Popular Culture since 1940

Popular Culture since 1940

Section 1: Introduction

Popular culture has been defined as everything from "common culture," to "folk culture," to "mass culture." While it has been all of these things at various points in history, in Post-War America, popular culture is undeniably associated with commercial culture and all its trappings: movies, television, radio, cyberspace, advertising, toys, nearly any commodity available for purchase, many forms of art, photography, games, and even group "experiences" like collective comet-watching or rave dancing on ecstasy. While humanities and social science departments before the 1950s would rarely have imagined including anything from the previous list in their curricula, it is now widely acknowledged that popular culture can and must be analyzed as an important part of US material, economic and political culture. "Pop culture" is also one of the US' most lucrative export commodities, making everything from Levi's jeans to Sylvester Stallone movies popular on the international market.

It would be impossible to do an exhaustive (or even a not-so-exhaustive) survey of all the work being done in and on popular culture, so we have included only representative examples of both. Our bibliographies and links focus on major figures in popular writing and basic categories of popular media after the war.

In 1940's and after , the main thing which boosted up and emerged in American popular culture was the advertising industry. The companies and people started paying a lot of attention to this field and started investing in this area. It was the era when new the technology was rising up and people started making new technologies and innovations. The big TV channels like NBC came into existence. At that time the popular culture was very diverse and unorganized because of the negligence of people and authorities. Before 1930's, the movie industry was going through a period of decline in quality but after watching the interest of people's rise in the movie industry, a change came into movies with new techniques and concepts. The movies at that time were silent movies but still it was something new for the era. The hippy movement that came into existence few decades after that time, made its own impact on advertising. At that time all the advertising agencies were using hit and trial method, as no proper methodology was developed and there were no proper developments in the industry so people started using new methods for trial purposes.

Section 2: Presentation of Evidence

Although the 1940s was a decade dominated by war, people were energized and patriotism soared. Everything from food to metal and paper were scarce. Many feared for their safety and that of their loved ones on the front lines. But despite the hardships of the times, people rallied together like never before for a single purpose. Win the war. Somehow, in the midst of the trials and sacrifice of WWII, popular culture flourished. This was evident in everything from entertainment and fashion to the daily lives of regular people.

Jazz and swing ruled the ...