Week 5-1 analysis

Personal Media devices such as the iPod have changed popular culture by the way people communicate with friends and family. Before personal media devices were created, friends and families would spent their time enjoying media such as radio and TV together. For example, American families in the 70’s would gather around the TV and spend a whole evening watching and enjoying the same piece of media as their friends and family. Another example would be the fireside chats. During a fireside chat, the president would talk to the nation as the American people sat with their family and listened to the radio. Since the invention of the Walkman, people have had a personal media player that will play what they want to hear when they want to hear it. Although the Sony Walkman paved the way for media devices such as the iPod it could never stick as a long lasting part of popular culture.

Personal Media devices died off until the invention of the iPod. The iPod was the first personal media device to be able to get people’s attention and hold on to it. People now could enjoy countless hours of music selfishly by themselves in their room and in their heads. The popular culture of the iPod and personal media devices had begun.

The iPod popular culture has contributed to societies change from a social based culture to an individual based culture. For example, two people are on a bus, before the iPod culture they would talk and be social until one of them got off the bus, however in the iPod culture they would prefer to listen to the music that makes them happy and not concern themselves with socializing with others. The iPod culture teaches children and adults that they should only care about what they personally want to hear and not to worry or care what other people think about personal media or life in general. The popular Culture of the iPod and media devices will dictate how American’s interact with each other in the future. With this is mind, one can only hope somehow someway the future effect of the iPod culture on society will be a positive one.

Week 4-1 analysis

Cell phones have slowly become a part of popular culture. It was not too long ago when Americans main means of communication was in person or by rotary telephone. With the introduction of the cell phone the good old home telephone was all but lost. Cell phones were starting to creep up in popular culture as early as the “Saved by the Bell” days. Who can forget Zack Morris talking on the huge analog cell phone ordering pizza’s to his classroom. Although this was the beginning of the cell phones the size, style, and cost made it almost impossible for cell phones to be a popular culture icon. Finally in the mid to late 1990’s cell phones were starting to be made smaller, cheaper, and with the new digital cell phone signals which allowed the batteries to last longer and improved audio quality. Cell phones slowly became more popular and began changing the way Americans communicated. For the first time in history the American people could commutate outside via cell phone. Cell phones however, were still used mainly by adults and did not yet display the characteristics of a popular culture item.

Once a new service called text messaging was created cell phones were well on their way to becoming part of popular culture. For example, a person that goes to school could now use text messaging to talk to friends during class and the teacher would have no idea what was going on. Now that text messaging was out the appeal of cell phones when through the roof. Text messaging and cell phones made it where people could communicate outside the home and did not have to see the person or hear their voice in order to communicate. For example, instead of dealing with all the emotion of a face to face or telephone break up some people began to break up using text messaging because it is a far less emotional experience. Text messaging played a huge part in cell phones being a part of popular culture

Once most people began to use cell phones they became a part of everyday life and popular culture. The color, style, and features of a cell phone became oh so important. A cell phone is absolute requirement in the popular culture of today. With new cell phones being able to access the internet cell phones are a popular culture as well. Cell phones have done so much for American popular culture by changing where and how people can communicate.