Does popular culture change how society views an idea? Or does popular culture reinforce dominant ideas, thereby slowing the pace of change?
Does popular culture change how society views an idea? Or does popular culture reinforce dominant ideas, thereby slowing the pace of change?
Race
Popular culture has played a significant role in how race has been viewed over time. Different races and ethnicities have frequently been portrayed as stereotypes.
Popular culture can have a profound effect on how an audience views racial issues. For example, The Cosby Show, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1992, was the first time that a successful U.S. television show had portrayed an African-American family as upper middle class.
One of the show’s premises was that it did not deal primarily with race issues. Although themes such as the Civil Rights Movement and African-American art and music were present, it was the representation of an African-American family as professionals with the same family issues as white American families that shifted perceptions of race. What about Latin Americans and South Americans? What about Romani, sometimes referred to as “travelers” or “traveling communities”?
Have popular culture representations of race and ethnicity pushed the issue of equality forward? Or have they reinforced stereotypical ideas of race, thereby slowing down society’s acceptance of a broader understanding of racial and ethnic equality?
This week’s Discussion is broken into various threads, each of which focuses on a specific social issue. Your main post should be in the thread that corresponds to the artifact you have chosen for your Final Project. This will allow you to get a good start on your research. However, feel free to respond to classmates in any thread that interests you. Reading about how others approach their selected issues can inspire new ways to think about your own.
To prepare, read through this week’s Learning Resources.
For this Discussion, your Instructor will either assign groups to threads or direct you to choose one thread from the choices listed for this week. If you are directed to choose a thread on your own, follow these instructions: Each thread is limited to a maximum number of students based on class size. A thread will close if the limit is reached. If a thread is closed to new posters, select from the open threads.