there are multiple strategies to leverage such information and its fit varies between individuals (Analytis et al., 2018 ). In the case of artists, during their careers, “small differences in talent become magnified in larger earning differences” (Rosen, 1981 ). This “superstar effect”—defined as the previous success of an artist—is the most important predictor of the popularity of a song, even when controlling for other factors (Interiano et al., 2018 ). Thus, the huge inequalities of success stemming from the scalability of cultural products and the social influence mechanisms intervening in their spread allows for the possibility of a few songs and artists to dominate the charts across the globe.

In principle, both scalability, as well as social influence processes, may have gained bearing after digitization and streaming. On the one hand, digitization reduced the marginal costs of music production by eliminating the need to manufacture an album. Some transaction costs for digital music remain, such as copyrights and distributing platform fees, but overall, the barriers for music to flow across countries are substantially lower than in the pre-digital era. On the other hand, information is more abundant than ever before. Users can get near-real-time data on the listening decisions of millions of other users. On Spotify, anyone can search through the Top 50 playlists tailored for every country. Each of them contains the most popular songs on the platform, which are updated daily. These playlists are extremely popular among users, for instance, the Top 50 Global has over 15 million followers. This deluge of information is complemented with second-order feedback effects (Easley and Kleinberg, 2010 ) such as recommender systems, which might be luring listeners towards the most popular songs. For Spotify, there is evidence that users who rely more heavily on algorithmic recommendations listen to less diverse music and podcasts than those who discover music for themselves (Anderson et al., 2020 , Holtz et al., 2020 ). In short, there are arguments to think that the winner-takes-all effects characteristic of the music market might be gaining bearing under the digital regime, decreasing the diversity and increasing the concentration of the market in the hands of a few hit songs, superstar artists, and major labels.

The long tail

The idea of the long tail, first proposed by Anderson ( 2004 ) in a widely circulated press article sustains that online retailing has led to increased diversity in the consumption of music. This happened because online retailers do not have the limitations of shelf space that traditional brick-and-mortar stores have, and so their catalogs can be virtually unlimited in size. The unlimited digital space can be filled with niche products that do not attract huge audiences but, bit by bit, make a difference in terms of profits generated. In the book following his article, Anderson ( 2006 ) goes beyond the original argument, suggesting that the Internet has a carrying capacity for cultural products previously unattainable and its impact on cultural markets has been broader than initially expected. Not only the distribution but also the production of cultural goods has thrived as a result of the new technologies for distribution (e.g. online retailers), production (e.g. cheaper software), and consumption (e.g. flat fees). Some have even qualified these changes as a renaissance of cultural markets (Waldfogel, 2018 ).

More recently, Aguiar and Waldfogel have argued that the idea of the long tail fails to account for the unpredictability of success in cultural markets (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018b ; Waldfogel, 2017 , 2020 ). When confronted with new artists, for instance, record labels have a scant capacity to assess what will be the success of those artists. Under such uncertainty, producers strive to pick those with better prospects but there will inevitably be miscalculations (e.g. the infamous Decca audition of The Beatles) and artists that were deemed unworthy of being promoted will end up reaping huge success, and the same in the opposite direction. In other words, before digitization, market intermediaries held most of the decision power over which products or artists were worthy of being produced and which ones did not, the inevitable result of which was that some hits were lost. The reduced costs of production and promotion of digital cultural goods have made possible the production of these products. Unlike what the original idea of the long tail proposed, not all of them will be niche products and some will end up achieving unexpected popularity. The same goes for independent record labels, which now have better opportunities to promote their artists even with small budgets. There is evidence that indie artists and labels have gained relevance under the digital music regime (Coelho and Mendes, 2019 ). For instance, top-selling albums in the US produced by independent labels increased from 12% in 2000 to 35% in 2010 (Waldfogel, 2015 ).

Waldfogel and Aguiar refer to this phenomenon as the random long tail of music production. The random long tail contains those cultural goods that despite not being attractive to traditional intermediaries can be brought into production and, due to the inherent unpredictability of cultural markets, sometimes reach unexpected success. Accordingly, the more unpredictable a cultural market is, the greater the number of unexpected hits. For instance, the success of songs is more difficult to predict than that of movies, whose box-office earnings heavily depend on the budget and cast of the film (Aguiar and Waldfogel, 2018b ). In summary, these studies put forward a vision of the music market in the digital era as more diverse and unpredictable.

Methods and data

Although there are multiple approaches to the study of diversity in social phenomena, Stirling’s ( 2007 ) is one of the most influential and widely applied. More importantly, the Rao–Stirling diversity index has already been used to study diversity in music taste, although at a different level of analysis than here (Park et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2019 ). The Rao–Stirling index consists of three components: variety, balance, and disparity.

Variety is a function of the number of distinct units (songs, artists, or labels) in the charts on a given day. The more unique units the more variety there is in the charts. Naturally, in the case of songs variety is bounded by the fact that the same song cannot occupy more than one chart position per country so changes in variety should be interpreted, rather than the absolute size of the indicators (which also applies to the other measures of song diversity). We measure variety as the number of distinct units divided by the total number of chart positions. Balance refers to how evenly distributed the system is across units. Here we measure balance as 1−Gini, a common measure of the inequality of a distribution. In this case, it is the distribution of chart positions across songs, artists, or labels. The more equally distributed positions are the higher the balance in the system. Importantly, balance does not give any information about the number of units in the charts (variety). For instance, label balance would be highest if two labels produce all the songs in the charts with equal shares as well as if every song in the charts was produced by a different label (and there were no songs in more than one chart-country). The disparity is defined not by categories themselves but by the qualities of such categories or elements. In other words, the disparity is a measure of how different the elements of a system are. We define the qualities of a song by its acoustic features Footnote 2 and then calculate the euclidean distance between songs. In the case of artists, we define them by the central tendency of the acoustic features of their songs on the charts. The Rao–Stirling index combines variety, balance, and disparity into a single indicator of diversity Footnote 3 .

Additionally, we introduce Zeta diversity, a measure from biology. Zeta diversity was developed by Hui and McGeoch ( 2014 ) to tackle the issues with pairwise measures of diversity. Aggregated pairwise distance measures are consistently biased (Baselga, 2013 ) and, when the number of sites (countries) is large, they approximate their upper limit (Hui and McGeoch, 2014 ). More importantly, Zeta diversity gives a more nuanced view of the interplay between global and local hits. The distribution of the number of countries in which a song reaches the charts is right-skewed, as shown in Fig. 1 , meaning that most songs enter the charts of just one or two countries. As a consequence, what aggregated measures such as Rao–Stirling mainly capture is the effect of local hits. The influence of global hits is mostly null in such measures because of their paucity. Zeta diversity, on the other hand, measures distances at multiple orders. For instance, Zeta of order 3 ( ζ 3 ) represents the expected number of songs shared by groups of three countries. It is calculated by looking at all possible combinations of three countries and calculating the number of songs that each group shares. Higher orders or Zeta (e.g. songs shared by groups of 10 or more countries) capture the prevalence of more global hits. Here, we characterize Zeta by its central tendency, but other options are possible. As the order of Zeta increases its value decreases monotonically since there are always fewer songs charting in groups of three countries than in groups of two. In short, Zeta diversity gives us a more nuanced view of the distribution of success of songs across the charts compared to other diversity measures.

The data for the study comes from Spotify’s top 200 charts and iTunes’ top 100. We illustrate the analysis focusing on Spotify’s data because of the larger sample of countries (39 vs. 19). The entire list of countries can be found in Supplementary Table S1 online. Because iTunes data could not be retrieved from an official source (instead we obtained it through Kworb.com), the results are reported only as a means of externally validating our main findings. Spotify’s data covers the period from 2017-01-01 to 2020-06-20, iTunes top 100 daily charts for the period 2013-08-14 to 2020-07-16.

Figure 2 shows distances between countries as a function of the songs shared between their charts within a year. Countries appear geographically clustered. One cluster is formed by Western countries of which Spain is the exception, being part of a different cluster, together with the Latin American countries. The third cluster encapsulates the Asian countries and Brazil. There are some noticeable anomalies, such as the closeness between Turkey and Brazil. Upon closer examination, most of the songs shared between them are produced in the United States. This is likely the result of the small market penetration of Spotify, making for a user base of early adopters more internationally oriented. Alternatively, it could be the result of a small catalog of local music. In any case, the observable consequence is an over-representation of international (and mainly US) hits in both countries’ charts.

figure 2

Jaccard distances calculated over annually constructed incidence matrices. Countries are colored according to the continent they belong to (red: Americas, yellow: Europe, blue: Asia, Green: Oceania).

Although positions are fairly stable over the years, if anything, clusters of countries seem to consolidate, being these three groups more clearly discernible in 2020 than in 2017. Following Park et al. ( 2017 ) we also look at the relationship between countries as a projection of the two-mode network between countries and songs. The modularity of the network indicates the degree to which countries are clustered into modules beyond what would be expected on a random network. Modularity increased consistently from 2017 up to 2020 (see Supplementary Fig. S4 ) indicating that countries within clusters are becoming more similar in their music charts and, at the same time, drifting away from other clusters. These results are consistent with general notions of cultural, geographical, and linguistic distance which elsewhere have been proved to be the main determinants of music taste similarities between countries (Moore et al., 2014 ; Pichl et al., 2017 ; Schedl et al., 2017 ) although with a few exceptions such as the above-mentioned.

Seen as a whole, the diversity of songs, artists, and labels has increased during this period. Variety has grown not only on Spotify but on iTunes as well (Fig. 3 ). The resemblance between the two trends is startling, especially if we consider how different these platforms are, one being a streaming platform with growing popularity (Spotify) while the other (iTunes) is a digital music shop whose user base is in decay. The resemblance between the trends points to the external validity of the observations, although there could be some degree of influence between the platforms and thus they cannot be regarded as completely independent observations. The upward tendency in variety starts in 2017 and plateaus at the end of 2019 on Spotify while it keeps increasing in iTunes.

figure 3

Values range from 0 (same set of songs in every country) to 1 (no overlap between the charts). Calculated for countries in both datasets (16 countries) and the same chart size (100 positions). Time series are calculated with daily frequency and smoothed over a 10-day window. Both Spotify and iTunes display consistent trends of increasing variety over time.

The increase in song diversity can be observed in Fig. 4 . Balance, disparity, and variety have all increased during the period. The disparity indicator also shows a strong seasonal burst around Christmas. This is consistent with other findings, suggesting that in countries in the Northern Hemisphere musical intensity declines around Christmas while the opposite is true for the Southern Hemisphere (Park et al., 2019 ). Overall diversity (Rao–Stirling index) rises from 2017 up to 2020 and then plateaus. Hence, not only there are more distinct songs in the charts (variety) but these are acoustically more dissimilar (disparity) and their distribution over the chart slots is more equal (balance) than at the beginning of the period.

figure 4

Diversity, measured as balance, disparity, variety, or a combination of them, has been increasing consistently across countries with a plateau at the beginning of the year 2020. Besides the secular growth, disparity shows a strong seasonal component centered around Christmas.

As for songs, the diversity of artists has also grown. However, the trend is distinct at the head of the charts than at the bottom. By slicing charts at certain ranking positions we create a top 10, top 50, and top 200 for each country. When it comes to balance and variety, the increase has been more pronounced at the head of the charts, which already presented a higher level at the beginning of the observed period. However, disparity is lowest within the top 10, indicating that the group of artists with songs on the head of the charts are stylistically more similar than those who just make it to the charts (a group that subsumes the former). What we can derive from these trends is that, while there are proportionally more unique artists at the top of the charts, the music that those artists produce is relatively similar, as if there was an acoustic “recipe” for reaching the peak of the charts. In general, artist diversity as a whole has increased at a similar pace across strata of the charts (Fig. 5 c).

figure 5

All the components of artist diversity have increased steadily during the period. As for songs, artist disparity bursts around Christmas. While balance and variety are higher at the peak of the charts, disparity shows the opposite pattern.

The increasing diversity of songs and artists in the charts has been accompanied by a more equally distributed market for record labels (Fig. 6 a). Again, the trend is steeper if we look only at the head of the charts. The number of distinct labels with at least one song in the charts has also increased in a stratified manner (Fig. 6 b). In general, labels had on average fewer artists and songs on the charts at the end of the period. While in the first 6 months of 2017 labels had on average 5.88 songs on the charts (and 2.19 artists), for the first half of 2020 it was one less song (and only 1.66 artists). Interestingly, the number of songs that each artist got on the charts has increased slightly, going from 2.67 in 2017 to 2.96 in 2020 (comparing the first half of each year).

figure 6

The left panel shows the balance of labels over time for three sizes of the top chart, displaying increases over time especially for the highest positions in the chart. The right panel shows the variety of labels on the charts. The same patterns as for balance can be observed.

We can take a closer look at the interplay between local and global hits through the Zeta diversity measure. Figure 7 presents the results for monthly Zeta diversity measures of orders 2—which is equivalent to pairwise distances—up to 20—the mean number of common songs shared by groups of 20 countries. We observe that across all orders of Zeta the mean diversity tends to decrease with time (brighter colors) which is consistent with the previous results Footnote 4 . When we look at the decay of Z -values along orders of Zeta ( x -axis) we observe that it gets steeper over time. In other words, the slope of the regression with Z -values ( y -axis) as a dependent variable and Z -order ( x -axis) as a predictor gets greater with time. Table 1 presents the results of a linear regression model that shows the increase in steepness over time. The substantive interpretation is that global hits have taken the lion’s share of the increase in diversity, becoming an increasingly rare phenomenon.

figure 7

The x -axis represents the order of Zeta and the y -axis the z -value, or mean percentage of songs shared across groups of x countries. Both axes are represented on a log10 scale. The function of Zeta with order shifts down over time and becomes steeper.

By analyzing 4 years of data of music charts in 39 countries, we find clear evidence of increased diversity in the music charts across countries. In the short period covered by this study, the number of unique songs, artists, and labels on the charts in our sample of countries has grown considerably. Despite the concerns expressed by several governments, particularly in Europe (Waldfogel, 2018 , p. 220), popular music is not increasingly globalized. Instead, countries’ popular music was amidst a process of Cultural Divergence that seemed to have come to a halt at the end of the observed period. The increase in diversity seems to be driven by a segmentation of the music market rather than an evenly heightened idiosyncrasy of music consumption. In other words, countries that were already close to one another in taste are becoming more similar but increasingly different from other clusters of countries. Such clusters appear strongly determined, but not only, by geographical and cultural distance. Research shows that regional clusters also differ in the acoustic properties of the music that their populations listen to (Park et al., 2019 ). Therefore, although diversity is usually taken as a positive trait of a system, the segmentation which is driving the increase in diversity can be a source of concern.

We also show that diversity has been on the rise in terms of artists and record labels. Particularly, the rise of label diversity rules out the possibility that the big labels are producing pop music fitted to different markets, as the proponents of glocalization would argue. As a consequence of these trends, not only songs might be increasingly distinct across countries, but also their production and distribution.

Whether it is the preferences of users or shifts in the production and distribution of music that are driving these changes is not clear. The possibility that Cultural Divergence is the result of a random long tail in music production is more consistent with the pace and ubiquity of these changes than preference-based accounts of the same phenomenon. Therefore, as an alternative to preference-based explanations of the increase in home bias (Way et al., 2020 ) and global diversity, we propose that these observations could be explained by changes in music production. One first source of concern with the preference-based explanation stems from the speed and ubiquity of the observed changes. Cultural shifts of this scale are generally slow, comparable in speed to the evolution of traits in animal populations (Lambert et al., 2020 ). Also, there is evidence that changes in the aggregated preferences of a population are mostly driven by generational replacement (Vaisey and Lizardo, 2016 ). Instead, we argue that field configurations can more rapidly sway macro-patterns by conditioning the opportunities of individuals. In the case of music, the random long tail of music production may have increased the available options of users to express their idiosyncratic preferences, which, being to some extent geographically determined (Ferreira and Waldfogel, 2010 ; Gomez-Herrera et al., 2014 ; Way et al., 2020 ), would likely result in national music charts drifting away from each other.

Methodologically, this research shows the potential of Zeta diversity, a measure devised for the study of biodiversity, to gauge the globalization of cultural products at different levels. Since truly global hits are extremely rare phenomena when compared to songs that reach in small groups of culturally similar countries, they carry very low weight when calculating pairwise distances, which is a common way of looking at cross-national diversity. National charts could drift apart without affecting the likelihood of the eventual hit to spread globally and conventional pairwise measures would not pick this dynamic. As we show, this has not been the case for the music market, in which the positive trend in diversity has been accompanied by a significant decrease in the spread of global hits. The application of Zeta diversity is not without issues, one of them being that its calculation is computationally demanding when compared with the other measures of diversity presented here, because of its combinatorial nature. In return, it offers relatively stable estimates of rare events, a useful feature when studying heavy-tailed distributions in general, and cultural markets in particular, in which global hits are highly unlikely but more consequential in terms of collective attention than the more common local hits. More broadly, our analysis applies mathematical methods from ecology to analyze the consumption of cultural content. This interface between disciplines has other applications, for example, to understand the dynamical reorganization of user activity on social media (Palazzi et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, our work builds on existing literature utilizing methods from ecology to study musical taste and consumption (Park et al., 2015 ; Way et al., 2019 ).

To conclude, our results run counter to the notion of an unbounded market that can be distilled from the idea of globalization. It also challenges the expectations of the winner-takes-all set of theories that predict heightened inequality in the distribution of success under decreased restrictions to global expansion. Instead, the music market has become, in this short period, more hostile to the spread of hits across the globe. From a positive perspective, this means that “national cultures” are not disappearing, although this might come at the expense of a more segmented market in bundles of culturally similar countries, and the risks associated with such segmentation if spread, for instance, from esthetic to normative judgments.

Data availability

Data and code for the analyses are available at https://github.com/PabloBelloDelpon/Spotify_paper .

Users also have the option to get free access to a limited version of the platform, which is ad-supported.

Spotify measures the acoustic features of each song and groups them into the followingcategories, all of which we include in the analysis: danceability, energy, key, loudness, mode,speechiness, acousticness, instrumentalness, liveness, valence, tempo, and duration.

More precisely, Rao–Stirling is calculated as in Stirling ( 2007 ): D  = ∑ it ( i ≠ j ) d ij   ⋅   p i   ⋅   p j , where p i and p j are the proportions of elements i and j in the system and did is the euclidean distance between their respective acoustic representations.

Zeta diversity is measured in the opposite direction than the previous indicators of diversity. Higher values indicate more overlap of songs across charts and smaller values indicate less overlap.

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Acknowledgements

D.G. acknowledges funding from the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) through project VRG16-005. We thank Marc Keuschnigg and Paul Schuler for their insightful comments on previous versions of this article.

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Bello, P., Garcia, D. Cultural Divergence in popular music: the increasing diversity of music consumption on Spotify across countries. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 182 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00855-1

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60 Popular Culture Research Paper Topics You Can Use To Make an Excellent Paperwork

Pop culture influences many aspects of modern life. Economics, politics, and even religion are intertwined in one symbiosis when it comes to pop culture. That is why this topic is relevant for students who are going to write a cultural essay. Popular culture essay topics offer a wide range of research themes. Many interesting options for inspiration can be disclosed by providing arguments and discussions with different views on the problem. Such popular culture essay topics are very actual these days.

All teachers have standard criteria for preparing such essays. First of all, your work must meet certain standards and criteria of the educational institution. It concerns the general structure, format, font, and paragraphs. Your essay should have a relevant topic that you must fully disclose and give arguments for each statement. Students must use many sources and confirm information with detailed facts and statistical data.

It adds value to your work and allows you to reveal the essence of the topic you have chosen fully. It is very important to adhere to the structure and the given theme. If you are writing about the influence of pop music on children's intelligence, then you should research this issue and give examples of how a child's brain develops when listening to certain music. All such popular culture topics are needed to rethink contemporary culture.

You can also refer to certain scientific studies and leave links to the best examples that support your point. It's worth noting that this is not a motivational essay where you can write whatever you want. This kind of work should be relevant to the given topic and have convincing arguments.

Pop Culture Argumentative Essay Topics

This topic is interesting because it reveals a specific problem and argues your point of view on this matter. Choose pop culture research paper topics carefully. Many teachers encourage students to choose this essay format because it allows them to show the author's extraordinary qualities. Most of these pop culture topics can become part of large-scale scientific work.

  • Disney princesses and their impact on young girls.
  • Popular culture as a part of common mythology.
  • Modern technologies as a part of innovations in pop culture.
  • Erotic overtones in modern pop culture.
  • The influence of pop culture on the worldview of adolescents.
  • Pop culture as the tuning fork of romantic relationships.
  • Why is pop culture so relevant these days?
  • Formation of moral values through the prism of pop culture.
  • The influence of pop musicians on teen behavior.

Pop Culture and Science Essay Topics

Due to the symbiosis of pop culture and science, such essays are especially interesting for teachers. Students can show analytical skills and create truly expert material by studying the topic. By choosing such a popular culture research paper topic, you can expand your horizons.

  • Principles of materialism and vitalism in the films of Dr. Frankenstein.
  • Are experiments from old films realistic?
  • Modern medical TV shows in the context of neurobiology.
  • Analysis of "Gattaca" and the novel "Brave New World" in the context of gene editing.
  • Features of cloning and restoration of extinct species on the example of science fiction films.
  • An example of the biotechnology risks on the example of Hollywood blockbusters.
  • The value of pop-culture objects in the context of scientific research.
  • Interpreting the future from a pop culture perspective.

Pop Culture Topics: Social Issues

Social issues are a special topic for the entire modern society. Given the context of pop culture, it can be interesting to create an essay. By choosing topics of the cultured conversation, you get the opportunity to answer the most pressing questions of society.

  • Hip hop music: Has this improved or strained race relation?
  • Gender fluidity and LGBTQ movement in modern pop culture.
  • Pop culture and its methods of informing people about class problems in society.
  • Do television and pop culture influence children's perception of the world?
  • Pop culture analysis in the context of fast food advertising and impact on teens.
  • The influence of pop performers on the emotional and mental state of adolescents.
  • Analysis of the modern pop industry as propaganda of false values.
  • Can you replace classical music with pop hits?

Pop Culture Topics: Idols and Heroes

Almost everyone has watched superhero movies, read comics, or had a favorite childhood character. This is a great option for writing about similar characters and interpreting them in real life. These cultural research paper topics are very popular with many students.

  • Madonna's influence on the image of women in pop music.
  • Why is Bob Dylan considered an icon of his time?
  • Influence of superheroes on children's perception of the world.
  • How did Marilyn Monroe change the approach to women's fashion?
  • Michael Jackson's legacy and influence on the genre of music.
  • Reasons for the popularity of K-pop idols and psychophysical addiction.
  • Analysis of the spontaneous popularity of the rapper PSY and its tracks.
  • The influence of 90s rockers on modern youth.
  • Analysis of culture based on social tendencies towards self-development.

Extraordinary Pop Culture Essay Topic Ideas

When you take an extraordinary essay topic, it gives you some space to be creative. Many teachers encourage students to show their intellectual potential and choose original topics for research. Any pop culture essay topic has a rather deep connotation.

  • Manga as a vein of social mood.
  • The influence of pop culture on the self-identification of sexual minorities.
  • Pop art and its basic principles today.
  • How do ethnic issues form in pop culture?
  • An example of historical figures that are significant in pop culture.
  • Impact of pop music on global economic trends.
  • Pop culture's twisted representation of justice.
  • The hibernation of children's qualities in modern pop culture.
  • Is there a place for ethnic music in the pop scene?
  • The influence of music on the formation of modern trends in political development.

Pop Culture Controversial Topics

A controversial topic is an opportunity to prove your point of view to the teacher. If you want to argue for certain views on life and pop culture in general, this is a good option to demonstrate your position. This list of popular culture topics are the most relevant. Many teachers appreciate students who are willing to prove their point of view with real facts. Choosing a controversial pop culture topic will definitely get your instructor's approval.

  • Contemporary pop culture in modern society.
  • The phenomenon of pop culture and a person's attitude to it throughout life.
  • Revealing ethnic issues through the prism of cinema.
  • Modern correctional system in the context of popular music.
  • The popularity of the yakuza and the representation of the group in modern pop culture.
  • Has Metallica changed the image of rock performers in society?
  • Globalization in the 21st century. Its impact on cultural trends.
  • How did Black Sabbath arrange the cultural revolution?

Pop Culture Debate Topic

The debate is an integral part of a democratic society. This format of interaction with students is very popular in many colleges and other educational institutions. That is why you can take an actual topic that is open to discussion and new arguments. The importance of any cultural analysis topic can hardly be overestimated.

  • Pop music as a cultural artifact.
  • Miller's lower-class focal concerns theory and its implementation.
  • Why do pop culture and rap romanticize crime?
  • How intercultural experiences affect the nation.
  • Does Del Monte food affect pop culture?
  • Pre-Columbian American peoples in modern pop culture.
  • Thornberry's theory of interaction in a pop-culture context.
  • How the nature of social mobility has changed pop trends.

How to Write a Research Paper on Cultural Topics?

The essay preparation process should be structured by the rules of the educational institution. First of all, such paperwork should answer three questions:

You must clearly understand how to cover the topic and convey the basic information to the reader. This is very important if you want to argue each step and provide evidence that you are right. The second point is how you will respond to counter arguments and convince the reader that you are right. Your reasoning should be based not only on personal preferences and views but also on general trends and well-established rules. Pop culture debate topics can help build a lot of leadership skills.

Your reader should also understand why you are covering this topic and why you want to explain its importance in society. Such essays are crucial because they reveal the general essence of the problem of social culture and pop culture as such. It is worth noting that not all students can fully disclose such a topic, so it is worthwhile to learn in more detail how to write such essays, at least.

If you are still not ready to approach this task on your own, you can contact us for help. Our experts specialize in high school essays like these and are ready to help you create an original paper based on your instructor's requirements. The main task of the student is to select the correct pop culture research topic. Thanks to our contributors, you will be able to get highly appreciated paperwork that will allow you to get recognition among other students.

An Inspiration Sources List:

  • Popculture.com
  • Complex.com
  • Trendhunter
  • Pop Culture Happy Hour

Pop Culture Aspects and Role in the United States Research Paper

Definition and source of popular culture, role of pop culture on mainstream culture, fashion as an american popular culture, justification of popularity, projected longevity, works cited.

Popular culture refers broadly to common arty or life practices, in both quantitative and qualitative senses. In theory, the term has been used more specifically to mean a certain form of common culture that occurs only in the contemporary period. In this account, popular culture is different from both high culture and folk culture: in contrast to the former, pop culture is mass-produced; contrasting the latter, it is mass-consumed.

Popular culture has been defined in a number of ways. First, pop culture is basically a culture that is generally privileged or preferred by the wider population. This definition tells us that popular culture can be quantified. It is possible to estimate the sales of music CDs, videos and books.

We can also estimate the attendance of people at music concerts, festivals and sports activities. It is also possible to estimate preferences for various films by examining market research figures. All these statistics can be used to describe the specific popular culture within the mainstream.

Pop culture has also been referred to as the left-over culture after the masses settle on the high culture (Storey 8). This means that pop culture is a residue class established to take in cultural contexts and practices that do not fit in the high culture. Popular culture differentiates itself from high culture through its inferiority complex or its susceptibility to factorial influence. In other words, while high culture stems from individual inner-self creation, popular culture is a consequence of situational factors that are vulnerable to changes.

Another definition of popular culture is as mass culture or culture of the populace. This perspective supports the idea of popular culture being mass-produced and mass-consumed. Here, the traditional cultural values are completely assumed and culture is consumed with brain-numbing passivity (Storey 9).

The texts and practices in this context are regarded as forms of public fantasy. In this sense, pop culture can be seen as a way of escaping from the inner selves and living in a dream-world. Storey further defines popular culture as that culture which derives from the people or a culture of the people for the people (10).

Basing the conclusion on these definitions, a viable definition for pop culture is all those aspects of life which are not creatively exclusive or narrowly intellectual and which are typically, though not necessarily, disseminated through people. Pop culture involves spoken and printed word, pictures, sounds, objects and artifacts. It therefore embraces all levels of the society and cultures other than the popular, mass and folk. Pop culture involves most of the perplexing elements of life which hammer people daily.

In the contemporary world, popular culture originates from the media. The perceptions of the people about life are largely influenced by what the media presents. Cultural consumerism is shaped and facilitated by the way products are advertised and advocated through the media channels. An important thing to note is that pop culture is very evident in the younger generations who have lived up with technology.

Earlier, pop culture originated from primitive sources such as printed media and it was mostly associated with the higher class who could afford the media. However, televisions, internet and other media channels have emerged to be the dominant sources of culture. Indeed, these sources have accelerated the globalization of pop culture to a great deal. For instance, the use of the iPhone has just become a global pop culture due to media technology advances.

Popular culture especially in the American context has played a central role in racial segregation and prejudice. Gause thinks that popular culture in American society is the very sea of existence (335). Pop culture is not just the information people get from the media, but involves various issues that are grounded in the entertainment business.

As much as the culture relates to the expression of superlative universal human values, usually the need and struggle for freedom from oppression and autocracy, popular culture is an instrument of the culture industries, employed to swing people toward conformity and consumption.

In pop culture as well as the media, many stereotypes exist. Although the media sometimes enhance group understanding via sensitive evaluations of ethnic experiences, issues and cultures, it also increases group misunderstanding via recurring presentations of disparaging stereotypes and overemphasizing on negative themes. Indeed, the media have transmitted both correct and wrong information.

Other forms such as television and the internet can interact and influence personal identity; they can challenge or underpin stereotypes and intolerance.

Although the stereotypes of ethnicity in America started long in history, the media have continued to bring about negative images and propaganda. From historical research, it is apparent that some ethnic groups such as African-Americans have been represented in pop culture as inferior to the whites and submissive to them.

In almost all media forms, black poor have been portrayed negatively indicating the inferiority of their popular culture. As Gaudelli notes, racism sinister in its manifestation, is normally the subject of media display that tends to preoccupy, frame and crack dialogue about this important issue (265).

Popular culture is an important tool that reveals the role of individual groups in the society. In essence, pop culture is a concept that revolves around different spheres of life that can be differentiated by various aspects including but not limited to age, gender, period of time, geography, nationhood, ethnicity and religion. That is, popular culture may be evident in a particular age group, geographical area, ethnic group, and so on. In that respect, the pop culture describes the position of the individual group in the society as well as the value it creates for that society.

For instance, the portrayal of women in the Japanese animation reveals about their role in the society today. For a very long time, the role of Japanese women had been a hot topic among the commentators on the situation of present Japan. The popular culture reveals that the public opinion is changing and the role of women is no longer the housewife. Shojo and shonen animations portray women as strong individuals. Here, the role of women gives girls a role model in contrast to the traditional submissiveness (Ogi 790).

Similarly, the American sports as a popular culture describes the role of African-Americans within the American mainstream. As noted earlier, this ethnic group has been regarded as inferior by the white popular cultures. However, American sports especially basketball and athletics have portrayed African-Americans as to be more capable than even the whites (Darinson 118).

The sports culture portrays the excellence and contribution of the blacks as a whole and this has even increased their popularity in the media. More than any other time in history, the blacks are appearing frequently in the media talks and advertisement just because of their involvement in sports, fashion and music cultures.

In American history and around the globe, fashion is deemed as a vital component to the current American popular culture in which a majority of human beings subsist. The origin of the fashion pop culture in America can be ideally investigated by looking back in history, with the emanating dynamic trends in body wears as well as the varying marketed products witnessed throughout each generation. Ideally, American fashion and what most people wear dates back to the ancient times.

Ever since the primordial times, fashion has significantly progressed right through various American societies, thereby settling in the global environment.

Fashion is in essence prevalent within the global pop culture. However, the development of fashion occurs in differently consigned places around the globe. Trend setters as well as designers are continually working hard to expand and equally advance American fashion to higher limits. Primarily, fashion development in American culture could start out in humble designers’ rooms, which could then be recognized by the popular fashion labels.

The labels would eventually lead the upcoming designers into becoming great national figures as their fashions would be advertised and marketed across the American states. If these fashions become popular and appealing to the clothing and apparel industry, then the designers would be recognized worldwide through the support provided by the global fashion labels (Steele 443).

In fact, the American popular culture, fashion, has given birth to brilliant clothing ideas which have been offered opportunities to develop to global brands. Resistance from other countries has been the only major influence on American fashion for many years.

For instance, the Chinese encourages the wearing of Cheongsam and Qipao which facilitate the preservation of their culture while West Africa recognizes Naa-sheka and Dashiki fashion which symbolizes the true picture of an African. Therefore, with the development of the fashion as the American pop culture, the increase of risqué apparel and accessories has been witnessed which insistently push the boundaries of what the society can accept or not.

Societal institutions such as Churches and schools as well as business entities like banks and leading shops have persistently challenged the use of the risqué fashion. Nevertheless, this is steadily changing of direction as the popularity of more atypical designs frequently seen on catwalk penetrated into the market and the designs obtained fashion status in the American societies (Martin 575).

In American culture, official clothing and business attires are still considered fundamentals for use in specific functions. Nonetheless, time has considerably changed preference within the clothing industry. For instance, in the 1950s and 60s, jeans were linked to rebellious youths, juvenile delinquent or the bad guys. Moreover, in the 1960s, attendants at the church dances authorized the wearing of some respectable attire and jeans were in any case not permitted (Koester 8).

In fact, the American parents declared that appropriate trousers must be worn in family gatherings. With time, renowned designers including Calvin Klein and Fiorucci have dominated the American popular fashion. As a result, jeans within the American environment and other parts of the world have significantly gained a universal acceptance as stylish, affordable and durable fashion items.

The most appealing thing in the recent past is technology which has commercialized the clothing and apparel industry and made it weightier than any other time in history. The employment of digital editing in advertising has enabled fashion designers to fully exploit marketing techniques that assist in targeting the potential consumers.

They are also enabled to use techniques like persuasive advertising and sex appeals which apply more to the current markets. These developments have spearheaded the emergence of different fashions in the American culture (Koester 8). The American technological development have been so crucial in allowing the evolutionary processors of interactions with the internet, even to the extent of providing more opportunities for direct dealings through catalogue websites, online promotion and shopping of new fashions.

Hence, the wave by which the popular American fashions are spreading to the rest of the world is really surprising. This is because the American designers have kept on creating new attires to ensure that fashions and all its feats have transformed to sustain its demand in the coming generations.

The debatable question is whether the American society changed fashion or whether fashion has changed the American society. There is absolutely no eminent doubt that this discussion will require investigations into changing trends in the American values and attitudes presented by the individuals from diverse societal classes, as well as the roles of institutions within the American societies in either censoring or supporting fashion as a pop culture in America.

The topic on fashion can be explored by examining the changes in fashion production, purchase, and marketing of apparel. This is a promising focus since changes in American fashions are fast and very furious. Further, clothes and its related accessories share some characteristics with other consumable commodities of the popular cultures.

According to Martin, styles in both clothing and music are ideally assimilated not only by the performers and designers in the market places, but equally by the consumers of the products in their everyday actions and choices (575). This research source is important as it provides the influences in the American clothing fashion which may be traced right from various subcultures, leisure interest groups and racial or ethnic communities.

The source also gives a comparison between the American popular culture and other cultures. Conversely, Koester distinguishes the information on how the pop culture is integrated in the daily lives of the Americans (8). This source is vitally relevant as it provides answers to the question of individuals taking fashion for granted simply because they are accessible and familiar populist orientation. The source further highlights how fashion comes to individuals with price tags.

The American fashion culture is a global phenomenon. Since the World War II, American fashion culture has been a great force in countries across the world. Starting with the cowboy fashions up to the hippy fashions, we witness the popularity of the American fashion not only in the American context but also in the global context.

It appears that the world cannot escape the influence brought about by the American popular culture. Through the advancement of technology and the development of media, more fashion information is being broadcasted on a global basis.

Meanwhile, all through the second half of the 20 th century, the fashion industry in America has continued to expand to international market in an effort to lower costs and strengthen their competitive position among foreign manufacturers. In the mean time, upscale fashion designers developed into recognized brand names all through the 20 th century.

The American logos appeared as status symbols, frequently reproduced in the underground markets and yearned for by the younger generation, especially because hip hop and rap celebrities started wearing those fashions. The more they appeared in music videos and magazines wearing the labels, the more the fashion pop culture penetrated the markets.

The hip hop pioneering stars are perhaps the group that made and still make the biggest impact on the popularity of the fashion culture in America. These stars wore American labels almost religiously and the fashion designers rewarded them by designing labels with their specific names and identities. Within a short time, the labels were selling everywhere the hip hop songs played. More recently, the popularity of American fashion has made celebrities in the music industry to move to the fashion design industry.

In 1995, celebrity Jay-Z and two other stars established a clothing company which has portrayed remarkable success in the industry. In 1999, P Diddy also established a clothing company for men. Popular stars are increasingly featured in popular magazines, wearing the latest American fashions that consumers across the world seek to imitate.

As noted before, the growth and impact of fashion culture of Americans has increased significantly in the 20 th century. This is a consequence of the technological advancement in media technology especially information technology. Thanks to the growing technology, other countries across the world are exposed to fashions of the American popular culture.

Recurring images of cultural mixture in the media have taken a central role in leveraging the culture of other countries. Globalization and westernization is gradually capturing and the media has become the source of information dissemination. The US fashion culture is becoming commercialized, which enhances the visibility and awareness in the media while augmenting its power of appeal.

Apparel continues to assume a central role in the American economy, the pop culture and even ideas of sexuality and politics. Music and films continue to inspire new fashions and has reached the extent of inspiring designers from the minority groups. The growing success of minority designers is becoming increasingly favored in Hollywood by celebrities marking a wider cultural trend.

Possibly the best evidence that minority designers are climbing towards the top in this field is made by the annual awards presented by CFDA. Participants from these ethnic groups share the top prizes with established designers. The growing eminence of new designers is not restricted to high-end fashion only, but they have also developed low-priced assortment for mass-market retailers. The moment of the young designers is no passing trend especially that some of them have already demonstrated sign of longevity.

Popular culture is essentially all those aspects of life which are not creatively exclusive or narrowly intellectual and which are typically, though not necessarily, disseminated through people. In the present time, the pop culture originates from contemporary media forms such as televisions, films and the internet. For the United States, the development of fashion as a popular culture is perhaps the most outstanding.

This culture has grown to the extent of becoming a global phenomenon through commercialization. Its popularity has greatly been influenced by hip hop celebrities who have gone to an extent of investing in the industry. The worldwide popularity of American designers and the emergence of new designers from minority groups is a clear indication that fashion is destined to live longer as a key component of the American popular culture.

Darinson, Joseph. “Black Heros in Sport: From Jack Johnson to Muhammad Ali.” Journal of Popular Culture , 30.3 (1997): 115-135. Galileo. Web.

Gaudelli, William. “Critically Reading Race on Television: Implications for Leadership Toward Democratic Education. Journal of School Leadership , 15.3 (2005): 262-283. EBSCOhost.” Web.

Gause, Charles. Navigating Stormy Seas: Critical perspective on the Intersection of Popular Culture and Educational Leader-“ship”. Journal of School leadership , 15.3 (2005), 333-342. Print.

Koester, Ardis. Fashion Terms: Apparel Fabric Glossary. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Extension Service, 1992. Print.

Martin, Richard. Contemporary Fashion. New York, NY: St. James Press, 1995. Print.

Ogi, Fusami. “Female subjectivity and Shoujo (girls) Manga (Japanese comics): Shoujo in ladies’ comics and young ladies’ comic.” Journal of Popular Culture, 36.4 (2003): 780-803. Galileo. Web.

Steele, Valarie. The Berg Companion to Fashion. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, 2010. Print.

Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction . London, UK: Prentice Hall, 2001. Print.

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Popular Culture Research Paper

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I. Introduction

Academic writing, editing, proofreading, and problem solving services, get 10% off with 24start discount code, ii. the future is the past, iii. mass society becomes popular culture, iv. contemporary popular culture, v. the heart of the matter, vi. conclusion.

Popular culture is a malleable concept. It can be thought of as folk culture produced by people as an expression of their values and modes of existence, and it can be the opposite, an ideologically laden product imposed by an elite class in a display of power and social control. Popular culture can be an ordinary part of everyday life as well as a site of intellectual and political struggle. It can be a participatory form within a community (actual or virtual) that engages the most populous mainstream in society, and it can be a mode of entertainment— an almost universal feature of most known societies. Wall painting, body decorating, singing, and gladiatorial sports from the ancient world can all be regarded as forms of popular culture, as can Rembrandt’s cottage industry products and Shakespeare’s seventeenth-century theater. Items for inclusion in the category of popular culture are now so diverse that no single definition contains them. Thus, popular culture refers to any demotic form that appeals to the populace at large, and as such, it can function as a social bond and folk culture that is expressive of the people. In its early form, from the sixteenth century, the popular also implied the lowly, vulgar, and common (Storey 2005:262). Popular culture can simultaneously refer as well to a mass media dedicated to spreading propaganda and political repression. In the modern era of industrial capitalism, it is an element in a vast commercial enterprise that both co-opts forms of rebellion and sustains an intellectual, creative class that might also be opposing it. When Andy Warhol declared that modern art is “what you can get away with,” he demonstrated the frangibility of the boundaries around art; in much the same way, the products of popular culture now exert similar category pressures, bringing emphasis to the problem of representation in the popular mainstream, of who is being addressed by the products, and who is the populace in popular.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the range of phenomena potentially covered by the term popular culture is such that its study is necessarily interdisciplinary and of interest not just to sociologists but also to a variety of area specialists in fields such as American studies (from which the Journal of Popular Culture has its origins), anthropologists, historians, and literary scholars. It has also generated new academic disciplines, including cultural studies, leisure studies, media and communication studies, and youth studies. It has been a focus of research and teaching in gender studies, where the question of how femininity and masculinity are socially and culturally constituted gives priority to issues of representation and everyday cultural practice. The coexistence of these new research and teaching disciplines with the older subfields in sociology from which some of them, at least in part, emerged (e.g., sociology of popular culture, sociology of cultural production, sociology of everyday life, sociology of education, sociology of gender, sociology of sport, and sociology of consumption) and with the more established disciplines of anthropology, history, and literature makes the field of popular culture crowded and, at times, contested.

The legacy of the ancient Greeks, of Plato and Aristotle, and the aesthetic products of the Renaissance have been largely eclipsed by the scientific revolutions of the seventeenth century onward. This has had the effect of separating the arts from science, creating dual cultures and knowledge systems that sometimes seem unrelated, and a consequence of the separation has been a quest for a science of human behavior and society. Yet such measures are elusive. A sense of progress is largely based on a belief that there are measurable trends in social organization and administration that build on the achievements of earlier societies. Estimates of the value of popular culture as contributing to the improvement and civilizing of society become implicated in these debates. For instance, those elements of popular culture that encourage greater liberalism in the circulation of knowledge and more democratic social practices can be used to signify increased levels of human progress. With the busy commercialism of the eighteenth century and the profound changes it brought to mechanics and technology, there was a comprehensive renovation of the individual’s everyday experiences. Ideas now circulated widely through coffeehouses in London, Paris, and Venice; clubs and philosophical societies sprang up in provincial towns; the closed and elite position of the artist and patron had begun to change; commercial theaters flourished, as did dealers in engravings, paintings, silverware, and furniture. Publishers, merchants, and shopkeepers became part of an intellectual revolution that made the social meaning and status of art objects of fresh interest to the urban dweller. City life was not just about surviving dense living quarters and compromised hygienic conditions; it also involved the emergence of a middle class and the commercialization of taste and the arts. The material and technical changes of the modern world brought new ways of thinking about and experiencing pleasure, which in turn directly influenced what we now understand as popular culture and its capacity to shape society.

Sociology’s engagement with popular culture was framed in the first instance by the opposition between “community” and “society,” through which the discipline organized understanding of the transition from feudalism and agriculture to capitalism and industry. Popular culture produced by ordinary people (the folk) was part of the charm of community; popular culture produced as a commodity for “the masses” was part of the attenuated lifeworld of society. These oppositions of community/society and folk/mass are imbued with nostalgia for enduring social relationships and “traditional” cultural practices that have been embedded in a hierarchically ordered rural lifeworld— the “fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions” swept away, as Marx and Engels (1930:17–36) put it, by capitalism’s “constant revolutionizing of production.”

In the nineteenth century, with the advent of technologies for mass communication, mapping the terrain of popular culture involved adding further layers and permutations to the meaning of the term, which could no longer be restricted to culture produced by “the people.” The association of popular culture with widely recognized celebrity figures, material icons, and forms of social knowledge that are widely distributed through mass societies was under way by the early twentieth century with the expansion of communication technologies (film, radio, photography) and their increasing commercialization. Through the second half of the twentieth century, revolutionary developments in electronic and information communication technology allowed for increasingly rapid distribution of this culture across the globe. In effect, this lifts popular culture out of a local context (where it was situated prior to the nineteenth century) and relocates it on a global stage. The cultural industries (e.g., the Hollywood film studios and transnational telco networks) with their vast technological reach have made popular culture a defining feature of what Marshall McLuhan (1964) termed “the global village.”

Both sociology and popular culture in its massproduced form were products of the same historical conjuncture—namely, the industrial revolution and its associated social, cultural, and political upheavals. The language of social fragmentation and moral disintegration that underpins discussion of the relocation of rural populations into industrial cities thus framed interpretation of their commodified leisure pursuits as less worthy than the folk traditions that preceded them. According to Raymond Williams (1961:17), the idea of “culture” as it emerged in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was conceptualized as a transcendent sphere of noninstrumental value from which the increasingly rationalized, commodified, and environmentally polluted lifeworld of industrial capitalism could be judged. Whether from Herder’s (2002) understanding of “folk culture” or Matthew Arnold’s (1935) sense of high culture as a bulwark against anarchy, culture was positioned in opposition to the masses. This was a neat ideological reversal in which the historical actors who suffered most in the transition to capitalist modernity were deemed responsible for its sometimes impoverishing cultural consequences. As bearers of “mass culture,” uprooted peasants, remade as urban workers and a swelling underclass, were positioned as barbarians within the gates—a threat not only to social and political order but to “civilization” itself.

The sociology of popular culture separates from the sociology of the mass society at the point where the relationship between high culture and popular culture loses its simple homology with class division and assumes a more complex symbiotic relationship that generates new definitions of taste. The creation of the mass audience from the 1920s, largely through the popularity of Hollywood films, solidified yet another cultural fissure, extending the one created between 1890 and 1930 by the avant-garde of Rimbaud, Joyce, and Picasso. The separation of high, mass, and avant-garde tastes made it clear that cultural messages of any kind cannot be dissociated from the social conditions from which they arise. The popularity of contemporary forms such as the cinema, sitcom TV, and fashion magazines seems to advance the ideological appeals of materialist capitalism. The Frankfurt School, in particular, championed much of the avant-garde as the conscious minority who were resisting the standardization that came with the mass production and consumption of products from the American culture industries.

The sociology of popular culture in its contemporary form draws on the early work of Raymond Williams (1961), who redefined culture to include a new layer of meaning—namely, the structure of feeling. Williams rightly pointed out that how people thought and felt about themselves and others played a singularly important role in shaping everyday culture. It was not sufficient to study social institutions, such as the family, and the organization of production; it was also necessary to understand how members of society communicated, acquired ideas and tastes, expressed views, and felt engaged in society.

By definition, whatever is popular has a large audience and is well received by huge numbers of people. In the twenty-first century, the popular is most often produced by professionals (such as journalists, musicians, and filmmakers) to appeal to global audiences that traverse various local cultures. In this context, questions about the nature of popular culture that relate to its production and audience (e.g., the question of whether popular culture is produced by the people for themselves as a kind of folk culture) represent viewpoints more useful prior to the eighteenth century. Thereafter, popular culture has been understood as those ideas and entertainments that win the attention of a mass audience, and as such, it is a manufactured form of entertainment and idiomatic knowledge often characterized as being inferior to other, more highbrow or elite forms. It can then be imbued with sinister intentions; for instance, it can be thought of as a tool in a political armory designed to be a form of entertainment that is made easily available to keep the masses distracted and diverted.

Embedded in these views are assumptions that culture originating from the lower social orders, or appealing en masse to a mainstream, is both less interesting than highbrow culture and more heavily freighted with ideology. It also assumes that popular culture can be understood and interpreted properly from the vantage point of those in an elite intellectual position. Yet popular culture is not a homogeneous form; it has contradictions within itself as well as a range of diverse forms. A new manner of thinking about popular culture was provided by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, established in 1964 under the leadership of Richard Hoggart, who had lovingly documented the working class culture of his youth in The Uses of Literacy (1958). Hoggart’s approach was in direct opposition to the perspectives expressed by T. S. Eliot (1948) and F. R. Leavis (1948), who argued for a top-down approach to the civilizing influences of culture. Hoggart’s construction of the working class and its cultural practices and preferences was a major factor in defining the populist agenda of popular culture in the British context. He made explicit the link between the study of popular culture and representations of class and the distribution of privilege. He asserted the importance of art and culture as the means by which much of the individual’s quality of life was revealed. Learning to read objects and practices in a critical manner was the key to understanding society. The dominant elite classes had expressed their own views through a monopoly over culture, and these values had been taken for granted. Now with the establishment of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, the canonical elite forms of high culture were transposed into sites of cultural struggle as new modes of seeing were being developed. Across the Atlantic, other social analysts and theorists were at work reshaping views toward the popular and, in so doing, changing the sociological landscape of everyday modern life.

In the first half of the twentieth century and into the 1960s, the study of popular culture in sociology can be located in terms of three broad traditions. Within Parsonian structural functionalism, emphasis on system maintenance gave popular culture one of two functions: “value integration” or “tension management.” Popular events and practices were judged according to the effectiveness of their contribution to one or the other of these outcomes. Within Marxism, the location of popular culture in the ideological superstructure carried similar implications. For instance, if the ideas of any age are the ideas of the “ruling class,” then a shift in the popular, from forms of expression and practices embedded in the lifeworld of “the folk” to forms of amusement and entertainment produced under industrial conditions as commodities for sale to the masses, has the politically serious consequence of positioning popular culture as a means of rendering the dominant system of class relations palatable to subordinate groups. The idea of the popular being resistive had not yet formulated itself within this perspective. With symbolic interactionism and the Chicago School, the notion of “subculture” did focus attention on social actors and the construction of meaning and, thus, marked the beginning of a more complex way of understanding the individual’s real or immediate social experience. Such perspectives promised to incorporate the quirkiness of the private and the diversity of individual value positions into the sociological project (Truzzi 1968). Had this been a more successful maneuver, it might well have anticipated much of the success enjoyed by the subdiscipline of cultural studies some three decades later. However, the specter of social fragmentation and moral decline hovered over early studies such as Paul Cressey’s (1969) study of commercialized recreation and the inner city, The Taxi-Dance Hall, and this aura persisted into the mid-1960s, thus positioning popular culture more as a “social problem,” as evidenced by the inclusion of Howard Becker’s (1963) study of dance musicians in Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance and Herbert Gans’s essay on popular culture in America in the edited collection Social Problems: A Modern Approach (Becker 1966).

One of the defining moments in the sociology of popular culture was the relocation of scholars from the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research to temporary accommodation at Columbia University in New York in the mid-1930s. As exiles from Nazi Germany, they had seen a popular movement that was morally corrupt and rancid; thus, their critical engagement with American popular culture was framed by an acute sense of the capacity of radio and film to mobilize audiences to support wrong-headed causes such as fascism. In the United States, they argued, the technologies of mass communication served the interests of capitalism. In coining the term “culture industry” (Jay 1973:216) to describe the “non-spontaneous, reified, phony culture” churned out as entertainment by Hollywood and Tin Pan Alley, they shifted the terms of debate on the politics of the popular from “mass taste” to the conditions of its production. Popular culture was deemed an ideological misnomer for the products of a profoundly undemocratic industry characterized by centralized control, distance between audience and performers (the star system), standardization, instrumental orientation, and affirmation of existing social privileges. In contrast to conservative critics of mass culture, who argued that democracy leveled taste to the lowest common denominator (e.g., de Tocqueville 1966; Ortega y Gasset [1948] 1968), the critical theorists of the Frankfurt School framed the problem in terms of capitalist social and economic relations and technological rationality. They saw the culture industry as extending capitalist domination into all areas of life,

subordinating in the same way and to the same end all areas of intellectual creation, by occupying men’s sense from the time they leave the factory in the evening to the time they clock in again the next morning with matter that bears the impress of the labor process they themselves have to sustain throughout the day. (Horkheimer and Adorno [1947] 1979:131)

Whether the product was cars or culture, the technology of mass production was inseparable from “the rationale of domination” underpinning “the coercive nature of society alienated from itself.” “Automobiles, bombs and movies,” they argued, “keep the whole thing together” (Horkheimer and Adorno [1947] 1979:121).

While the Frankfurt School critique of the culture industry was of a piece with the arguments on “mass society” being put forward by David Reisman’s (1964) The Lonely Crowd and C. Wright Mills’s (1959) The Power Elite, it was less than palatable to a generation of sociological and cultural theorists who had grown up with television and regarded rock ‘n’ roll as “an instrument of opposition and liberation” (Gedron 1986:19). Their commitment to the resistive force of rock ‘n’ roll was particularly strong if their reading of the Frankfurt position extended no further than Adorno’s ([1941] 2002) quarrelsome essay “On Popular Music” or his offensively ethnocentric essay “On Jazz” (published under the pseudonym of Hektor Rottweiler). This interpretation of Adorno’s essays on popular music and jazz so offended them that they read no further. Yet Herbert Marcuse’s (1964) One- Dimensional Man presented a similarly bleak view of the capitalist domination gained through the broad appeal of entertainment and consumer goods, but as he was writing in the 1960s, after living 30 years in California, he was not writing from the position of social dislocation and culture shock that must have colored Adorno’s views on American culture. While Adorno was reviled as a cultural elitist, Marcuse’s concepts of “co-option” and “repressive tolerance” became part of the language of the New Left.

Marcuse (1964) lamented the infusion of the consumer ethic into the popular imagination: “People recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment” (p. 24). His argument that “the irresistible output of the entertainment and information industry” is part of a commodity culture that serves to “bind the consumers, more or less pleasantly to the producers, and through the latter to the whole” (p. 12) is faithful to the spirit of Horkheimer and Adorno. Yet at the same time, his thesis that radical students and blacks were bearers of the revolutionary mission from which consumption had seduced the working class gave de facto recognition to a new cultural politics in which popular music, underground comics, and films were capable of expressing and mobilizing opposition to capitalism, albeit in commodity form. The Frankfurt School thesis on a culture industry uniformly affirmative of capitalism was destabilized by the advent of the New Left, whose members listened to Bob Dylan and The Doors, read Karl Marx, and reframed the Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s as “classics” celebrated by directors of the French “nouvelle vague.”

A sociology of popular culture based on rejection of the mass society model emerged in the 1960s, as the first generation to grow up with television and rock ‘n’ roll arrived at university and graduate schools. This was a period of expansion in higher education and the extension of access to students from the working class, many of whom were the first in their family to attend university. While the emotional dynamics of social mobility are complex, and there is no necessary connection to be made between being from the working class and identifying with its “taste culture” (Gans 1974:68), nonetheless, a space was being made in which a new twist in the social significance of popular culture was about to take shape. This new generation of students was also eager to consume the popular culture of its own making. It did not accept the theoretical approach to popular culture, which defined one’s own tastes and practices as inferior, and the idea that popular music served to pacify the masses did not generate much enthusiasm; indeed, this was particularly unconvincing given the equation of rock music with youth rebellion.

The new generation of students in the early 1960s overturned the theories about industrialized popular culture and the mass society. The depiction of society as a vast mass of alienated and atomized individuals, who were undifferentiated from one another and unable to overcome a nameless loneliness, was about to be swept away. Reisman’s (1964) depiction of modern America in The Lonely Crowd was replaced with the communities of Woodstock. Feminism, gay liberation, identity politics, and race debates shattered the sense of homogeneity that permeated the economic expansionism of the suburban 1950s and set in motion the mannerisms of thinking that would arrive at French poststructuralism and postmodernism and threaten the Anglo-American discipline of sociology with theoretical eclipse.

One obvious consequence of the social, cultural, and political movements that defined the 1960s as a transformative decade was a new relation between popular culture and the academy. While earlier generations of sociologists had approached popular culture from the outside, and by implication from “above,” the post-1960s generation were more likely to share its codes and values. Popular culture was in that sense normalized as part of everyday life rather than positioned as a “problem” to be interrogated for signs of social pathology. Changes in technologies of production were also implicated in rejection of the mass culture approach, which made less sense as Fordist conditions of mass production and consumption were rendered obsolete by new electronic and information technology that made it possible for producers of all manner of goods to cultivate “niche” and “subcultural” markets.

Work associated with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies exemplifies this shift in focus. There was a sense in which both the critique of mass culture and the culture industry thesis can be read as denigrating popular taste and, by implication, the people who have it. It might therefore be argued that dismissal of the Frankfurt School critique as an “elitist defence of high culture” is fuelled by a sense of class “injury” (Sennett and Cobb 1972) that produces selective (mis)reading—passing over barbed remarks about art galleries and “classical music” and taking umbrage at the perceived insult to ordinary people and their pleasures.

Yet there were significant similarities between the Frankfurt and Birmingham traditions, as Douglas Kellner (1995) astutely noted, in terms of a shared interest in how culture and consumption served to integrate the working class into capitalism. But whereas the Frankfurt School’s culture industry thesis allowed no scope for resistance, the Birmingham School adopted Gramsci’s concepts of hegemony and counterhegemony to position popular culture as a site of struggle between the forces of hegemonic domination and counterhegemonic resistance. Stuart Hall’s (1980) influential essay “Encoding/Decoding” argued that people are active “readers” of media texts, decoding messages in one of three ways: (1) a dominant or “preferred” reading, which accepts the intended message; (2) a “negotiated” reading, in which some elements of a message are accepted and others opposed; and (3) an “oppositional” reading, which is opposed to the way the “encoder” of the message intended it to be read. Watching television was thus redefined as an active process involving the production of meaning rather than the consumption of capitalist ideology, and viewers could no longer be written off as couch potatoes or cultural dopes. In the same way, Birmingham School studies of subcultures (e.g., Hebdige 1979; Willis 1978) involve what Miller and McHoul (1998) aptly describe as a shift from “culture as a tool of domination” to “culture as a tool of empowerment” (p. 14) with subordinate groups appropriating commercial popular culture for their own ends, which invariably entail “resistance” to the dominant order.

The emergence of another contiguous field, the sociology of consumption, has added further dimensions to the study of popular culture. In this vein, John Fiske (1989) draws on Michel de Certeau’s (1988:127) understanding of consumption as a form of secondary production to extend the argument on appropriation so that popular culture can be seen as being produced by its consumers. In his view, “popular culture in industrial societies is contradictory to its core” because it is produced and distributed as a commodity by “a profit-motivated industry,” but at the same time, it is “of the people,” whose choices determine whether or not the products of the culture industry are “popular.” In support of his position, Fiske (1989) points to “the number of films, records and other products that the people make into expensive failures” (p. 23) and maintains that as a living, active process of generating and circulating meanings and pleasures within a social system, popular culture cannot be imposed from without or above but indeed is “made by the people.” From this point of view, what the culture industries produce is “a repertoire of texts or cultural resources for the various formations of the people to use or reject in the ongoing process of producing their popular culture” (p. 24). It might be argued that in the absence of power to define the repertoire of cultural resources from which “popular culture” is produced, consumer choice is a poor substitute for cultural democratization. As Kellner (1995) observed, “The texts, society, and system of production and reception disappear in the solipsistic ecstasy of the textual producer, in which there is no text outside of reading” (p. 168). Moreover, uncritical valorization of “oppositional reading,” “resistance,” and “audience pleasure” leaves out important questions of power and value in relation to forms of cultural expression in which one group’s resistance involves another’s oppression.

The maturation of popular culture as a proper field of sociological enquiry has seen a massive growth in its range of topics, from an analysis of the greeting card (Papson 1986) to football crowds and museum attendance (Bennett 1995), from gender advertising (Goffman 1972) to radio broadcasting and teen magazines (Johnson 1979; McRobbie 1991). As well as providing fascinating case studies of popular practices, this type of scholarship also alerts us to an underlying political agenda, and from sociological readings of such popular practices, we can identify systematic instances of social injustice, exclusion, and prejudice. Popular forms such as top 40 dance music, street fashions, skateboarding, Internet chat rooms, and “blogging” reveal complex social relationships and group identifications. Chris Jenks’s (2005) sociology of culture brings the rigors of theory to illuminate how the contemporary urban experience can be understood as a shifting ground where the institutions of power and social order have been substantially destabilized by various innovations and, in particular, the impact of new technologies in communications.

Subsequently, it becomes more apparent that studies in popular culture can be portals to understanding the postmodern experience in a wider sense. It is not the case that popular culture is automatically about the simplest and most banal or only about the fashionable and fresh. For instance, the serialized production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (1995) attracted at least 10 million viewers and subsequently has been broadcast in over 40 countries. The publisher of the novel sold 430,000 copies in the year following the television screening of the serial. Such an example of a popularized book, traditionally categorized as part of highbrow or elite culture, identifies new directions for studying the popular. In this instance, it points to the possibility that canonical products (Austen, Shakespeare) that are assumed to be part of an elite cultural field can be read differently and thus become expressions of rebellion and resistance to dominant conventions and manners of thinking. Reading against the grain and subverting the form can be modes through which we establish what we like and hence use the cultural form to reveal ourselves. Accordingly, the popularity of Pride and Prejudice might well indicate a form of refusal of the social disruption being associated with increased globalization during the 1990s. It could be argued that its depiction of local village life was a repudiation of the blurred boundaries and oceanic liberations that were washing over us with the advent of the Internet and instantaneous global communications. Austen’s sympathetic view of provincial life, in contrast to the sophistication of London society, may well have appealed to the modern masses, who were experiencing an unnerving sense of destabilization brought about by the vertigo induced by mass communications and the accompanying collapse of temporal and spatial divisions.

From the BBC version of Austen’s novel in the mid- 1990s to the parodic film Bride and Prejudice in the Bollywood genre in the twenty-first century, there are numerous examples of how items of traditional elite culture can be reformulated into popular versions and thereby come to support a continuous and often querulous reading of the world. The works of Austen, Shakespeare, and Mozart have been so repositioned, with the consequence that it is worth asking, Have these forms been co-opted into a nostalgic diversion that promotes the pleasures of domestic life? And can this be regarded as a disguised form of social control? Does such repositioning reveal the processes of bowdlerization that are so often apparent in popularization? Or, conversely, is the expanding category of popular culture a sign of maturation in the cultural capital of modern societies as products of our elite heritage are introduced and absorbed into mainstream life?

The impossibility of providing definitive answers that would allow us to take a firm stand either for or against popularizing appropriations of canonical texts lends support to Eva Illouz’s (2003) argument that what she calls “pure critique”—the tradition of cultural criticism that holds popular culture to account in relation to a clearly articulated political or moral standpoint—is no longer an option. At the same time, she sees the “systematic ambivalence” of postmodernism as contrary to sociology’s critical vocation—its necessary engagement with “the question of which social arrangements and meanings can enhance or cripple human creativity or freedom” (p. 207). Given the collapse of metanarratives through which cultural critics presumed to know in advance what texts “ought” to say and how, Illouz advocates the development of “impure critique,” which engages with cultural practice from the inside instead of “counting the ways” in which popular culture promotes (or fails to promote) a given political agenda. She argues that as in psychoanalysis, critical understanding in the sociology of popular culture “ought to emerge from a subtle dialogue that challenges reality by understanding it from within its own set of meanings” (p. 213).

One such approach to the meaning of popular culture is provided by Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1984) study of carnival, which represents popular culture as a vision of the world seen from below. Carnival is a festive form of political critique of existing social hierarchies and modes of high culture. It can transform the world into a site of pleasure where the significance of economic alliances, political forces, and social conventions can become inverted and thus made into sources of parodic humor and entertainment. Bakhtin locates carnival most often in an urban setting, where there are opportunities for contestation and where it finds application to a variety of contemporary festivities such as street parades, county fairs, sports events, bicycle races, and walkathons. Such popular activities flourish in the more complex society of the town, where commerce and the marketplace bring together individuals with different experiences and cultural consciences. From this mix of strangers, there is opportunity for outbreaks of the unpredictable, inadvertent, and humorous, which in turn produce varied forms of popular entertainment. Ordinary individuals are given access to a global media and subsequently perform themselves. Heroes of the day emerge and become instant celebrities.

Contemporary popular culture in the West has been dominated by a celebrity culture that elevates individuals into icons of practice: Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe, Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Bart Simpson, Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Jordan, and so on become archetypes of modern values. They are instruments in the production of popular culture, and at the same time, they function as hinges or switching points where mainstream values can be derailed and rerouted. Through their (often unintentional) personal influence, we can see the networks through which the arts, music, cinema, bookselling, publishing, television, and magazines are interleaved. The spate of reality television programs has most recently introduced an intensified selfreflexivity into popular culture that echoes certain practices from the Renaissance, when carnivale drew attention to the fragility of status and the social order and showed how easily it could be inverted. The globally popular reality TV program Big Brother, for example, can be seen as “carnivalesque,” in that it generates a widespread interest in the banal and ordinary, which in turn is revealed to be much more diverse and contested than expected. Thus, in the heterogeneous spaces of the metropolis, individuals with different cultural experiences and values are brought together in clashes of language, speech patterns, behavioral habits, and conventions. When this occurs, the spectator or viewer is made a witness to difference and, in turn, is consequently made more self-aware. These displays of contrasted styles of conducting business, thinking about the world, and living in it build a foundation for forms of entertainment and culture that are engaging, entertaining, and socially creative and have a wide popular appeal.

In a parallel manner, when Georg Simmel (1900) analyzed metropolitan life in the early decades of the twentieth century, he identified stock characters such as the dude who slavishly followed fashion, the rich property owner who had delusions of grandeur, and the downtrodden poor and social castoffs who were bestialized, and he used these stereotypes to characterize the carnivalesque qualities of contemporary social life. Such stock characters mirror many of those presented in popular television and mainstream cinema—for example, the unpredictable, lunatic politician; the incompetent judge; the hen-pecked husband; the quack medical doctor; the sexually wayward priest; the simple-minded corporate executive; and the incompetent boss. These types become figures of fun for an audience that laughs at the incompetence of those who generally hold greater economic power and social prestige. Such entertainments, like competitive sports, supposedly function as safety valves in a society where values are thought to be held in common and where instances of dysfunctionality and schadenfreuden (common in television sitcoms) work to restore the social balance and reaffirm social cohesion.

In contrast, such interpretations of popular culture as sources of self-management and self-critique can be refigured to show that some forms of the popular function in oppositional ways, such as being expressions of resentment and hostility to others. For instance, displays of mayhem and rebellion in popular entertainments can act as challenges to authority and thus articulate hostility and repugnance toward the stranger and lower orders, such as women, Jews, gypsies, dogs, and cats (Darnton 1986). Certain forms of popular culture appear to demonize those who are different or who have less social status. In this way, popular culture is essentially conservative, acting to maintain the imbalance between a privileged elite and the masses. This darker, sometimes sinister side of popular culture characterizes the differences and expressions of resistive contra-subcultures, such as those found in religious cults, music groups, bikies, drug users, and nomadic feral surfers, as collectively repugnant.

The field of popular culture is much traversed by classifications and categorizations. It has become a site where politics and aesthetics mingle freely. The old distinctions of high and popular, elite and mass cultures are destabilized by the recognition that the arts are a form of political mobilization. From this perspective, distinctions in tastes are no longer just preferences intimately linked to biographical circumstances but also practices that reflect social and political viewpoints. Shakespeare and opera can thus be presented as high culture or adapted to popular and street forms, which raises the question, What circumstances and interests are at work in shifting specific art forms into new expressive locations? How do these reevaluations occur and what viewpoints are being presented through them? When, for instance, did opera and the live theater move from the popular into the elite category? Is the categorization of music, poetry, painting, sculpture, and dance as the fine arts, as distinguished from craft and the mechanical arts, still convincing, particularly when we think of dance as hip hop and sculpture as welded plates of steel and fused concrete?

Montesquieu, in Diderot’s ([1774] 1984) Encyclopedie, argued that the fine arts were distinguishable because they produced sensations of pleasure. With this definition, he asserted a marriage between aesthetics and the emotions. Immanuel Kant (1800) elaborated this point in Kritik der Urteilskraft by suggesting that beauty and the arts corresponded to definitions of truth and goodness. Subsequent debates on the nature of the sublime resonate through studies of culture, but importantly, these are relatively recent issues linked with other developments in the sciences, commerce, and technology. After all, it was not until the eighteenth century that high culture became an acceptable category, separate and distinguishable from more banal popular forms.

It was a concern of the eighteenth century, and it remains a concern now, that distinguishing between commercial culture and popular culture is difficult. For those concerned with the loss of regional and provincial cultural forms, such as folk dancing and singing, or styles of food preparation, we could now read the risks to some indigenous cultures. The modern cultural form produced from artifice and overrefinement threatens to overshadow the indigenous art form, making it seem a quaint and narrowly focused object. The pursuit of wealth through commerce produces an environment in which age-old skills and ways of seeing are easily surpassed. A nostalgic primitivism that upholds the “noble savage” is as much a part of popular culture as are the overproduced techniques for self-improvement, do-it-yourself kits, and commercialized signs of status and snobbery. In short, to understand popular culture, it is necessary to unravel—at the individual level—the connections between economic acquisition, pleasure, and social distinction and the desires associated with the fashionable life, along with the growth of audiences who seem variously willing to purchase entertainment, pleasure, and status. At the structural level, popular culture has become such an economic powerhouse that it has political consequences. In the mid-twentieth century, the House UnAmerican Activities Committee provided a vivid instance of the political power attributed to the culture industries, and again a similar debate erupted in the last decades of the twentieth century, when the National Endowment for the Arts came under scrutiny by the American government and radical artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Karen Findlay were accused of corrupting the morals and minds of their audiences.

Popular culture as a series of practices has had a tempestuous past ever since its economic and political dimensions have been uncovered. So it was in the sixteenth century, when the Parisian printing apprentices murdered the totems of the aristocracy in the great cat massacre (Darnton 1986), and so it continues with current debates about the causal relationship between video games and the subsequent violent behavior of their audiences. Scholars of popular culture from the various disciplines of anthropology, sociology, history, literary studies, media, and so on function as analysts of art forms and the history of aesthetics as much as of political movements and social insurgency. The position of popular culture in the modern world is now inextricably linked with international politics and the global economy, and this makes it an irresistible focus for sustained sociological attention.

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The rise of k-pop, and what it reveals about society and culture.

Initially a musical subculture popular in South Korea during the 1990s, Korean Pop, or K-pop, has transformed into a global cultural phenomenon.

Characterized by catchy hooks, polished choreography, grandiose live performances, and impeccably produced music videos, K-pop — including music by groups like BTS and BLACKPINK — now frequently tops the Billboard charts, attracts a fiercely dedicated online following, and generates billions of dollars.

Yale sociologist Grace Kao, who became fascinated with the music after watching a 2019 performance by BTS on Saturday Night Live, now studies the subgenres of K-pop and its cultural, sociological, and political effects.

Kao, the IBM Professor of Sociology and professor of ethnicity, race, and migration in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and director of the Center on Empirical Research in Stratification and Inequality (CERSI), recently spoke with Yale News about the kinds of research her interest in K-pop has prompted, why the genre’s rise has been important to so many Asian Americans, and why she urges today’s students to become familiar with various musical genres.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

You have said that watching BTS on Saturday Night Live changed your view of K-pop. How did that performance transform your interest in K-pop from a personal one into an academic one?

Grace Kao: I saw that performance, and it stayed in the back of my mind. Then, when we were on lockdown because of COVID, being stuck at home set the stage for having time to watch more K-pop videos. At first, I was just watching them for fun. I knew K-pop was something important, but I didn’t know anything about it. I thought “I should educate myself on this.” My current research collaborator, Wonseok Lee [an ethnomusicologist and a musician at Washington University], and a Yale graduate student, Meera Choi, who’s Korean, offered guidance.

I’ve always been interested in race and ethnicity and Asian Americans. I knew in my gut that K-pop was important, but it was hard to figure out exactly how I could work on it, since I’m a quantitative sociologist. What's fun about being a researcher and being in academia is that we can learn new things and push ourselves. I think that’s the best part of this job.

Grace Kao recommends this playlist to get started.

When I started working on it, I tried to learn without having a clear research question. Then, along with my collaborator, Lee, we started thinking about papers that we could work on together. I was also able to take first-semester Korean, so now I can read Korean, and Choi and I can begin working on different research papers.

What kinds of research are you doing?

Kao: One paper is about the link between ’80s synth-pop and very current K-pop. Others have argued that K-pop borrows heavily from American Black music — R&B, hip hop, and so forth. And it’s true, but we’re arguing that K-pop has links to all these different genres because the production is much faster. We also finished another paper looking at the links between New Wave synth-pop to Japanese city pop [which was also popular in the 1980s] and a Korean version of city pop. And we’re probably going to start a reggae paper next.

In another project, with two data scientists we’re looking at Twitter data related to a 2021 BTS tweet that happened about a week after a gunman in Atlanta murdered eight women, including six of Asian descent. The tweet, which was about #StopAsianHate, or #StopAAPIHate, was the most retweeted tweet of the year. Everyone in that world knows that K-pop is extremely influential, but there are moments now where it seems like it’s ripe for political action because fans are already really organized. We’re looking at how the conversation about the shootings before and after they tweeted changed. The analysis involves millions of tweets, so it's very data intensive work.

Last March you gave a talk on campus in which you talked about the role of K-pop in “transformative possibilities for Asian Americans.” What is an example of those possibilities?

Kao: Partly it’s just visibility. The SNL performance by BTS was really important for people. Especially people my age, we had never seen a bunch of East Asian people on the stage singing in a non-English, non-Western language. I knew that was an important moment regardless of whether or not you like the music or the performance.

I think during COVID, BTS made Asian faces more visible. They were on the cover of Time magazine, every major publication. They were everywhere. But it also brought up questions of xenophobia. People were making fun of them because of how they looked. At the time there was also the extra baggage that comes with being Asian. But any time BTS were attacked, because their fandom is so big and so passionate, their fans would jump on anyone who did anything to them. Then journalists would cover it, and suddenly there were all these stories about how you shouldn’t be racist against Asians.

Many of us who study Asian Americans have observed over time that it often seems acceptable for people to make fun of Asian things. Just by virtue of the fact that it’s [BTS], that their fans are protecting them, and that that gets elevated to the news is a big deal. President Biden invited them to the White House. These are all things I would have had trouble imagining even just five years ago.

You teach a first-year seminar, “Race and Place in British New Wave, K-pop, and Beyond,” which focuses on the emphasis on aesthetics in both genres’ popularity. What understanding do you hope students walk away with?

Kao: I want students to take pop culture very seriously. Sometimes pop music seems not serious, but so many people consume it that it can have pervasive and serious consequences on how people see folks of different race, ethnic, gender, and national identities.

Another thing I wanted students to learn about is genres of music. Students today like music, but they consume it very differently than people did when in college. We listened to the radio or watched MTV, so we were fed something from a DJ or from actual people who were programming the content. You’d end up listening to a lot of music that you didn’t like, but you’d also have a better sense of genres than students now. Today students consume music through Spotify or YouTube and so forth, which use algorithms to give you songs that are similar to the songs you liked, but not necessarily from the same genre. Students can have diverse and wide-ranging experiences with music, but I found that they have trouble identifying that any particular song is part of a genre. So I feel like it’s important for them to listen to a lot of music.

I want them to consume it because sometimes we think we can comment on things that we don’t know anything about. We don’t actually consume it. I think it’s important for students to walk away knowing something about these genres and to be able to identify them: this is a reggae song, this is a ska song, this is synth-pop, et cetera.

What K-pop groups are you currently into?

Kao: Besides BTS, I enjoy listening to groups such as SEVENTEEN, ENHYPEN, NewJeans, Super Junior, and new group TRENDZ.

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220 Pop Culture Topics for an A+ Essay

There are many ways to define popular culture . Here’s one of them: pop culture includes mainstream preferences in society within a specific time frame. It covers fashion, music, language, and even food. Pop culture is always evolving, engaging in new trends, and leaving the old ones behind.

Our specialists will write a custom essay specially for you!

This article offers you a list of pop culture topics covering its numerous aspects. Continue reading to find helpful tips on how to choose a perfect topic for your assignment. And don’t forget that custom-writing.org is ready to help you with any task. Check out our resources!

🔝 Top 10 Pop Culture Topics

✅ how to choose a topic, ⭐ top 10 pop culture essay topics.

  • 🎵 Music Topics
  • 📰 Mass Media Topics
  • 📚 Popular Literature
  • 📺 Movies & T.V.
  • 🇺🇸 American Pop Culture
  • 🌐 Internet Phenomena
  • ✍️ Pop Culture Analysis
  • 🤔 Pop Culture & Social Issues

🔍 References

  • How is politics related to sport?
  • Is religion related to pop culture?
  • Does music affect the fashion industry?
  • The ways technology affects pop culture
  • Is traveling a part of modern pop culture?
  • Pop culture’s impact on consumer behavior
  • How does globalization affect pop culture?
  • Is there a negative effect of popular fiction?
  • Entertainment industry during different generations
  • How does fandom culture vary around the world?

Choosing a topic is the first step towards completing an assignment. This section will help middle, high school, and college students identify the right subject for an essay. Ask yourself these questions:

  • What are the requirements? Make sure you understand the task you need to complete.
  • You are free to choose your topic. Keep in mind the purpose of the course and the material covered in class. Brainstorm your ideas and choose the one you like the most!
  • You are provided with a list of topics to choose from. In this case, start by reviewing every option. Eliminate the ones you are least excited about. Then, select a subject that seems the most interesting to you.
  • What do you already know? Of course, you could choose a topic that is brand-new for you. But working with a familiar subject will make the research easier.
  • What does your instructor say about the topic? Don’t hesitate to consult with your instructors before writing. Make sure that the selected topic fits the requirements.

Now you understand how to select the right subject for your assignment. Let’s see the topic options! If you looked through the list but still haven’t found anything that insterests you, try your luck with an essay ideas generator .

  • Gender equality in fashion
  • Is food a part of pop culture?
  • Characteristics of pop art
  • Pop culture vs. folk culture
  • K-pop culture’s impact on fashion
  • How cultural appropriation affects media
  • Consumer culture and the world economy
  • Entertainment industry and mental health
  • The role of media in the music industry
  • Is TikTok a part of modern pop culture?

🎵 Popular Culture Topics about Music

Music never stops changing. It came a long way from hand-crafted instruments to computer programming. You can write about music that was popular in a specific timeframe or discuss the latest trends. Here is a list of topic ideas on this subject.

  • How did space-age discoveries affect rock music?
  • Discuss music marketing in the digital era.
  • Describe the features of Latin American pop music.
  • What makes K-Pop stand out?
  • The role of pop music for your generation.
  • Write about the origin of hip-hop.
  • Select a time period and write about its music trends.
  • Analyze the evolution of pop music starting from the 1950s.

Bob Dylan quote.

  • Write about the occupational hazards of being a musician.
  • The origin and development of sunshine pop.
  • Choose a music album and analyze its impact.
  • Which pop music era seems the most interesting to you?
  • Pick a famous band and describe their career path.
  • Compare two different pieces of music from the 20th century.
  • What are the main features of rock music?
  • How do pop songs influence the teenage generation?
  • The role of radio broadcasting in the pop music industry .
  • Popular vs. serious music: a comparison.
  • Talk about a person who largely contributed to pop music.
  • What are the functions of film music?
  • Can popular songs influence public opinion on a specific subject?
  • Why do some people develop a very negative attitude towards pop music?
  • Describe the role of music in your life.
  • Do famous artists influence the lifestyle of their fans?
  • Discover why some entertainers remain famous even after their death.

📰 Mass Media Pop Culture Essay Topics

Popular culture exists and survives because of the mass media. With its help, it reaches and unites billions of people. Television, radio, and newspapers are the main outlets of mass media. Here is the list of media-related pop culture topics to write about.

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  • Do magazines publish celebrity gossip too often?
  • Describe the way mass media dictates fashion standards to young adults.
  • Analyze the link between pop culture and mass media in the U.S.
  • Does mass media influence the preferences of the audience?
  • Describe how the media contributes to stereotypes about minorities.
  • Should newspapers expose sensitive details about celebrities’ lives?
  • How can one make sure not to consume fake news ?
  • Analyze the peculiarities of New Journalism.
  • Discover the influence of the New York Times on the press.
  • Write about radio stations contributing to pop culture in the past.
  • Discuss racial stereotyping on television.
  • Talk about an influential online news resource.
  • Body as a subject in media and marketing.
  • What kind of pop culture topics are not broadcast via mass media?
  • Would you consider Twitter a mass media source?
  • Talk about the media and the global public sphere.
  • Write about promotional campaigns via mass media.
  • Is it possible for an artist to gain fame without the internet?
  • Which websites are known for spreading fake news ?
  • How to avoid information overload nowadays?
  • Conduct a semiotic analysis of a perfume commercial.
  • Can pop culture survive without American media ?
  • Describe the American Idol phenomenon.
  • Talk about the internet’s effects on journalism.
  • Which influencers do you personally prefer and why?

📚 Modern Popular Literature Essay Topics

This section will be fun for book lovers! The term “popular literature” refers to writings intended for a broad audience. It’s no surprise that such books often become bestsellers. You can describe this type of writing as fiction with a strong plot. Look at this list of topic ideas for a great analytical, argumentative, or informative essay.

  • Describe the magic of Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books.
  • Discover the initial public opinion about The Handmaid’s Tale .
  • Why did The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo become a bestseller?
  • Principles used in Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson.
  • Why did Enduring Love by Ian McEwan gain popularity?
  • What charmed the readers of The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton?
  • Discuss the theme of change in Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee.
  • Discover the way the sad ending in The Lucky One affected the readers.
  • Orange Is the New Black: Netflix series vs. book.
  • What made The Wednesday Letters different from other love novels?

Clive Bloom quote.

  • How did The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins become iconic?
  • Describe the characters of Katherine Min’s Courting a Monk .
  • Discover the way Atonement by Ian McEwan impacted the readers.
  • What values are encouraged in Every Breath by Nicholas Sparks?
  • Discuss the initial public opinion about Life of Pi by Yann Martel .
  • Self-awareness in The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman.
  • Analyze the success of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie .
  • Discuss the literary issues of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air.
  • How did the public accept the controversial message of The Da Vinci Code ?
  • Did Aziz Ansari’s reputation contribute to the fame of his book Modern Romance ?
  • What made The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer popular?
  • Analyze the fanbase of The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.
  • What draws the readers to Confessions of a Shopaholic ?
  • Explore confession and forgiveness in The Lovely Bones.
  • Why did The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield gain popularity?

📺 Pop Culture Topics: Movies and T.V.

Movies and T.V. shows are an integral part of U.S. culture. This category includes films based on popular literature and all-time-classic movies. T.V. production is often accompanied by a massive amount of merchandise that fills clothing and toy stores. The following list will help you select an on-point essay topic.

  • Write about the way the Star Wars saga unifies several generations.
  • The Wizard of Oz in relation to populist movement.
  • Analyze the impact of King Kong on cinema.
  • What makes New York City an iconic location for movies?
  • Describe the role of fandom in pop culture.
  • Is it better to watch a movie at home vs. in theater?
  • Why is Lord of the Rings considered one of the greatest trilogies?
  • Define the genre of Scarface.
  • How does Groundhog Day relate to Buddhism?
  • Did The X-Files inspire conspiracy theories?
  • Analyze the way Friends logo entered the clothing industry.
  • Write about the role of the media in Jerry Maguire.
  • Why did the movie Aliens become popular?
  • Discover the effects of Western movies on Arab youth.
  • What has brought Terminator into pop culture?
  • Write about the impact Rocky had on viewers.
  • Discuss what fans appreciate about The Matrix movies.
  • Racism and masculinity in A Soldier’s Story.
  • Write about a successful Marvel movie .
  • What makes D.C. movies iconic?
  • Describe the role of social workers in Crash.
  • Discuss the periods of The Simpsons ’ fame.
  • Analyze the way Parks and Recreation reflect the U.S. culture.
  • Talk about your favorite blockbuster.
  • Should government control the contents of T.V. shows?

🇺🇸 American Pop Culture Topics

The history of the United States was always reflected in various art forms. Today its pop culture highlights social identity and carries on the American heritage. In this section, you can explore the elements that contribute to American pop culture.

  • How did globalization impact American pop culture ?
  • Analyze the influence of the American movie industry on the world.
  • Write about Hispanic American culture.
  • Explore the place of alien encounters narrative within American culture.
  • Write about a specific period of American pop culture.
  • Examine the popularity of American movies overseas.
  • Write about the history and influence of Halloween.
  • Discover the economic value of the American entertainment industry.
  • Write about an aspect of the American pop culture you’re most proud of.

Andy Warhol.

  • What would you like to change about the U.S. pop industry?
  • American folk culture vs. pop culture.
  • Which countries are not influenced by American culture at all?
  • Describe the role of T.V. broadcasting for the U.S.
  • Talk about American fast food as a part of pop culture.
  • Discover vacation destinations in and outside of the U.S.
  • Why is so much of today’s pop culture focused on the 80s?
  • How significant is Disney for Americans?
  • Discover the roots of U.S. pop culture.
  • How does the American pop industry portray sexuality?
  • Analyze the way pop culture unifies American citizens.
  • What are the destructive trends prevalent in the U.S.?
  • Discuss gender roles in American cartoons.
  • What does American pop teach about lifestyle?
  • How quickly do new fashion trends spread across the U.S.?
  • Discuss the way the U.S. pop culture reflects its historical values.

🌐 Popular Culture Essay Topics on Internet Phenomena

The internet is the ultimate means of communication worldwide. The rise of online trends is quite unpredictable, which is why it’s called internet phenomena. Memes, videos, challenges will be the focus of this section. Continue reading to find a fun essay topic!

  • What purpose was intended for the Ice bucket challenge ?
  • What made the dab famous worldwide?
  • Describe a dangerous internet phenomenon.
  • Why were teens attracted to the fire challenge?
  • Analyze the way Harlem Shake went viral.
  • What is people’s attitude towards social media?
  • How does something become an internet phenomenon?
  • Describe the influence of the Thriller dance on the world.
  • Debate the ethics of Coffin Dance.
  • What’s the reason for Gangnam Style’s fame?
  • How did the Momo challenge turn into a worldwide phenomenon?
  • Write about an internet phenomenon that emerged in 2020.
  • Talk about an online challenge you participated in.
  • What made Bongo Cat famous for many years?
  • Write about a politics-themed online phenomenon.
  • What distinguishes popular video games nowadays?
  • Analyze the role of TikTok in song advertisement.
  • Write about a comics book that gained popularity online.
  • Discover online challenges that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Describe the Bernie Sanders phenomenon among college students.
  • What internet phenomena are popular amongst the older generation?
  • Discuss the outcomes of a viral fundraising challenge.
  • Talk about one of the earliest internet phenomena.
  • How did the first memes appear on the internet?
  • Write about a web cartoon that qualifies as an internet phenomenon.

✍️ Pop Culture Analysis Topics to Write About

Pop culture includes many components you could write about. For an analytical paper, feel free to pick any aspect of pop culture. You can focus on positive, negative, or controversial factors. Make sure to use academic resources and professional critique. Here are some topic examples of your future paper.

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  • How does pop culture impact public health?
  • Analyze Coca Cola marketing strategies from the sensory perspective.
  • Will the entertainment industry survive without encouraging predatory behavior?
  • What percentage of the U.S. population is currently involved with pop culture ?
  • Analyze a popular culture artifact of your choice.
  • What makes a pop song relatable?
  • Why is popular literature often made into films?
  • How does Instagram affect people’s lives?
  • Will your generation be drawn to pop culture decades from now?
  • How can one become famous in the age of informational overload?
  • Analyze the price one is paying for remaining popular.

Suzy Kassem quote.

  • Why do some classic paintings become a commodity?
  • Write about a person who significantly impacted T.V.
  • Pick a T.V. show and analyze its rise to popularity.
  • Discover how one becomes an influencer.
  • Do video games have any positive effects?
  • In what ways does politics influence pop culture?
  • How necessary is funding for the pop industry?
  • Why have memes become a popular form of communication?
  • What things should celebrities stop promoting?
  • Analyze YouTube’s contributions to pop culture.
  • Talk about the important messages in current pop music.
  • What catches the attention of modern consumers?
  • How did the 2020 pandemic influence pop culture?
  • What happens to famous artists who quit their career?

🤔 Popular Culture and Social Issues Essay Topics

Pop culture reveals social issues and creates new ones. In your paper, consider various aspects of society. Think about popular culture’s effect on different generations, languages, or values. The following list will help you select an interesting essay topic.

  • Describe ways in which pop culture divides social groups.
  • Do pop songs represent the voice of society?
  • What social issues does pop music contribute to?
  • Analyze the media’s influence on women’s self-image.
  • How does an expectation of the zombie apocalypse affect the Americans?
  • The impact of T.V. shows on self-realization amongst teenagers.
  • Does popular literature disconnect teenagers from society?
  • Why do people incorporate fictional characters in protest marches?
  • What do modern toys teach children about body image ?
  • Did pop culture contribute to social unrest in the U.S.?
  • Discover the way popular movies contribute to discrimination .
  • In what ways do memes influence public opinion?
  • Analyze the effects of mass media on one’s sexuality.
  • Examine the impact of YouTube on young adults’ career choices.
  • Does pop culture promote promiscuous behavior?
  • Describe the way modern movies stigmatize obesity.
  • What family values are projected in today’s mass media?
  • Explore the harming side of fandoms .
  • Does mainstream media sabotage social norms or encourage them?
  • Do pop songs encourage rebellious behavior amongst teens?
  • What kind of lesson does pop culture teach about gender?
  • Correlation between mobile games and the overuse of display devices.
  • Discover stereotypes that are prevalent in the pop industry nowadays.
  • Analyze the effect of television on bullying .
  • In what light does pop culture portray religion?

We hope you found this article helpful and choose an excellent topic for your assignment. Now go ahead and write an A+ essay on pop culture!

You might also be interested in:

  • A List of 175 Interesting Cultural Topics to Write About
  • 497 Interesting History Topics to Research
  • 137 Social Studies Topics for Your Research Project
  • 70 Music Essay Topics + Writing Guide
  • How to Write an Art Critique: Examples and Simple Techniques
  • How to Write a Movie Critique Paper: Top Tips + Example
  • 267 Hottest Fashion Topics to Write About in 2024
  • Choosing a Topic for the Research Paper: Purdue University
  • The Evolution of Popular Music: University of Minnesota Twin Cities
  • Mass Media and Popular Culture: Github
  • Literacy and Literature in Popular Culture: Reading and Writing in Historical Perspective: Springer
  • Popular Literature: Birmingham University
  • Fandom and Participatory Culture: Grinnell College
  • Popular Culture Issues: Florida State University
  • Examining Popular Culture and Society: Arizona State University
  • Pop Culture Makes You Smarter: St Edward’s University in Austin, TX
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VIDEO

  1. What is Popular Culture and What is Pop Culture Studies

  2. Why Pop Culture?: Alexandre O. Philippe at TEDxMileHigh

  3. What Is Popular Culture

  4. What is Pop Culture Part 1: Etymology

  5. The intersection of pop culture and politics: Mike Muse at TEDxRVA

  6. A pop culture pop quiz on antiracism

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