Mass Media / Popular Culture

Mass Media / Popular Culture

The Mass-Media Pygmalion

In the Classical Greco-Roman era, it was believed that Pygmalion, a sculptor, brought Galatea to life. However, today it seems to be a more common belief that Galatea creates Pygmalion. The question of whether members of our society create the media, or if the media influences members of the society to such a degree that it essentially creates the society, is a prominent one in the study of modern anthropology. Pop culture artifacts reveal a great deal about the modern society, including social trends, values, ideals, and more. The relationship between consumers and the mass media is a complex one that may not be simple enough to evaluate as a directional give-and-take diagram. There are many issues relating to social responsibility and the often clashing pursuits of individual wealth and greater good that come to play when discussing popular media, culture, and society. These complex relationships are certainly strongly connected to the other themes that appear repeatedly throughout the artifacts of popular culture, such as the desire for quantity over quality, a disconnection from reality, an inability to maintain a single focus, and the overwhelming fragmentation of ideals in modern society. Overall, many of the most significant trends and values held in popular culture today can be related to the development of the fast-food industry.

An important identifying feature of popular culture is the fast-food industry. "Should Armageddon come, should a foreign enemy someday shower the United States with nuclear warheads, laying waste to the continent, entombed within Cheyenne Mountain, along with the high-tech marvels, the pale-blue uniforms, comic books and Bibles, future archeologists may find other clues to the nature of our civilization - Big King wrappers, hardened crusts of Cheesy Bread, Barbecue Wing bones, and the red, white and blue of a Domino's pizza box." (Schlosser) In fact, Americans spend more money on fast food every year than they do on almost any other pop culture artifact: movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music combined. (Schlosser) One out of every eight Americans has worked at a McDonalds restaurant, two thousand more McDonalds restaurants open every year, and the Golden Arches are more widely recognized than the Christian cross. (Schlosser) All of these facts are proof that Fast food is not just a dinner choice, but it is an integral part of popular culture and society. However, one must ask what values the fast food trend has brought to society.

One value that is inevitable in a fast-food culture is conformity. Despite the fact that this society claims to be supportive of diversity, the franchise-friendly atmosphere attempts to extinguish all non-conformity and replace it with a fear of the unknown. To quote one of McDonalds' founders, "We will make conformists out of them in a hurry.... The organization cannot trust the individual; the individual must trust the organization. " (Schlosser) This mindset is adapted by consumers to apply to more than just fast-food chains; the value of conformity is present in all aspects of society. Those members of society that choose to dress or behave in ways that are against the norm are outcast and feared. This same trend is what propels all brand names to have such importance, as people look for recognizable, familiar brands that assure them they are acting as part of the "norms" of society when making their purchases. Fast-food chains, as well as all other brand-pushers, get children hooked on one particular image early, having playgrounds, contests, toys, games, kid's clubs, and more to lure in children. This early recruitment has made it so that "America's fast food culture has become indistinguishable from the popular culture of its children." (MAN) further value that is fostered by the fast-food atmosphere of popular culture is that of quantity (or speed) over quality. "The sociologist George Ritzer has attacked the fast-food industry for celebrating efficiency ahead of every other human value." (Schlosser) Fast food restaurants provide low-quality food very quickly, for what is easily perceived as a low price. Other aspects of popular culture reflect this value as well, from the "roll-back" Wal-mart phenomenon to the speedy fabrication and marketing of most popular music, movies, and television shows. These trends also encouraged by the short attention spans of consumers. On the web, it has been shown that a particular site has less than seven seconds to load and attract the attention of the viewer before he or she moves on to the next Google result. (WebGuru) In the kitchen, this is evidenced by the prevalence of instant oatmeal, instant coffee, instant cookie dough, and other products promising instant gratification for minimal effort.

This fast-food culture has also helped to foster a removal from reality for consumers. Children do not understand that nuggets come from birds or that Burgers come from cows, and most adults chose to never think about the unpleasant aspects of factory-farms and slaughterhouses having anything to do with their McDonalds meal. "Roughly a quarter of the nation's population buys fast food every day - and yet few people give the slightest thought to who makes it or where it comes from. A fast-food kitchen is merely the final stage in a vast system of mass production. America's favorite foods, like its automobiles and television sets, are now manufactured by computerized, highly automated machines." (Schlosser) Once upon a time, people in a society were involved in every stage of obtaining or creating a product. Food was obtained firsthand from the earth, meals were prepared firsthand in the kitchen, and buildings were built from stone and wood. Today, products come prefabricated. Popular culture trends appear to be that how and by what means any product is manufactured is distributed on a need-to-know basis, leaving most members of society under the impression that "some assembly required" is how things are made and that "just adding water" is cooking. This is a society where imitation processed cheese-food is considered an ideal part of a child's lunch.