Harvey 1

Tayanna Harvey

Dr. Colombo

UWRT 1104

01 March 2017

Should we Allow Popular Culture and Media to Influence our Political Views?

How much of the population uses social media outlets?

Is the media creating awareness of these politicians, or are the politicians creating media

awareness?

How are politics directly influenced by the media and its followers?

Do the politicians or government have control over what is being released?

Are other countries facing this same issue with social media and popular culture influence on

politics?

Works Cited
 Harvey 2

How much of the population uses social media outlets?

Due to the introduction of social media platforms such as YouTube in 2005 and
Twitter in 2006, over the course of twelve years, the individual Americans who
received their information from the internet grew 900% as the reliance on the web
became the prominent theme for younger adults. (Kushin and Masahiro)

Existing empirical evidence indicates that Internet use is positively associated with
political outcomes including situational political involvement, political efficacy,
knowledge, and participation (qtd. Kushin and Masahiro)

The sources provide evidence of the growth of social media usage as information for individuals.

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 Harvey 3

Is the media creating awareness of these politicians, or are the politicians creating the medias

awareness?

In this article, we learn about three different phases of broadcast media victimizing the
Israelis government political figures leading the country. In the first stage, maturation, the
country sees the plans and ideas created for political and economic growth. In the second
stage, implementation, the Israeli government puts in action the revealed plans, some of
which tend to be unpredictable. In the third and final phase, negotiation, the broadcasted
results are bargained between the media and its followers, and the government.(Caspi)

This article focuses on the two parts of the Celebrity Politician- the Celebrity and the
Politician. The celebrity uses their popularity to broadcast and present their often
popular opinion while the politician uses their name to represent their affiliation with a
certain claim or group. Through this article, we understand the underlying issue with
having these celebrity politicians represent the government, is that they often times dont
have any legitimate connection to politics.(Street 1)

Both of these sources provide definition in the creation of political figureheads in the media.
They both allow the readers to come up with their own conclusion of whether or not the media
creates the awareness, or vice versa.

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 Harvey 4

How are politics directly influenced by the media and its followers?

Attention to social media was expected to be positively related to political self-efficacy

and situational political involvement as media-rich interaction between citizens and
political actors on social media afford users the perception of increased engagement with
the campaign. (Kushin and Masahiro)

One suggestion is that these stars are in touch with popular sentiment, a claim that
itself derives from assumptions about how the celebrity and their admirers are related. It
is a claim about fandom. (Street 14)

The author uses his own versions of popular culture, including music, film, and his own
writings and film as examples as to show just how popular culture is not there to control
the minds of its users, but to allow them to be more accepting of their own personal
opinions and ideas. He also explores the potential ideas of manipulation with popular
culture. He argues that if people do not use the media seriously, then actual current events
about the government could be mistaken and easily misunderstood. This could be seen by
some as manipulation, especially if the government knows that many people dont take
the media seriously.(Street)

Each of the competing accounts is underpinned by a set of political judgements which

implicitly separate high from low culture, the elite from the popular.(Street 8)

Although one author writes two of these sources, the information he provides explains the
correlation of politics and the medias followers by including the different examples of media
and how individuals create their own opinions and decisions.

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 Harvey 5

Do the politicians or government have control over what is being released?

As technology continues to incite the media map, by subdividing and diversifying it, the
economic and professional competition between the various media grows more intense.
This competition constitutes the second force that supports the media contra the political
institution.(qtd. Caspi)

The three phases, maturation, implementation and negotiation , take years but prove the
parallel relationship of public medias use of information on the government and the
actual governments rise and fall. This on and off relationship gives a peak at the
responsibility the media holds, and the governments use of this responsibility.(Caspi)

In the aspirations and discontent of that rising generation can be found the driving force
behind the Arab revolutions, which Ben Ali and other Arab autocrats
underestimated.(Seib 19)

Following the single-channel broadcasting monopoly which lasted for two and a half
decades, in the second half of the 1980s it looked as though the various conditions for the
launch of another terrestrial television channel were ripe. The television industry could
no longer fully express itself in a single public channel and it operated unrelenting
pressure for the establishment of a commercially financed television channel.(Caspi)

In explaining how the government supervises the media, both of these sources contribute to the
concept that the government can only control so much information and where its released, and
that the people can truly decide what to believe and what not to believe.

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 Harvey 6

Are other countries facing this same issue with social media and popular culture influence on

politics?

He sees in the Arabic language a key to Arab identity, and does a remarkable job of
highlighting the essential aspects of its evolution over the centuries in support of current
trends to standardize its use throughout the Arabic-speaking world and beyond into the
Islamic dimension. (qtd.Farah)

During much of the twentieth century, speed steadily encroached on diplomatic process
as radio, then television, and then the internet were increasingly relied upon by the public
and policy makers as principal sources of information.(Seib 2)

For the Middle East, 2011 was a crucial year for their government due to the constant
uprisings and events testing what they had in place. However these uprisings somehow
proved that despite the civilians beliefs and/or understandings, democracy was still in
place. The events happened continuously and social media had no problem keeping up
with them.(Seib)

All countries and their governments will face various problems, but they will all derive from the
same underlying issue and how they deal with it is based solely on the country and how its ran.

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 Harvey 7

Works Cited

Caspi, Dan. On Media and Politics:Between Enlightened Authorityand Social Responsibility. Israel

Affairs, vol. 11, no. 1, 9 Aug. 2006, pp. 2338. Taylor and Francis Online,

doi:10.1080/1353712042000324436.

Coleman, Linda S. You'Ve Come a Long Way, Baby: Women, Politics, and Popular Culture by Lilly

J. Goren, Editor. The Journal of American Culture, vol. 32, no. 4, 2 Dec. 2009, pp. 364365.

doi:10.1111/j.1542-734x.2009.00722_22.x.

Farah, Caesar E. Popular Culture in the Arab World: Arts, Politics, and the Media - By Andrew

Hammond. Historian, vol. 71, no. 3, 2009, pp. 584585. Wiley Online Library,

doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.2009.00246_4.x.

Graber, Doris, and Johanna Dunaway. Mass Media and American Politics. Thousand Oaks, CA, CQ

Press, Sage, 2015.

Kushin, Matthew James, and Masahiro Yamamoto. Did Social Media Really Matter? College

Students' Use of Online Media and Political Decision Making in the 2008 Election. Mass

Communication and Society, vol. 13, no. 5, 20 Nov. 2010, pp. 608630. Taylor and Francis

Online, doi:10.1080/15205436.2010.516863.

Seib, Philip M. Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics and Power in the Social Media Era. New York,

Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Street, John. Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation. The British Journal

of Politics and International Relations, vol. 6, no. 4, ser. 2004, 7 Nov. 2004, pp. 435452. Sage

Journals, doi:10.1111/j.1467-856x.2004.00149.x.

Street, John. Politics and Popular Culture. Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1997.

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