RESPOND TO THE FOLLOWING FIVE QUESTIONS:
1) Pick one genre of song such as rock, folk, country, rap, etc.
2) Focusing on that single genre of song, pick at least 5 top-ten hits in that genre for a year in two separate decades, e.g. for 1980s and 2000s (a total of 10 songs)
3) List your genre choice, decade choices, and song choices (with band/singer) for each decade
4) Discuss if/how there are similarities/differences over the years (e.g. in the messages about love, sex, relationships and family) and how these can be explained in terms of claims about popular culture made in this and prior weeks' readings (this should include referencing the class material when appropriate)
The Week 5 Forum meets the following course objectives:
- Apply key cultural theories and analytical dimensions for examining popular culture.
- Explain how various elements of popular culture inform or reflect our attitudes, behavior, and society and why the popular culture becomes popular.
- Illustrate diversity in popular culture and concepts of multiculturalism, ethnocentrism, and cultural relativism with reference to key stratifying factors such as gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, region and sexuality.
- Describe the cultural and social significance of popular culture in shaping the larger contemporary American society.
- Examine the roles of print media, art, music, radio, television, motion picture, the Internet, sports, fashion, and technology in the development of American popular culture.