Week 14: Popular Culture

 Popular Culture in Politics

Popular Culture is activities of culture or commercial product development or targetted general masses of people. There are some products of popular culture such as music, movie, dance, fashion, literature, art, cyberculture, and so on.

What is the impact of popular culture on politics?

In a rude way, popular culture is used as sarcasm for government or political performance such as in posters, songs, or poetry. 

In a good way, political culture is an approach of a political figure or political group to obtain more sympathy and attention from others

An example is Iwan Fals's song by the title "Surat Buat Wakil Rakyat", which is a song quipped Indonesian Government especially Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat or Indonesia People Representative Board. In the lyric Iwan Fals critique, the performance of DPR and Iwan Fals be a representative of Indonesian People voice by using popular culture at that time

Politic Figure Approach by Using Popular Culture

A famous figure who using popular culture as an approach is Barack Obama, he has three ways. He understands how to speak in popular culture, he reveals his TV views, and the media like to report it. He appears in a soft entertainment show and focused on earning a targeted electorate and avoiding tricky questions. In the 2012 campaign, Obama had more than two dozen soft media entertainment appearances.

The example Political Content in Popular Culture

Understanding politics by using popular culture is not boring because we can see the implementation of a political point of view and theories. Here, the political content in popular culture is available in Watchmen comic. Watchmen comic is a DC comic that published in September 1986 - October 1987 and divided into 12 publishes. 

One of the political things on Watchmen comic is power. The character who has big power in the Watchmen comic is Adrian Veidt. If we back to Week 2, he has two from three power dimensions. First is power over an issue, he able to make someone do something that they otherwise not want to. Second, power of manipulation, Adrian Veidt paid media to make chaos in New York City. 

We will also find where the power of Arian Veidt comes from, he has three powers source in this comic. The first power is strength, Adrian has a strong body and he has enough energy to make his purpose to make a world in unity happen, even he used his power to killed his friend, Morgan Blake. The second power is Wealth, Adrian Veidt is a rich man, he developed his company. The third power is ideas, Adrian Veidt is a smart man, he has a strategy and he made a manipulation to make his purpose come true.

If you curious more about the watchmen comic, just read through the link below

https://readcomiconline.to/Comic/Watchmen

References:

The Washington Post (2013) Why Poplar Culture Matters in Politic, Retrieved on December 14 from https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/10/28/why-popular-culture-matters-in-politics/

Pictures: Google.com and Canva