{"id":44,"date":"2015-03-24T20:33:48","date_gmt":"2015-03-24T20:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/accintrotomedia\/chapter\/1-7-mass-media-and-popular-culture\/"},"modified":"2022-08-06T22:41:06","modified_gmt":"2022-08-06T22:41:06","slug":"1-7-mass-media-and-popular-culture","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/accintrotomedia\/chapter\/1-7-mass-media-and-popular-culture\/","title":{"raw":"1.7 Mass Media and Popular Culture","rendered":"1.7 Mass Media and Popular Culture"},"content":{"raw":"
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Learning Objectives<\/h3>\r\n
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  1. Determine the influence of tastemakers in traditional media.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Identify the ways the digital age is undermining the traditional role of tastemakers.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Determine how Internet culture now allows creators to bypass gatekeepers and determine the potential effects this will have.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Burroughs\u2019s jubilant call to bring art \u201cout of the closets and into the museums\u201d spoke to postmodernism\u2019s willingness to meld high and low culture (Leonard, 1997). And although the Postmodern Age specifically embraced popular culture<\/a><\/span>, mass media and pop culture have been entwined from their very beginnings. In fact, mass media often determines what does and does not make up the pop culture scene.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Tastemakers<\/h2>\r\n

    Historically, mass pop culture has been fostered by an active and tastemaking mass media that introduces and encourages the adoption of certain trends. Although they are similar in some ways to the widespread media gatekeepers discussed in Section 1.4.3 \"Gatekeepers\"<\/a>, tastemakers<\/a><\/span> differ in that they are most influential when the mass media is relatively small and concentrated. When only a few publications or programs reach millions of people, their writers and editors are highly influential. The New York Times<\/em>\u2019s restaurant reviews used to be able to make a restaurant successful or unsuccessful through granting (or withdrawing) its rating.<\/p>\r\n

    Or take the example of Ed Sullivan\u2019s variety show, which ran from 1948 to 1971, and is most famous for hosting the first U.S. appearance of the Beatles\u2014a television event that was at the time the most-watched TV program ever. Sullivan hosted musical acts, comedians, actors, and dancers and had the reputation of being able to turn an act on the cusp of fame into full-fledged stars. Comedian Jackie Mason compared being on The Ed Sullivan Show<\/em> to \u201can opera singer being at the Met. Or if a guy is an architect that makes the Empire State Building.\u2026This was the biggest (Leonard, 1997).\u201d Sullivan was a classic example of an influential tastemaker of his time. A more modern example is Oprah Winfrey, whose book club endorsements often send literature, including old classics like Leo Tolstoy\u2019s Anna Karenina<\/em>, skyrocketing to the top of The New York Times<\/em> Best Sellers list.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

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    Figure 1.11<\/span><\/p>\r\n\"1.7.0\"<\/a>\r\n

    For Elvis Presley\u2019s third appearance on The Ed Sullivan show<\/em>, he was shown only from the waist up; Sullivan considered his dancing too scandalous for family viewing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Wikimedia Commons<\/a> - public domain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n

    Along with encouraging a mass audience to see (or skip) certain movies, television shows, video games, books, or fashion trends, people use tastemaking to create demand for new products. Companies often turn to advertising firms to help create public hunger for an object that may have not even existed 6 months before. In the 1880s, when George Eastman developed the Kodak camera for personal use, photography was most practiced by professionals. \u201cThough the Kodak was relatively cheap and easy to use, most Americans didn\u2019t see the need for a camera; they had no sense that there was any value in visually documenting their lives,\u201d noted New Yorker<\/em> writer James Surowiecki (Surowiecki, 2003). Kodak became a wildly successful company not because Eastman was good at selling cameras, but because he understood that what he really had to sell was photography. Apple Inc. is a modern master of this technique. By leaking just enough information about a new product to cause curiosity, the technology company ensures that people will be waiting excitedly for an official release.<\/p>\r\n

    Tastemakers help keep culture vital by introducing the public to new ideas, music, programs, or products, but tastemakers are not immune to outside influence. In the traditional media model, large media companies set aside large advertising budgets to promote their most promising projects; tastemakers buzz about \u201cthe next big thing,\u201d and obscure or niche works can get lost in the shuffle.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    A Changing System for the Internet Age<\/h2>\r\n

    In retrospect, the 20th century was a tastemaker\u2019s dream. Advertisers, critics, and other cultural influencers had access to huge audiences through a number of mass-communication platforms. However, by the end of the century, the rise of cable television and the Internet had begun to make tastemaking a more complicated enterprise. While The Ed Sullivan Show<\/em> regularly reached 50 million people in the 1960s, the most popular television series of 2009\u2014American Idol<\/em>\u2014averaged around 25.5 million viewers per night, despite the fact that the 21st-century United States could claim more people and more television sets than ever before (Wikipedia, 2012). However, the proliferation of TV channels and other competing forms of entertainment meant that no one program or channel could dominate the attention of the American public as in Sullivan\u2019s day.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

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    Table 1.2<\/span> Viewings of Popular Television Broadcasts<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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    Show\/Episode<\/p>\r\n<\/th>\r\n

    		\r\n

    Number of Viewers<\/p>\r\n<\/th>\r\n

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    Percent of Households<\/p>\r\n<\/th>\r\n

    		\r\n

    Year<\/p>\r\n<\/th>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/thead>\r\n

    \r\n

    The Ed Sullivan Show \/ The Beatles\u2019 first appearance<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    73 million<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    45.1%<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

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    1964<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n

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    The Ed Sullivan Show \/ Elvis Presley\u2019s first appearance<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

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    60 million<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    82.6%<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

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    1956<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n

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    I Love Lucy \/ \u201cLucy Goes to the Hospital\u201d<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    44 million<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    71.7%<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

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    1953<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n

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    M*A*S*H \/ Series finale<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    106 million<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    60.2%<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    1983<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n

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    Seinfeld \/ Series finale<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    76 million<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    41.3%<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    1998<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n

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    American Idol \/ Season 5 finale<\/em><\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    36 million<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    17%<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n

    		\r\n

    2006<\/p>\r\n<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    Meanwhile, a low-tech home recording of a little boy acting loopy after a visit to the dentist (\u201cDavid After Dentist\u201d) garnered more than 37 million YouTube viewings in 2009 alone. Since then, YouTube continues to break records.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_459\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"563\"]\"Top<\/a> Graph from Statista.com.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nEach week, The Nielsen Company, which has researched and documented media audiences for years, tracks the top-10<\/a> most-viewed streaming shows,\u00a0 prime time TV shows, and video game by audience numbers, as well as companies with the top-10 advertising dollars spent in media. This can give people a gauge of what people are watching in a world with many more platforms and choices.\r\n

    The Internet appears to be eroding some of the tastemaking power of the traditional media outlets. No longer is the traditional mass media the only dominant force in creating and promoting trends. Instead, information spreads across the globe without the active involvement of traditional mass media. Websites made by nonprofessionals can reach more people daily than a major newspaper. Music review sites such as Pitchfork keep their eyes out for the next big thing, whereas review aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes allow readers to read hundreds of movie reviews by amateurs and professionals alike.<\/p>\r\n

    E-mail and text messages allow people to transmit messages almost instantly across vast geographic expanses. Although personal communications continue to dominate, e-mail and text messages are increasingly used to directly transmit information about important news events. When Barack Obama wanted to announce his selection of Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate in the 2008 election, he bypassed the traditional televised press conference and instead sent the news to his supporters directly via text message\u20142.9 million text messages, to be exact (Covey). Social networking sites, such as Facebook, and microblogging services, such as Twitter<\/a><\/span>, are another source of late-breaking information. When Michael Jackson died of cardiac arrest in 2009, \u201cRIP Michael Jackson\u201d was a top trending topic on Twitter before the first mainstream media first reported the news.<\/p>\r\n

    Thanks to these and other digital-age media, the Internet has become a pop culture force, both a source of amateur talent and a source of amateur promotion. However, traditional media outlets still maintain a large amount of control and influence over U.S. pop culture. One key indicator is the fact that many singers or writers who first make their mark on the Internet quickly transition to more traditional media\u2014YouTube star Justin Bieber was signed by a mainstream record company, and blogger Perez Hilton is regularly featured on MTV and VH1. New-media stars are quickly absorbed into the old-media landscape.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Getting Around the Gatekeepers<\/h2>\r\nThe rise of the internet and social media has been great for democratizing information. More people can find information right now than at any time in human history. This information can be a boost to social justice efforts, it can notify the world of atrocities, and it can more people educate themselves with Wikipedia. However, it can also lead to dangerous spreading of misinformation, which is information is that is wrong accidentally or unintentionally, to disinformation, which is information that is intentionally created to manipulate and deceive. While traditional media and news gatekeepers were problematic because they were controlled by powerful companies, which reflected a very male-centric, white, and heteronormative dominance, the disappearances of gatekeepers is also problematic. Mis- and disinformation about COVID and vaccines runs rapid, which has serious consequences to individual lives, public health, and the economy.\r\n\r\nThe following is an article from TheConversation.com<\/a> about the shifting role of gatekeepers to everyone who has access to the internet.\r\n\r\n
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    You are the new gatekeeper of the\u00a0news<\/strong><\/h1>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nFebruary 7, 2017 10.08am EST\r\n\r\n<\/header><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
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    Author<\/h3>\r\n\"\"<\/a>\r\n\r\nAly Col\u00f3n<\/span><\/a>\r\n

    Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics, Washington and Lee University<\/p>\r\n

    Disclosure statement<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section>

    Aly Col\u00f3n does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/section>
    <\/section>
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    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/section><\/div>\r\n
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    <\/div>\r\n
    Are you responsible about the things you share?\u00a0Shutterstock<\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
    \r\n\r\nNews consumers today face a flood of fake news and information. Distinguishing between fact and fiction has become increasingly challenging.<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn the past, news organizations sifted through information to try to determine its validity and veracity. Being trusted for what they reported became an important part of journalists\u2019 reputations.\r\n\r\nBut that was then.\r\n

    You are part of the problem<\/h2>\r\n
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    \"\"<\/div>\r\n
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    Journalists like Walter Cronkite used to be gatekeepers of the news.<\/span>\u00a0https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/File:Cronkitejfkdeath.gif#filelinks<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\nNow the gatekeeping role that the legacy media newspapers and network television news once played falls to all of us. Today, everyone assumes the position of publisher. Technology has democratized the process of making, or making up, news.\r\n
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    Journalists no longer decide what goes public. Information flows unimpeded and unchecked through the internet, filling a multitude of websites, blogs and tweets.<\/span><\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nAll of it flows through social media streams and into our laptops, tablets and smartphones. Everyone who posts, or reshares, a news story on Facebook or retweets a link takes on a role once held by only a powerful few media executives. The problem that emerges today stems from the fact that most social media \u201cpublishers\u201d fail to consider the responsibility for what they post.\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s not that fake news is new.\u00a0Thomas Jefferson complained in 1807<\/a>, \u201cNothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.\u201d Jefferson\u2019s comment represents just one of many views regarding news not only in the U.S. but in Europe. Fake news can be traced back Italy in 1475 when\u00a0a priest made a false claim<\/a>\u00a0about a child\u2019s disappearance.\u00a0Even the political battle between Marc Antony and Octavian to succeed the murdered Julius Caesar engaged the use of fake news.<\/a>\u00a0Octavian\u2019s use of fake news enabled him to succeed Caesar.\r\n\r\nAnd it\u2019s not that the old gatekeepers were infallible or consistently apolitical. But in today\u2019s technological world, we\u2019re in the midst of an informational perfect storm. The equation I might offer would be: Velocity + Volume = Volatility. All the news on the internet moves so fast, and assaults us with so much, that the outcome becomes unpredictably dangerous.\r\n\r\nSome people who use social media check what they publish. Others repost or retweet information without reading it carefully, much less doing any due diligence for accuracy. That plays into what those who produce fake news hope to accomplish. While some believe they hope to deceive people, press critic Tom Rosenstiel\u00a0asserts<\/a>, \u201cThe goal of fake news is not to make people believe the lie. It is to make them doubt all news.\u201d\r\n\r\nSome may think that young people, with their social media savvy, might be better able to assess the information they consume.\r\n\r\nA Stanford University study found it shocking that many of them couldn\u2019t \u201cevaluate the credibility of that information.<\/a>\u201d The study noted that more than 80 percent of middle schoolers saw \u201csponsored content\u201d as actual news. High school students didn\u2019t verify photos. Most college students failed to suspect potential bias in an activist group\u2019s tweet.\r\n

    Step up your game<\/h2>\r\nSo what are news consumers to do? How can they act as their own gatekeepers, intent on vigilance and verification like the best journalists and publishers of old?\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s how to begin.\r\n\r\n#1<\/strong>. Check out the source. This may seem basic, but it\u2019s easy to read headlines without paying attention to who wrote it. Writers and websites operate with their own perspective. Some want to offer a balanced view. Some advocate a point of view. Others hope to deceive you.\r\n\r\nKnow the \u201cwho\u201d or the \u201cwhat\u201d of the source. Is the source, website, Twitter handle or blog familiar to you? Have you read them before? Read other work they have done. See if writers you trust link to them.\r\n\r\nRead the \u201cAbout\u201d section of the writer\/website. Use search engines to track the name. Sometimes such sites as Linkedin or Facebook turn up basic background information. The key is to know where they are coming from.\r\n\r\n#2<\/strong>. Check out the information. Do other sources corroborate what you\u2019re reading, viewing or hearing? Have you used verification sites such as\u00a0Snopes<\/a>,\u00a0Politifact<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0FactCheck.org<\/a>?\r\n\r\nSnopes, for example,\u00a0reported that some of the \u201c2017 inauguration photos\u201d<\/a>\u00a0tweeted out of Trump\u2019s inauguration were taken weeks or years earlier. One was a photo of the Kansas Royals baseball team rally. Politifact pointed out\u00a0President Donald Trump\u2019s press secretary\u2019s assertion<\/a>\u00a0the inauguration had the largest audience \u2013 period \u2013 was disputed by other measurements. And FactCheck.org noted that former President Barack Obama \u201cfalsely claimed that a treaty he signed with Russia in 2011 \u2018has substantially reduced our nuclear stockpiles<\/a>, both Russia and the United States.\u2018\u201d\r\n\r\nDick Grefe, a senior reference librarian at Washington and Lee University, alerted me that two professors at the University of Washington have proposed teaching a course \u201cCalling Bullshit: In the Age of Big Data.\u201d The course would \u201cfocus on bullshit that comes clad in the trappings of scholarly discourse.\u201d What\u2019s fake isn\u2019t limited to news.\r\n\r\n#3<\/strong>. Be aware of your biases. Remember that we tend to read, listen to and watch news with our own built-in prejudices. We evaluate information based on whether it supports what we already believe. It can be easy to discount that which upsets or challenges our worldview. Reports about \u201cconfirmation bias<\/a>\u201d abound. As studies and writers have noted, we basically believe what we want to believe.\r\n\r\nThe concern journalists feel about how misleading and confusing the news can be has prompted a number of them to offer their own guides to approaching biases and fake news. Journalist and media expert Alicia Shepard offers\u00a0her suggestions on how to avoid being duped.<\/a>\u00a0Alan Miller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who founded the\u00a0News Literacy Project,<\/a>\u00a0grapples with confirmation bias head on. Steve Inskeep at NPR\u00a0provides a guide to facts<\/a>.\r\n\r\nBattle your own confirmation bias by expanding the sources of information you seek. Be open to thinking about different points of view. Read widely. Read counterpoints. Watch for innovations from the media. For example,\u00a0one recent study<\/a>\u00a0published on MarketWatch placed different news sources on the \u201ctruthiness\u201d scale. Another, older piece on\u00a0businessinsider.com <\/a>\u00a0could help you identify the ideology underlining your favorite source of news.\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s no need to close the gate, but be sure you know what\u2019s flowing in. It matters.\r\n
    \r\n\r\nThink you know the difference between a credible source and a bogus site?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe News Literacy Project<\/a> has partnered up with SmartNews<\/a> to make a quiz to test your abilities to vet a source's credibility. See how good your credibility assessment is with this two-minute quiz<\/a>.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n
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    The question remains: Will the Internet era be marked by a huge and diffuse pop culture, where the power of traditional mass media declines and, along with it, the power of the universalizing blockbuster hit? Or will the Internet create a new set of tastemakers\u2014 social media influencers \u2014or even serve as a platform for the old tastemakers to take on new forms?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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    Democratizing Tastemaking<\/h4>\r\n

    In 1993, The New York Times<\/em> restaurant critic Ruth Reichl wrote a review about her experiences at the upscale Manhattan restaurant Le Cirque. She detailed the poor service she received when the restaurant staff did not know her and the excellent service she received when they realized she was a professional food critic. Her article illustrated how the power to publish reviews could affect a person\u2019s experience at a restaurant. The Internet, which turned everyone with the time and interest into a potential reviewer, allowed those ordinary people to have their voices heard. In the mid-2000s, websites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor boasted hundreds of reviews of restaurants, hotels, and salons provided by users. Amazon allows users to review any product it sells, from textbooks to bathing suits. The era of the democratized review had come, and tastemaking was now everyone\u2019s job.<\/p>\r\n

    By crowdsourcing<\/a><\/span> (harnessing the efforts of a number of individuals online to solve a problem) the review process, the idea was, these sites would arrive at a more accurate description of the service in choice. One powerful reviewer would no longer be able to wield disproportionate power; instead, the wisdom of the crowd would make or break restaurants, movies, and everything else. Anyone who felt treated badly or scammed now had recourse to tell the world about it. By 2008, Yelp had 4 million reviews<\/p>\r\n

    However, mass tastemaking isn\u2019t as perfect as some people had promised. Certain reviewers can overly influence a product\u2019s overall rating by contributing multiple votes. One study found that a handful of Amazon users were casting hundreds of votes, while most rarely wrote reviews at all. Online reviews also tend to skew to extremes\u2014more reviews are written by the ecstatic and the furious, while the moderately pleased aren\u2019t riled up enough to post online about their experiences. And while traditional critics are supposed to adhere to ethical standards, there\u2019s no such standard for online reviews. Savvy authors or restaurant owners have been known to slyly insert positive reviews or attempt to skew ratings systems. To get an accurate picture, potential buyers may find themselves wading through 20 or 30 online reviews, most of them from nonprofessionals. And sometimes those people aren\u2019t professionals for a reason. Consider these user reviews on Amazon of William Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet<\/em>: \u201cThere is really no point and it\u2019s really long,\u201d \u201cI really didn\u2019t enjoy reading this book and I wish that our English teacher wouldn\u2019t force my class to read this play,\u201d and \u201cdon\u2019t know what Willy Shakespeare was thinking when he wrote this one play tragedy, but I thought this sure was boring! Hamlet does too much talking and not enough stuff.\u201d While some may argue that these are valid criticisms of the play, these comments are certainly a far cry from the thoughtful critique of a professional literary critic.<\/p>\r\n

    These and other issues underscore the point of having reviews in the first place\u2014that it\u2019s an advantage to have certain places, products, or ideas examined and critiqued by a trusted and knowledgeable source. In an article about Yelp, The New York Times<\/em> noted that one of the site\u2019s elite reviewers had racked up more than 300 reviews in 3 years, and then pointed out that \u201cBy contrast, a New York Times<\/em> restaurant critic might take six years to amass 300 reviews. The critic visits a restaurant several times, strives for anonymity and tries to sample every dish on the menu (McNeil, 2008).\u201d Whatever your vantage point, it\u2019s clear that old-style tastemaking is still around and still valuable\u2014but the democratic review is here to stay.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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    Key Takeaways<\/h3>\r\n