Final Project Milestone 2: Historical Context
A cultural artifact provides society with essential information for social interactions and growth. My cultural artifact is popular music videos. It is one of the best cultural lenses used to view our social, economic and political environments (McCandless & Elias, 2021). I will explain how the audience and social values have changed over time about popular music as a cultural artifact. Many of the experimental shifts in the popular music industry have influenced changes in society for the past 60 years.
In the 1960s music was used as a forum for social change. Many tracks on the anti-war, sexual revolution and human rights took the centre of the music. The earliest musicians such as Bob Dylan music tracks were used as the civil rights anthem. They set the foundation of the present popular music. They produced purely gold music that conveyed a given message on social change or advocated for human rights. Comparing the audience with the present ones, it reached fewer audiences. Advancement in technology is the main reason why modern popular music has more audience compared to the past. In the past, music was only accessible through Long Playing Records. They were the only available media for accessing popular music, then cassettes tapes, compact disks and cassette tape players came in. The technological innovations elevated popular music to a higher level and more people listened to the music (Verboord & Brandellero, 2018). In the modern world, popular music audiences can access music material through online music streaming services and play the songs as many times as they wish. With digital media such as Smartphones, computers and digital televisions, music has gained mass followers and audiences.
The earliest popular music majorly addressed civil rights, the sexual revolution and gender rights. Today, popular music has changed to reflect on the changing needs of the audience and social values. Artists have adapted by producing different genres and types of music to meet the expectations of their consumers. Modern popular music reflects on increasing superficial and formulaic music production, distribution and playing modes (Mauch et al., 2015). There are numerous types of music for all social classes and generations. Some music artifacts address the needs of baby boomers, young people, and social classes, economic and political audiences.
Technology has brought more musical tools and the production of sophisticated track sounds. Everything is changing along with culture. Music is part of us and it will continue conveying a social, economic and political change in society. It connects people culturally, emotionally and physically (Verboord & Brandellero, 2018). With the music streaming services occupying the centre stage, it will be interesting to see how popular culture music will evolve in future.
References
Mauch, M., MacCallum, R. M., Levy, M., & Leroi, A. M. (2015). The evolution of popular music: USA 1960–2010. Royal Society open science, 2(5), 150081.
McCandless, S., & Elias, N. M. (2021). Popular culture informing public administration: Messages and prospects for social equity. Public Integrity, 23(3), 220-234. https://doi.org/10.1080/10999922.2020.1837505.
Verboord, M., & Brandellero, A. (2018). The globalization of popular music, 1960-2010: a multilevel analysis of music flows. Communication Research, 45(4), 603-627.
Assignment: Final Project Milestone 2: Historical Context
Last week you completed a worksheet to start planning your Final Project. You chose the social issue you will explore as well as two categories of popular culture as defined in this course.
This week, you continue your analysis of social issue messaging through popular culture and how it has changed over time. Do this by selecting artifacts/expressions within your chosen categories to serve as specific illustrative examples.
You may include any artifacts/expressions you used in last week’s discussion as well as selecting new ones.
To prepare, research the history of your popular culture category over time. This time period should be approximately 50 years but may be longer. Select specific artifacts/expressions from the past and from today to compare social issue messaging over time. Examples are provided on the Week 1 Final Project Summary resource.
Consider the following:
How has the audience and social values changed over time in relation to your popular culture artifact/expression categories?
How have the popular culture categories either reflected or opposed the changing audience and social values?
If the audience and social values have changed over time with regard to one of the popular culture categories, describe the changes.
By Day 7
Submit a 400- to 500-word paper that addresses these questions for your popular culture artifact. Include at least two references to academically relevant sources. You may use the ones provided in the Learning Resources or research your own.
Note: Wikipedia, eHow.com, About.com, and similar websites are not considered academically relevant.
Submission and Grading Information
To submit your completed Assignment for review and grading, do the following:
Please save your Assignment using the naming convention “WK2Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” as the name.
Click the Final Project Milestone Assignment Rubric to review the Grading Criteria for the Assignment.
Click the Week 2 Assignment link. You will also be able to “View Rubric” for grading criteria from this area.
Next, from the Attach File area, click on the Browse My Computer button. Find the document you saved as “WK2Assgn+last name+first initial.(extension)” and click Open.
If applicable: From the Plagiarism Tools area, click the checkbox for I agree to submit my paper(s) to the Global Reference Database.
Click on the Submit button to complete your submission.
Grid View
List View
Exemplary
Meets Standard
Developing
Demonstrates Understanding
Required Components
Writing and Grammar
Total Points: 90
