Popular culture versus captured cultures

Date:

Aaron Gono

Part 1

“The term ‘mass culture’ is likely to remain in circulation, but the alternative form ‘popular culture’ (meaning essentially ‘culture which is popular’ – much enjoyed by many people) seems preferable and should no longer carry a pejorative association.

 Popular culture in this sense is a hybrid product of numerous and never-ending efforts for expression in a contemporary idiom aimed at reaching people and capturing a market, and an equally active demand by people for what Fiske (1987) would call ‘meanings and pleasures’.

 In addition, popular culture has come to be recognized by media scholars as playing a role in the way especially young people appropriate and remix media through social media platforms, spreadable videos and memes – not just for recognition and fun, but also to raise awareness and to bring about political change (Jenkins et al., 2016)”-Denis McQuail.

Elon Musk’s stalink.

From the above definition by Denis McQuail, a renowned journalism author, it entails that it is a project that raises awareness of mischiefs done by politicians and brings succour to political shenanigans.

 Social media was widely used in the Arab Spring to bring down the so-called autocratic leaders and brought the much hyped democracy in the North of Africa. Did democracy in the North brought peace, freedom and economic prosperity?

 The answer is yes and no. In Libya, the country right now is ruled by ethnic factions, with no foreseeable peace. Economically, strings are attached to gain the nod of the Breton Woods institutions. So let’s go fifty, fifty.

Popular culture or low culture is dominated and circulated by the mass media, such as reality TV, celebrity gossip, web sites, pornography and violent action films, wrestling, American Idol, paparazzi and so on.

 The culture it promotes has a short life span, unstable and mislead the public. Look at wrestling, what’s your take on it? Its market target are the youths, who consume and believe in anything they watch and listen to.

Violent films which include guns and killings, drug use and sex; are taken by the youths as the norm. This is now clear in countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa. The flimsy reason that unemployment is the major cause of drug abuse is a no brainer and smokescreen.

The mass media with its intend to make profits, are selling anything that brings them a quick buck. And this brings social decadence in the world. Unemployment doesn’t promote social decay but popular culture does.

Hence popular culture is defined as something that brings political change, and what about capitalistic tendencies and individualism which it promotes. A few elite destroying the future of the youths and blames politicians for all the youths’ misdemeanors. Capitalism must take the blame for the world’s social decay.

Africa has lost its culture to the mass media, which has captured all its cultures as irrelevant and out of sync with the modern world. Who has created this world, the Rupert Murdoch’s of the big tech industries. Did they also consult Africans to fit in? There is no universal culture as each country is identified by its original culture e.g rain making ceremonies, etc are practiced in all African countries. The moment this practice is invalidated by popular culture, the more we lose grip on our identity.

 In technological term it is called ” phishing” ( identity theft ). Someone steals all your personal details and use them to defraud you. Your bank accounts, medical records etc will be now controlled by the new impersonator. And in pursuit of development African countries forget to create a firewall on junk information relayed to the continent.

As America is pursuing a bill to ban Tik Tok and control it, African countries are jostling for Elon Musk’s Starlink. Africa has no security issues to protect from the spying tech giants. All our information is at the disposal of Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta.

TikTok.

 And we think we are not being left behind. All promises of convergence are fake. It’s a convergence of identity theft. And our continent is a profitable hunting ground, they don’t query anything, hence Uncle Sam will reprimand them. Cry my beloved continent.

 Till when should we continue to eat crumbs from the rich men’s world?

In Zimbabwe, it’s fashionable to know and talk much about European soccer, because big tech companies are in charge; and are making a killing in profits from docile and acquiescent African leaders.

 The African culture has been captured and it is too late to turn the undercurrent to its advantage. We are captured left, right and centre. We are now rootless, and ready to fall on a slight tremor.

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