In listening to this week’s podcast, I think the most interesting part to me was the idea of how ideas and forms of pop culture spread. For example, in discussing the tale of Robin Hood, Dr. Bezio explained how the story began with the “common” people under the reign of King John, and how this story, with some changes and adaptations, has continued to be told into the modern-day, for the themes of the story, even in different settings, hold strong. With this, stories, like Robin Hood, can spread through both writing and word of mouth, such as through songs that are easy to memorize and spread. It is this ability to spread to different peoples at different times in different settings that interested me most in this discussion. Specifically, I think it would be interesting to look at the spreading of stories, essentially the spreading of pop culture, in the current age of social media. With social media, ideas from across the globe can be shared with individuals of any other country, religion, race, etc in a matter of seconds.
In the past, the spreading of stories and pop culture, even if it was widespread, took time, for ideas were spread through word of mouth, and through writings, which even then were often limited to certain peoples and classes of peoples. In the current age, however, technology has made it possible for people from vastly different areas, both domestically and internationally, to share ideas, and spread stories and experiences. Thus, I think it would be interesting to look at the spread of pop culture and the stories from which it develops and look at the development of these stories in the new age of technology and social media. I somewhat do this in my own research project, for I am looking at Donald Trump’s rhetoric, and the impact of technology and social media on the ability to spread ideas, and the consequences of this increased ability and access to spreading ideas. Overall, I think that, like in my research project, it would be interesting to look at the ability and access of pop culture to now spread with the aid of technology and social media.
I really appreciate how you bring Dr. Bezio’s lesson into the current moment, especially with the use of social media. Even though Twitter and other various forms of social media are popular, and often not regarded as respectable, I know many researchers who are writing formal academic pieces where they cite Twitter and other social media. This helps blur those lines between respected and popular, especially as anyone with an internet connection can often access social media, so it is not a stratified social space.
I agree with a lot of what you said in this post. Funny enough, we have very similar research projects and I am also focussing on Donald Trump’s rhetoric and its implications in news reporting and consumption. Social media has become a powerful tool in the sharing of ideas, stories, and opinions. Because of this, the influence of certain narratives can grow to impact people across the globe in a matter of minutes and I think this is both a good and bad thing.
I think its crazy how pop culture can be shared so easily as we have all these resources and technology available. You talked about how pop culture spreads but it makes me try to grasp the idea that before the only way they would receive news was by word of mouth until things started to be printed and shared in that manner. So much has changed in the last couple decades that who knows what the future will hold with sharing information and pop culture.