An Explosion of Magazines

Magazines have evolved greatly through the past generations. In the past the magazines that one would most likely be reading would be People, Time, National Geographic, or Rolling Stone. These are still very popular magazines, however there has been an explosion of new magazines that cover a vast range of almost anything anybody would want to read about. One genre of magazine that has really boomed since the 90's would be that of fitness magazines. These magazines started popping up all over the place in the 90's when America started making a serious effort to being physically fit. Magazines such as Shape, and Mens Health, along with many others continue to sell out at the stands. Another major sellout at the stands would have to be the celebrity magazines such as Us Weekly and The Star. These magazines would be the ones that publish the latest paparazzi photos that our country has seemed to fall in love with over the years. Over all I think the large increase in magazines has been a great way to keep up with whatever you are interested in. Home and Garden can show you some quick cheap ways to renovate your patio while ESPN the Magazine can show you who is going to be traded before the season starts!

Changes in New Media Over Time

We have seen many changes in the way that new has been delivered over our history. We have gone from newspapers only, to televised news and now the dominating internet news.

Not only has the way news is delivered changed but the people who deliver it has changed as well. Some of the original great reporters were not the most good looking or exciting people on earth but they were great journalist. TV stations have seemed to replaced reporters such as Walter Cronkite, with more youthful and good looking men and women.
News has also gotten more involved with celebrities. There is a lot of segments of the news that are dedicated to informing the public on what is going on in the lives of celebrities. In fact the 7 o'clock slot on basic television is usually dedicated to entertainment news.
Sports coverage has exploded over the past two decades. ESPN has revolutionized sports coverage since it's inception. They have figured out a way to get very in depth reporting on all of the different sports. With that they have created a larger market for certain sports and have been able to create many different analyst shows that air everyday.
Along with the way regular TV programs have changed over the years, so has the news industry. The news has really followed with the "shock" value that gains the peoples attention. When we used to just hear about high powered hurricanes, we now have people that are willing to risk their life just to bring the best eye-witness images for the people to see. Also they have created all kinds of investigative reports such as To Catch a Predator, where we see real people getting caught trying to have sex with minors.

The movie that I chose was one of my personal favorites of the Die Hard series, the 1995 action film Die Hard with a Vengeance. This movie is the first of the Die Hard series to present more than just one hero. The story takes place with a hungover (as usual) John McClane played by Bruce Willis who is a New York city police officer taking a call from the chief about a terrorist who seems to have a personal vendetta against him. Along the way of his first of many unusual request from the terrorist John McClane is saved by an unexpected character named Zeus Carver played by Samuel L. Jackson. In a game of "Simon Says", the terrorist Simon played by Jeremy Irons, ends up sending both McClane and Zeus on a wild goose chase around New York city performing all kinds of unreasonable request with the threat of public bombings if the tasks are not completed. McClane and Zeus are the defination of heroes in this film because they are constantly risking their lives to save many in New York city. Not only did they save many lives but they figure out along the way that everything they were doing was a distraction to the real plan of stealing gold out of the Federal Reserve and stopped Simon from doing so. I think that today McClane and Zeus would be treated better as heroes because they were in a fight against terrorist and I believe that terrorist are the number one threat all over the world today.

T.V. and Pop Culture

Television has changed in an extreme way over the years. Television in the past consisted of family oriented shows that usually had a moral of some sort. Comedies were variety shows and all commonly appealed to the whole family. Today is a different story. The new millennium brought us a new realm of t.v. Reality t.v. had completely taken over the early 2000's. There was everything from surviving on an island to finding a suitable wife! Comedy has taken a new route as well. It seems that if its not shock comedy than its not on t.v. With Southpark setting the trend on cable it paved the way for shows like Family Guy on basic networks. Crime shows have filled the 10 o'clock slot on every network, showing off the newest technologies and gruesome crimes.

3 Iconic Figures

Three iconic figures in recent years that have really taken over in homes across the country are Tiger Woods, American Idol, and Dora the Explorer. All three have have created a craze across the nation, and every year they gain more and more fans.
Tiger Woods is the single most recognizable name in sports. He has taken the game of golf and elevated it to new heights that nobody could have imagined 10 to 15 years ago. Every company in the world wants Tiger to be the face of their add campaigns and he simply dominates his sport.
American Idol has the whole country, men, women and children sitting in front of the t.v. at 8:00 during the week. Everyone is watching to see the next super star, awful performance or brutally honest critique from the judges.
Dora the Explorer is another show that has really taken the children's shows by storm. The torch has been passed from tellitubbies to Dora, boots and all the other lovable characters. This show is not just a cartoon, but a bilingual learning session and has kids across the United States wearing their clothes and playing with their figurines.

Pop Culture Of Movie Generations

Pop culture is ever changing and occurs in a specific place and time. Culture is a learned behavior that constantly surrounds us and can drastically influence our society by transforming our beliefs, model of behavior and even our sense of self. Mass media is one topic in which our society is greatly dependent upon for information, amusement, ideas, opinions and most importantly, how to ‘make sense’ of who we are and what type of person we should be.

Hollywood films have transformed dramatically over the years. Movies have changed from focusing on the characters and their dialogue being the most important aspect of the featured film to emphasizing popularity, sex appeal, special effects, violence and ratings. In today’s media culture, dialogue is very minimal, simple and poorly created.

Director’s films in the past tended to have more of a moral and important message for the public. In today’s pop culture society, directors are so focused on profiting from their films that they are willing to sacrifice quality for quantity, producing as many sequels as possible, rather than focusing on “a great movie.” As a result, this can be very misleading for today’s society by sending the wrong message. Sex appeal plays a major role in films causing persons from adolescents to adults to feel that they should look or act a particular way. This could lead people to believe that if they do not conform to these cultural norms it could cause a poor self image of themselves or others.

Popular Culture

As the world turns, so do the days of our popular culture. Popular Culture is the behavior and custom patterns of our society through different mediums, technology, clothing, food and beliefs. Pop culture is ever evolving. From the realm of television entertainment, variety and family oriented shows consumed the media of past eras (Mary Tyler Moore, Andy Griffith), but today, it has since been replaced with reality television, such as, shows involving winning easy money or finding that perfect soul mate. Sports culture, which once thrived on basketball players striving to be outstanding shooters, has turned into a competition of who can complete the most show boating dunk.

Conforming to popular culture within a business environment is a necessity. Applying the constant updating of technology to a business is crucial to the efficiency of running a company. For example, an accountant's ledgers that were once only written on paper have been replaced by spreadsheets and QuickBooks. Also, Blackberry's have revolutionized the convenience of carrying out business meetings while out of the office instead of only meeting during normal business hours.

My pop culture artifact would be how Lebron James has revolutionized the sport of basketball. Not only has King James turned a basketball game into more than a sporting event, but rather a headlining show that has people who normally are not interested in the sport of basketball tuning in to see his amazing abilities and what he is going to bring to his next game. Lebron is not only a pop culture icon in the United States, but can be recognized on all corners of the earth by his high flying dunks, intense defensive aggressiveness and pure will to win at whatever cost at such a young age.