1. Politics and Popular
Culture
Sara Q.
Fred
Sara T.
Rodrigo

2. What is Popular
Culture
Pop Culture is the cultural activities or
commercial products reflecting, suited to, or
aimed at the tastes of the general masses
of people

3. Presidents & Pop Culture
Ronald Reagan- first actor to become president

4. President William Clinton
Bill Clinton- first president to play an instrument
on national televison

5. Pop Culture Icon Barack
Obama
Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster
Merchandise sales from his 2008
campaign totaled $37 million
Spent $6.7 million for
merchandise in 2012 campaign
vs Romney’s $1.7 million

6. Television
Since the invention of the television in 1927, it
has become a hub for themes in popular culture

7. Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live’s political skits on Sarah
Palin in 2008 had a huge impact on how people
viewed the vice presidential candidate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdDqSvJ6aHc

8. Controversial Politics in
Social Media
Facebook’s usage of screening technology that
monitors chats for words and phrases and usage
of vulgar language
Louisiana state law requiring sex offenders to list
their status on Facebook

9. Photoshop for Democracy By: Jenkins
The New Relationship Between Politics and Popular
Culture draws a connection between grassroots fan
Jenkins
movements to the 2004 political campaign, examining how
politicians and political activists have applied the tools and
activities of fans to their own work. He uses this analysis to
implicitly argue for a communal action that incorporates
news media and entertainment. Referring to the 2004
campaign, Jenkins claims that “ Popular culture shaped
how the public processed and acted upon political
discourse” (219).
Spring of 2004, a group called True Majority Action
released a video depicting George W. Bush being fired by
Donald Trump. The video was a compilation of video clips
from The Apprentice, and instances where Bush has been
on television looking shocked. True Majority Action was a
group that strives to increase voter participation in the
2004 election, and support a progressive agenda. True
Majority Action used competition to stir an emotion in
consumers.

10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fKPKhXFxs4&feature=
player_embedded
True Majority Action gave them a platform to express their
attitude towards Bush’s previous administration, which is
an example of participatory culture.
The increase in participation, collective intelligence, and
media convergence shouldn’t be taken as a revolution by
any means; it is a shift in the way the public
communicates in the “global” community. Through
experimentation of technology, popular culture shaped
conventional politics, parody news shows informed the
youth, all of which encouraged the entire country to take
action.

11. The Revolution will not be televised
We are currently standing on the threshold of a
new era in history, revolutionary events are
occurring as we speak, by products of the
participatory media culture we are all a part of.
Jenkins quotes "The political role of the Internet is
expanding without diminishing the power of
broadcast media"(225). For example, This
revolutionary invention in the history of
convergence culture is called the "blog”, which is a
form of personal and subcultural expression
involving summarizing and linking to other social
networking sites such as Facebook, or twitter and
other outlets.

12. Bloggers of course are not without
their own set of flaws. "Bloggers
make no claims on objectivity;
they deal often with rumors or just
personal opinions.
Blogging may on one level be
facilitating the flow of ideas across
the media landscape; on other
levels, they are ensuring an ever
more divisive political debate.
Despite these thoughts, blogs
may single handedly be the most
influential tool in popular media
culture as well as being the
driving force being grassroots of
communication.

13. Fans, Consumers, Citizens
An example of “popular culture” would be the “30sec Bush video”
contest, an effort to encourage people around the world to make their
political voice heard; using their own creativity to explain why “Bush
should not be elected” (230).
In a democracy, every citizen has their own say on the leader of the
country. Therefore, activists, fans use Photoshop (a graphics software
package) to manipulate images and create their political statements.
These images were very powerful, since they often took a pop culture
idea and spun it to make a political statement. The ease of distribution
the internet allowed, made it possible for your voice to be heard across
the world.
Photoshop Democracy became part of the “popular culture” because
images send a much stronger message across than words ever could.
The “Photoshop” movement influenced young Americans to be more
conscious and involved in politics/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVdTzPEYvH4&feature=player_embe

14. Entertaining the Monitorial Citizen
Monitorial Citizen: A citizen that is no
longer “fully informed” due to how
complex and fast-changing the world is
today. This results in Media being the
main source of information about specific
events going on around the world.

15. “The Work of Art in the Age of
Mechanical Reproduction” by
Walter Benjamin
In this essay written in 1936, he argues that
mass-production and mass-circulation would
have a profoundly democratic impact.
He claims that mechanical reproduction ruins
the “aura” surrounding art works.
Relating this to popular culture, he also claims
that people would rather offer judgment on
sports teams and Hollywood movies that on
artworks in museums.
“Does making politics into a kind of popular
culture allow consumers to apply fan expertise
to their civic responsibilities?”

16. Pew Foundation Statistics
(2004) & Jon Katz
In 2000, 39% of respondents regularly got campaign
information from newscasts.
In 2004, the same number had fallen to 23%.
In the same period of time the percentage of people under the
age of thirty who received campaign information from comedy
shows had grown from 9% to 21%.
This study showed that young people got information from
entertainment media instead of news media.
Jon Katz :
He argues that as early as 1994 young people felt that
entertainment reflected their perspective on current
events.

17. The Daily show
During the 2004 Democratic and Republican
National Conventions, Comedy Central
offered more hours of coverage than other
leading news channels such as ABC, CBS,
NBC.
They claim that people that watch this show
are more interested in the presidential
campaign.
Jon Stewart(The Daily Show) vs. Tucker
Carlson(CNN’s Crossfire)
Carlson apparently wanted Stewart to
tell jokes and promote his book, but he
refused to play that role.
Stewart charged the news program with
corrupting the political process.

18. Playing Politics in Alphaville
Alphaville
One of the oldest and most densely populated towns in
“The Sims Online”
In 2004, after releasing the game online there was a
great demand and the game quickly gained popularity.
There was an online election to see who would control
the imaginary’s town government.
A 20 year old was running against a middle-schooler.
Alphaville’s presidential elections attracted national
and even international media attention.
At the end the older guy won the elections but the
newspaper “Alphaville Herald” published a transcript of
an internet chat session that suggested that the
election process may have been rigged from the very
beginning.
They came to the conclusion that even in
play, American democracy felt broken.

19. The Making of Citizens(2000)
In this book, David Buckingham
examines the factors that tend to
discourage young people from
consuming news.
Children find the language of politics
unfamiliar.
They feel powerless in their
everyday lives.
They have difficulty imagining having
political power.

20. Vote Naked
In this final section of this chapter, Jenkins
focuses on the connection that it will take for
people to be comfortable with politics.
He describes the “vote naked” campaign as a
way for everyone to be more fully engaged with
the elections.
It is all about conducting the most public of
actions within the privacy of our own home.
He concludes by saying that if we want to bridge
between red and blue America, we need to find
that kind of common ground and expand upon it.

21. The Politics of Participation
In 2004 Al Gore helped launch the cable network
Current.
Its goal was to “encourage the active participation of
young people as citizen journalists.”
In support of this network, Gore stated, “We are about
empowering this generation of young people in the 18-
34 population to engage in a dialogue of democracy
and to tell their stories of what’s going on in their
lives, in the dominant medium of our time. The Internet
opened a floodgate for young people, whose passions
are finally being heard, but TV hasn’t followed suit.”
The network’s aim was to give young people a
voice, and to democratize television.

22. What is “Democratizing
Television?”
Jenkins suggests that to democratize television, (just one example of
media convergence), a network would have to be democratic in the
following:
Content: focusing on the kinds of information that a democratic society
needs to function
Effect: mobilizing young people to participate more fully in the
democratic process
Values: fostering rational discourse and a stronger sense of social
contract
Process: expanding access to the means of media production and
distribution
The New York Times’ Marshall Stella said, “..television began as a one
way street winding from producers to consumers, but that street is now
two-way. A man with one machine (a TV) is doomed to isolation, but a
man with two machines (a TV and a computer) can belong to a
community.”

23. Jenkins on Convergence
Convergence doesn’t depend on any specific medium
It represents a paradigm shift – a move from medium-
specific information to information that flows across many
channels of media
It supports increased interdependence of communication
systems, and at the same time, multiple ways of accessing
media content
It enhances the complex relationships between corporate
media and participatory culture

24. Despite the idealistic idea to “democratize
television” as a way to empower the
public, convergence also just makes sense
for the media industry.
Convergence creates multiple ways of
selling content to consumers
It cements consumer loyalty
It changes the way people think of their
relationship to media
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmwwrGV_aiE&feat
ure=youtube_gdata_player

25. Questions
1. How do you feel about your relationship with
media and media convergence? Do you like being
uber-connected, or do you sometimes think it’s too
much?
2. How do you feel the Internet, namely
Facebook, Twitter and blogs affect your feelings
about politics?
3. What role do you think President Obama's
presence in popular culture played in winning him
two terms in office?