Visual Arts and Film Studies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Visual Arts and Film Studies - Essay Example Countries though united by the government, are often divided by religion, political parties, ethnicity and class. Unifying forces in different cultures include trade, belief in common descent and marriage. In any society, common cultural traditions also provide a basis for uniformity. This paper will examine three unifying elements of American popular culture, describing how these elements reflect concerns, interests and ideas in present-day America. One of the most significant elements of American popular culture is communication. Communication refers to the process of circular interaction, which involves a receiver, sender and message. Since Americans are intelligent and symbol making people, the messages may be conveyed either verbally or non-verbally through the use of words, either written or oral, graphs, signs, gestures, pictures, statistics and signs. Americans are versatile communicators and the contemporary American popular culture upholds the need for communication in the conveyance of ideas, views and interests. The capacity of humans to communicate changed from smoke signals to sound of drums to the Internet and TV. As dynamic beings, Americans constantly invent innovative and enhanced ways of communication in line with changing times and desires. Despite the communication symbol utilized in modern American society, a receiver and sender are often involved. Current-day Americans have dissimilar needs from those of ancient times (Storey 161). The means of communication used by Americans today reflect these differing needs. At present, Americans primary use the Internet to communicate. Technology presents a practical application of science to both industry and commerce. The cell phone is currently one of the most popular modern pieces of technology used by Americans for communication purposes. The cell phone helps with the spread of contemporary American popular culture. The invention is a form of wireless communication device, which is quite familia r to American mobile phone users. Cell phones allow communication between distant individuals thereby presents a viable tool for spreading contemporary American popular culture. Another popular element of contemporary American popular culture is football. Although football is only a game, it is presently a popular American spectator sport. For instance, on fall Saturdays, millions of people travel to and from famous college football games. Other congregations also meet in high school stadia while millions of people watch televised football. Notably, almost half of the adult population in the US watches the Super Bowl. Since football is of immense interest to Americans, it plays a significant role as a unifying cultural institution, which demands attention (Storey 116). America’s most popular sport manages to attract fans from different political, ethnic and social backgrounds and genders. The popularity of football, specifically professional football, depends precisely on the mass media, particularly TV. Football is peculiarly an American pastime despite its inherent violent nature. However, football is not popular among Americans on account of its violent nature. Notably, if football were an effective vehicle for the expression of aggression, it would have spread, like other sports, to other countries where people have similar aggressive tendencies as Americans. If the popularity of football centered primarily on a blood thirsty temperament, other bloodier sports such as boxing would be America’s national pastime. The explanation of football’s popularity in the US lies in its symbolism of various key characteristics of American life (Hassabian 82). Particularly, football is characterized by teamwork, which centers on specialization, as well