Most important concept learned

  I think the most important concept we learned is to think about different components in the way of popular culture study--from how the popular culture is formed and spread, to how can we analyze different things with the theory of it. We learned different ways of how people study popular culture like Marxists critics ,  Cultural Study and more. Take advertising as example, we learned what is false consciousness or what is conspicuous consumption. We tried to analyzed different topic and examples using the theory of popular culture on some interesting or problematic examples. We also spent a lot of time on discuss whether something is hegemonic, of discuss how the narratives or contents contributes to the theme. We discussed about different genres or subgenres  in Music but we also used the concept for the whole process of class. It's interesting to discover how the things we learned before are connected with things we are discussing or facing everyday. We applied the concept of thinking in a way of theory of popular culture a lot on class and expressed our opinion based on that. By learning this concept, I started to understand more of the popular culture on how they worked or why it goes in a certain way, and also found it interesting when we are looking into something we knew before or some events happened long before. By using the theory of popular culture, it helped us a lot on thinking critically and thinking about different perspectives. Instead of just being  a part of mainstream and follow it blindly, We are now provided a chance to look into different issue in an open perspective and learn more about it. We all are contributors of popular cultures, so it's helpful and great to know more about the study of it. 

The Most Important Concept learned is...

The most important concept I believe I learned in class is Hall's "triparite theory" of reception. It was discussed early in the semester, but I feel like it can be applied across many other subjects discussed in class. Triparite theory describes how people can respond to popular culture. Dominant is when the consumers fully support the ideology. Negotiated is when the consumers are reserved due to being conflicted regarding the ideology. Oppositional is when the consumer is completely against the ideology. Oppositional and negotiated I feel are critical in the idea of popular culture. Through the class, I would argue that popular culture is hegemonic, meaning that a group (the population) is given consent to determine the ideology. With negotiated and oppositional receptions, the people that do not consent or completely consent can also for their own ideologies that may receive reception from other people in a society. This is how genres can be made, something we learned later in the course. With this idea of triparite theory, a base understanding of everything that was learned later in the course could be critically decoded. After this class, I believe it is now possible to decode parts of popular culture that we see in our culture once this class is over.

The Most Important Concept

The most important concept that we learned in this class was the ways that popular culture make us conform. Everyone wants to be part of our culture and the things we learn through Ads, Sports, films, Tv and all our concepts make us come together. However this also makes us conform, we lose our  individuality and try to become one with the culture. Although there are examples of countercultures, the vast majority of people remain part of the mainstream. This hegemony is hard to realize until you start looking at in a class like this. The fact that we are able to realize how we are part of the problem is eye opening. This culture is something that we are all socialized into and is therefore extremely hard to break out. Therefore even though popular culture does have benefits and it has it's great parts, we all face the conformity that is a major part of our lives.

Important Concept

I feel that the most important concept that I learned in this class is the utility of popular culture. We have learned that people use pop culture for so many different things. For example, some may watch sports for pure escapism from their hectic lives, while others may watch sports to feel more engaged and connected with city or state that the team represents. One person may view a chick flick looking solely for laughter and a good romance story, while another viewer may be watching the same movie looking for validation of their feelings and lifestyle. Just one piece of media can do so many different things for different people, and I have found that concept to be very novel and interesting. Not everyone is getting the same messages and value out of popular movies and television shows; everyone has a different experience based on their reason for viewing the media, and their own unique perspectives.

Most important concept

One of the most important concepts I've learned through this class is that each piece of popular culture we consume has different meanings and perspectives on who is consuming it. Throughout the semester we consumed a lot of different popular media and throughout the semester, there were so many different meanings on all the different idiosyncrasies of popular culture. There is not one correct way to interpret popular culture no matter the medium. Through music, we thought about things that the average listener doesn't. We took different meanings of lyrics, of instrumentation and dissected them to the point that everybody in class had their own unique experience with the popular culture. This goes for advertising, graphic novels, film and all the other mediums of popular culture we consumed. Each individual has a unique perspective when consuming popular culture.