GPERS – Popular Culture, Filter Bubbles and My Lack of Free Choice

Thursday 1st Feb 2018

Popular Culture, Filter Bubbles and My Lack of Free Choice

So far, in this unit, we have looked at what popular culture is, examples of popular culture and what influences popular culture. At the start of the unit, we wrote on our workbooks about what we thought was popular culture. I wrote; ‘I think that popular culture is an event, situation or trend that blows up on social media and is known by everybody but can also go away in a short amount of time.’ I believe that this definition of popular culture is still representing what I think about it. But I could add a few things, for example, here are some examples from 2017’s popular culture.

  • Solar Eclipse
  • Stranger things 2
  • La La Land and Moonlight Mix up at The Oscars
  • Royal Engagement – Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
  • Beyonce’s Twins
  • Female Empowerment from Wonder Woman

There are much more to name, but we needed to know what influences us to be interested in these things and make them a Fad, Trend and Icon. An example of a Fad is/are yo-yos. An example of a trend is/are unicorn items, such as cakes, clothes and coffee and an example of a style icon is Catherine the Duchess of Cambridge. 

Nowadays, when we search for something online, millions of links and photos come up. However, Google takes into account what we have searched before. For example, in the Ted Talk video we watched in class,  he conducted an experiment where people named Scott and Daniel search for the same thing on google; Egypt. The results show that Scott’s search brought up the news from Egypt and Daniel’s search brought up totally different information; Travel locations and images. Websites like Facebook are also doing the same thing. I feel as though this act of filtering is unjust and we should have the right to see all the information.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

One thought on “GPERS – Popular Culture, Filter Bubbles and My Lack of Free Choice

  1. Hey Cara,
    I loved reading about your thoughts on pop culture and their current influences. Just thinking a bit further, I was wondering – what are your thoughts on how pop culture or filtering might influence free choice? Thanks

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *