Introduction
Population culture includes all the aspects of life that we live by. It is the manner in which we socialize and the basis that helps in decision making (Danesi, 2008). It is the laid out set of laws by the society at any given time, which defines changes in the society, as we approach different times.
Popular culture helps businesses to grow because they have to get what is trendy at any particular time in order to meet the people’s needs. My popular culture artifact will be referred to as Against All Odds (Giuns & Cruz, 2005).
Icons
The first icon is Oprah Winfrey, who is African American and hosts a talk show that is greatly watched by so many people in America and in many other countries around the globe. Oprah is known to have come from a very humble background, and she has overcome so many setbacks in her life to get where she is.
People love this show because of the good work that Oprah does, of helping the needy persons in society. She is known to empower so many persons by giving them hope in life. She strives to show people that they can achieve anything that they want in life as long they put a lot of effort into it.
Oprah Winfrey seeks to inspire women more, especially the black American women, she accommodates the whites too without any prejudice. Oprah Winfrey has given back to society by making changes, which include helping to educate girls from poor families so that they can be empowered (Browne & Ambrosetti, 2001).
The second icon is the last supper painting. This painting is found in many homes, and it symbolizes religion. Being raised by my grandmother and my great grandmother, they adored this painting and hence had one in the house. They always told me that the men who were in the table with Jesus were honored to dine with him.
I found this picture in so many homes, always in church and also on the store shelf. Every time I saw it, I felt admiration and also inspiration knowing that the Lord would give me the strength to strive through my challenges in life.
The function of the last supper painting is to show that mankind cannot be successful by himself. We need supernatural powers to strive through life, and it does not matter the religion in which we come from, what matters most is to have faith, and God will do the rest. Religion gives us strength when life becomes too hard in terms of financial and social needs (Storey, 2009).
The third and last icon is Barrack Obama. Barrack Obama stands to be the greatest icon of all time. He has greatly inspired many people from all walks of life. He amazed so many people by becoming the president of America, given his background of being an African American. Not so many believed that he could have made the far he did. The slogan, yes, we can see that he used during his campaigns gives hope to many persons.
He is very strong-willed, and in comparison to all the person’s elected president in the United States, he has faced more obstacles. Hard work is what has got Barrack Obama where he is today. He had a dream that he never let go if he could have belittled himself; he could never have made it. The above three icons have helped mankind to rise from their cocoons and face issues by the horns instead of waiting for other people to sort them out.
Myths surrounding popular culture
Some of the myths I will include in popular culture are related to religion, romance, and the American dream. The American dream has different meanings to different people. This is because, for some people, it is all about acquiring wealth, which is accompanied by power.
For others, the American dream is about the freedom that is acquired in America and the justice system, which is known to be the best in comparison to other judicial systems in the world. For the majority of the people, they view the American dream to be about success and the fame that comes with it.
However, none of the things related to the American dream are acquired on a silver platter. One of the myths about the American dream is that wealth in America comes right away. Immigrants view America as the land of honey and milk. One needs to plan and compete hard in the market to be able to live the American dream.
I chose this myth because people do not understand that they have to be persistent and work harder to earn a living and hence accumulate wealth. The other myth is about status, which is related to education and wealth. There is a myth that an educated person cannot fall in love with a person who is uneducated and have a relationship that will last for long (Freccero, 2004).
Romance myths are all about gender matters and the different races that people come from. Romance myths are about interracial marriages and also about women getting married to men who are wealthy so that they can live comfortably.
Religion defines the culture that the majority of people hold. There is a religious myth that people tell, which says that religion tends to brainwash human beings — being brainwashed means that people will tend to lose their true identity and follow religion blindly.
I chose these myths because they are all related to the financial status that persons are in, whether educated or not. People should hang on the belief that they have the potential to succeed and become an inspiration to other persons. One does not have to become the president to help make changes in our economy and in people’s lives.
The role of stereotype in my artifact is to educate people to stop hanging onto fiction and deal with reality. Rituals have a significant role in bringing people together by helping them learn to accommodate other tribes and respect their way of life (Johnson, 2006).
The popular culture artifact will have a mentorship hero who will be all rounded to mentor graduates to become resourceful employees and employers so that they do not lose their way as they struggle through life.
The hero will evoke the spirit of giving back to society by training people in society to become volunteers and learning to appreciate whatever God has granted to us so that we can strive for more. When people do not appreciate what they have in life, they easily lose direction; even with good education, they sometimes find themselves in challenges which they cannot avoid.
For this artifact, I would like to use Donald Trump as my celebrity because he has very liberating thoughts on how people can acquire wealth, among other things. He has very modern ideas and presents facts about life that people need to integrate with.
Donald Trump settles for the best and helps people to become innovative in their ideas to make progress in life. He encourages people to make sacrifices to get whatever they want, and he demonstrates that intelligence and wisdom are in an application for every step of the way (Freccero, 2004).
I would like to use the formula of stating facts as they are, the beliefs that surround them, the facts, and then stereotypes. This formula is dynamic because it states the facts which are inexistent and finally ends with the current situation that the guests in the show have experienced. It will change with time as the occasions change and as we embrace new cultures. This formula should still be applicable, and only very little aspects of it will change.
Conclusion
The against all odds reality television shows will demonstrate values of change, sacrifice, charity, strength, skill, and wisdom, among other values. To advertise the popular culture artifact, I would use the media because it is a television show that is bound to have very moving real-life stories that people can relate with and about celebrities.
I would prefer to use magazines among all the other types of media because they are all about lifestyles in which people live, and that is what culture is all about. Besides, magazines are not expensive for people to buy. All in all, culture is very important and should always be preserved for the generation to come (Danesi, 2008).
References
Browne R. B. and Ambrosetti R. J. (2001). Continuities in popular culture: the present in the past & the past in the present and future. Mexico: Popular Press.
Danesi M. (2008). Popular culture: introductory perspectives. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
Freccero C. (2004). Popular culture: an introduction. New York: NYU Press.
Giuns R. and Cruz O. Z. (2005). Popular culture: a reader. Phoenix: SAGE.
Johnson S. (2006). Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter. New York: Riverhead Books.
Storey J. (2009). Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. New York: Longman.
The Impact Of Globalization
As the borders between countries erode and different economies and cultures start to interweave, the world begins to be more and more defined by globalization. The new technologies and methods of communication and transportation make distances less and less of an obstacle, and it becomes easier to establish commercial and cultural connections and increase the global integration.
This process has many aspects to it and is both a natural and a controlled occurrence. On the one hand, it is a natural consequence of growing populations and economies, coupled with increasing ease of travel. This creates a flow of human, financial and ethnic resources from one country to another. It is normal for entrepreneurs to look for new opportunities and new markets if they cannot find a niche locally.
On the other hand, globalization requires many factors, such as economic freedoms, free trade and movement of capital, which can only be achieved through conscious agreements between governments and businesses. The latter have had the biggest interest and, as a result, the biggest influence on the progression of globalization.
Ultimately, globalization has always been about capitalism and achieving the highest profits. This has been true since the times of the Silk Road, which connected the trade markets in the East and the West. Naturally, as with capitalism itself, there are some aspects of the society which benefit from it, and some which suffer.
Discussing globalization objectively in its entirety is a challenging endeavor, since it touches upon almost every aspect of the modern world, and its influences differ from one region of the globe to the other, and consequences run across the whole scale from “Disastrous” to “Life-saving”. A good way to observe this dichotomy is by studying the influence globalization has on the lifecycle of goods in the current society.
The Story of Stuff
The adverse side of this impact is explored in a short animated documentary called The Story of Stuff, written and narrated by Annie Leonard. The short film follows the lifecycle of physical products in the modern, globalized world, explores the dangers of excessive consumerism, and touches upon sustainability as a possible solution.
It engages with these concepts by studying them in the American society and follows through five stages of the product lifecycle: extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. Leonard observes this process as a linear system which is reliant on the constant flow of new resources, and which produces only trash at the end of this lifecycle, which is not only seemingly useless and toxic but also accumulates.
Such a system cannot work indefinitely on a finite planet. Besides this danger, the short film also studies other problems which are inherent in the current system. For example, she examines how globalization allows resources to be drawn from third world countries, negatively affecting their ecosystem and society, forcing the citizens to leave their countries and seek better conditions elsewhere.
They often become the part of the production process, at times in horrible conditions, further reinforcing the existing system. The production cycle produces goods for customers’ consumption. Leonard argues that not only these products often contain toxic elements, but the production process itself creates a lot of dangerous industrial waste.
Leonard discusses how the modern society is designed to make customers feel bad about not owning commodities they do not necessarily need, and forces them to consume more by having introduced planned obsolescence (“Planned Obsolescence” par.1-8).
Planned obsolescence is a policy in industrial design, with roots in the first half of the twentieth century, based on devising products with an artificially limited lifespan, so that the customers are encouraged to purchase new goods after some time.
Again, obsolete products are disposed of. While Leonard acknowledges recycling as an effective method of dealing with waste, she argues that recycling cannot cope with all of it, leading to garbage, often toxic, being either dumped into landfills or incinerated. Both of these methods pollute the environment.
Finally, Leonard suggests an alternative to this faulty system. She states that by uniting together, people can work towards as sustainable society, which will rely less on rampant consumerism, and will make the lifecycle of a product, appropriately, a closed circle with no waste.
Reflection
Annie Leonard indeed brings several very pressing and relevant issues to the surface. However, since the purpose of the short film was to be accessible to children and easy to understand, it overlooks various relevant factors about the lifecycle and provides a very critical view of the modern globalized society.
While this perspective is useful for inspirational purposes, for instigating social action and increasing awareness of the problems, it can draw ire from more critical and analytical minds. Also, such one-sided arguments can create misplaced antagonism and attacks from the public on aspects of the global society which are useful.
A good example of this would be the planned obsolescence. While it can be misused in a way that misleads the consumer and creates the issues Leonard associated it with, such attitude is seen as bad business, and can’t survive in a competitive market.
For example, American car producers attempted to take control of the market through planned obsolescence but failed when faced with a foreign competition from Japan. Something that was only possible due to globalization.
Also, planned obsolesce allows for increased longevity of companies. If a company saturated the market with products with an indefinite or at least very long lifespan, it would destroy the demand. This would cause the companies’ bankruptcy, loss of jobs, and would doom the products to a slow but inevitable breakdown, without a producer to replace them.
Similarly, while Leonard discusses the environmental and economic dangers globalization poses to developing countries, she ignores the positive effects it has on their economies.
Globalization provides jobs and economic security to thousands of people in third world countries, improves their standing in the global market and provides more available goods and services around the world, improving the global wealth equality in a way that local economies cannot replicate.
Finally, it is important to note that the self-sustaining society Leonard is describing can only be possible through technological advances and financial investments produced by the current consumerist society. The best example of this is the current energy policy led by the United Arab Emirates.
Despite being critically reliant on non-renewable oil export, which goes in line with Leonard’s arguments about resource exploitation, it also finances the construction of the Masdar City, a planned city which is meant to rely mostly on renewable energy to create a sustainable environment (Walsh par.2-5).
This development and research reflects the plans of the UAE to move towards renewable resources in its principal cities. Most first-world countries have similar research going on, which would have been impossible without the money and infrastructure provided by globalization.
Conclusion
Globalization needs to be evaluated objectively, based on the pros and cons it has. Many of the issues that are attributed to globalization are slowly being resolved through methods which only globalization can provide. Ultimately, it is neither inherently good nor bad but is simply a sign of change.
Works Cited
“Planned Obsolescence.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper Limited, 2009.
The Story of Stuff. Dir. Louis Fox. Perf. Annie Leonard. The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. Tides Foundation & Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption, 2007.
Walsh, Bryan. “Masdar City: The World’s Greenest City?” Time. Time Inc., 2011.
Essay Voice-over
Healthy Food: The Impact Of The Vegetarian Diet
Introduction
In recent years, there has been a growing trend towards vegetarianism in societal dietary choices. The practice consists of excluding flesh and sometimes by-products of animals from consumption for distinct reasons. Six to eight million people in the United States are estimated to practice some form of vegetarianism (Harvard Health Publications, 2016).
In the modern world, with the availability of diverse food choices, vegetarians can uphold the nutritional needs of the body. While vegetarianism has many positive effects on human health, certain pathophysiological disorders are stemming from such long-term dietary choices that need addressing.
Background
Vegetarianism can be practiced for a variety of moral, religious, cultural, and medical reasons. There are different patterns of the vegetarian diet revolving around the consumption of dairy and eggs, including vegan, lactovegetarian, and ovo-lacto-vegetarian.
There are evident health benefits that arise from minimal amounts of animal products as the amount of total and saturated fat is significantly lower. Consequently, the risk of chronic illnesses around heart problems, obesity, and blood pressure drops significantly.
A meta-analysis of credible clinical and observational trials shows a positive correlation regarding the effect of the vegetarian diet on blood pressure (BP). Cardiovascular disease is consistently linked to blood pressure independent from other risk factors. The analysis showed that vegetarian diets consistently lowered systolic and diastolic BP by 2-7mm Hg, thus lowering instances of hypertension (Yokoyama et al., 2014).
“Vegetarian diets can be healthful and nutritionally sound if they are carefully planned to include essential nutrients” (American Heart Association, 2016, para. 3). Due to current trends and lack of appropriate nutritional or medical supervision, people choosing vegetarianism often for the health benefits, end up causing long-term damage to their physiology.
Pathophysiology
The main instances of pathophysiology stemming from vegetarianism are based on a deficiency of basic organic compounds. These are critical to the healthy function of various systems in the human body, including the cardiovascular, nervous, digestive, and muscular systems.
Histidine-containing dipeptides (HCDs), an analog of carnosine formed through amino acid synthesis, are present throughout the body, particularly skeletal muscle and neuronal tissue. A vegetarian diet is free of HCDs, and by comparison to omnivores, long-term muscle carnosine levels are lower (Blancquaert et al., 2016). In a specific case report of a patient on a vegan diet, bloodwork showed no significant benefit based on a lipid risk profile.
Other than a reduction of high-density lipoprotein, the profile, including total cholesterol, showed poor markings. The study suggests that more research to determine if vegetarianism is indeed helpful to cholesterol levels and consequentially reduced the risk of cardiovascular disease (Koury & Bergdahl, 2016).
As might be expected, vegetarianism affects the digestive system by altering the gastrointestinal microbiota. Fiber intake increases and escalates short-chain fatty acid production by microorganisms. Consequentially, intestinal PH falls, and residential bacteria cannot grow consistently.
Dysbiosis, occurring when gut microbiota has been modified, can result in triggering of autoimmune diseases such as type-1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (Colucci et al., 2015).
Perhaps the strongest argument against vegetarianism is a vitamin deficiency, particularly cobalamin (B12) and omega-3 fatty acids, a component of which is docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). While vegetarian diets are rich in Vitamin C and comparable to omnivores in zinc, there is a strong deficiency of B12 on a consistent basis. B12 serves as a key defense against oxidative stress.
Consequently, the oxidative injury will disrupt catalyst processes in the body, which correlate with elevated cardiovascular, neurological, and endothelial dysfunctions (Boancă, Colosi, & Crăciun, 2013). When the cobalamin deficiency combines with a lack of omega-3 fatty acids, found only in seafood, brain function is diminished.
Homocysteine levels increase, which can cause neuron DNA damage, apoptosis, a decrease in synaptic function. Oxidative stress causes cellular damage in the brain due impact on omega-3 levels.
The growth of homocysteine toxicity and declining DHA and B12 indicators in plasma correlate to the psychological irregularity behind schizophrenia. Also, an observed effect was noticed on maternal plasma during pregnancy leading to preeclampsia (Rathod, Kale, & Joshi, 2016).
Literature Review
All references used for research in this paper were credible and peer-reviewed scientific sources. First, pages on vegetarianism from Harvard University and American Heart Association websites were utilized to gain a coherent basis for further research. While informational, these sources were more in the realm of popular science for the general public rather than in-depth medical research.
Due to vegetarianism being such a popular lifestyle choice, there were obvious indicators that some positive dynamics in health could be noticed in such cases.
Although a whole section is dedicated to pathophysiology, research was included from JAMA Internal Medicine to show a proven benefit of the diet. This resource presented a never done before meta-analysis of data on the topic, signifying its tremendous scientific value (Yokoyama et al., 2014).
Several of the cited journals consisted directly of laboratory analyses to research phenomena surrounding molecular mechanisms. Articles, particularly from Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology as well as The Journal of Physiology, were not focused on the topic of this paper, but their findings presented information that was relevant when describing the pathophysiology of vegetarianism.
With that information, a connection could be made to case studies regarding the diet. The British Journal of Medicine and Medical Research presented a case study of one patient, and while it seemed to have been written as a suggestion for future research, the authors made claims based on a cardiovascular profile of one patient. No matter how common the case may have been, there is no relevant data on a large scale at this time to support their findings.
Meanwhile, the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition published an article that described a case study done on 86 people, categorically broken down to compare results.
Also, the article included a synthesis of past research on the common vitamin B12 deficiency seen in vegetarians. The conclusions made were coherent and logical, exponentially increasing its scientific usefulness. Together, these resources helped synthesize the information presented in this essay.
Conclusion
Lifestyle and dietary choices stemming from vegetarianism are usually based upon admirable reasons and should be respected. There are several health benefits of this diet, which aid with symptoms and prevention of the most severe pathological conditions related to statistically common diseases in the United States. However, a vegetarian diet, not planned and balanced correctly, can cause long-term disrupting pathophysiological dysfunctions.
If people choose this lifestyle, it must be done in a sustainable way for the human body with careful medical and nutritional supervision. More research and trials are needed to determine the physiological effects of vegetarianism regarding psychology, vitamin and nutrient deficiency, as well as genetics. By identifying issues and finding appropriate solutions, the diet can be safely practiced for the positive outcomes it provides.
References
American Heart Association (2016). Vegetarian Diets.
Blancquaert, L., Baba, S. P., Kwiatkowski, S., Stautemas, J., Stegen, S., Barbaresi, S.,… Everaert, I. (2016). Carnosine and anserine homeostasis in skeletal muscle and heart is controlled by β-alanine transamination. The Journal of Physiology, 594(17), 4849-4863. doi:10.1113/jp272050
Boancă, M. M., Colosi, H. A., & Crăciun, E. C. (2013). The impact of the lacto-ovo vegetarian diet on the erythrocyte superoxide dismutase activity: a study in the Romanian population. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 68(2), 184-188. doi:10.1038/ejcn.2013.179
Colucci, R., Lotti, F., Arunachalam, M., Lotti, T., Dragoni, F., Benvenga, S., & Moretti, S. (2015). Correlation of Serum Thyroid Hormones Autoantibodies with Self-Reported Exposure to Thyroid Disruptors in a Group of Nonsegmental Vitiligo Patients. Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, 69(2), 181-190. doi:10.1007/s00244-015-0138-7
Harvard Health Publications. (2016). Becoming a vegetarian.
Koury, O., & Bergdahl, A. (2016). Poor Cardiovascular Risk Profile Following a Vegan Diet: A Case Report. British Journal of Medicine and Medical Research, 13(8), 1-4. doi:10.9734/bjmmr/2016/23762
Rathod, R., Kale, A., & Joshi, S. (2016). Novel insights into the effect of vitamin B12 and omega-3 fatty acids on brain function. Journal of Biomedical Science, 23(1). doi:10.1186/s12929-016-0241-8
Yokoyama, Y., Nishimura, K., Barnard, N. D., Takegami, M., Watanabe, M., Sekikawa, A.,… Miyamoto, Y. (2014). Vegetarian Diets and Blood Pressure. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(4), 577-587. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2013.14547
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