Analyze the various components of popular culture for investigating their influence of wellness on one’s discipline of study or chosen profession

Course Outcomes

In this project, you will demonstrate your mastery of the following course outcomes:

  • Analyze the various components of popular culture for investigating their influence of wellness on one’s discipline of study or chosen profession
  • Integrate interdisciplinary approaches for determining the impact of popular culture on various institutions
  • Explain how interdependent influences impact the social, historical, and theoretical approaches to popular culture by employing appropriate research strategies
  • Recommend strategies for utilizing the critical analysis of popular culture to develop one’s personal and professional identity
  • Articulate informed viewpoints on how popular culture shapes one’s framework of perception using effective communication skills
  • Assess the impact of popular culture on cultural and social attitudes, choices, and behaviors through the incorporation of diverse perspectives and viewpoints informed by relevant literature

Overview

This course explores popular culture and its impact on the world around us. Popular culture influences society, and society influences popular culture, creating a feedback loop between them. You will critically analyze a specific example within an area of popular culture and how it reflects and engages individuals and society using the four general education lenses: history, humanities, natural and applied sciences, and social science. From this enhanced understanding, you will be equipped to draw connections between popular culture, self, and engagement with your community. You will demonstrate your ability to think critically, investigate, and communicate clearly. These skills are often necessary to achieve personal and professional goals across many disciplines.

Directions

For this project, you will write a 10-page paper that examines the specific example within an area of popular culture that you chose at the beginning of the course. In the paper, you will examine how this example reflects and engages individuals and society. You will also describe the key features of your specific example within an area of popular culture, present a thesis statement, perform a critical analysis, and reflect on how your specific example informs your personal life and experience.

  • The area of popular culture could be a genre of books, comics, music, video games, or other media. It could also be a musician’s discography, a fandom, a sport, or a fashion style.
  • The specific example within the area of popular culture you choose should be a direct and singular representative of that area of popular culture. For example, if the area is science fiction films, the example could be Blade Runner. If the area is augmented-reality video games, the example could be Pokémon GO. Similarly, if the area is baseball, the example could be a player, a team, or an incident within that sport. Note that in the case of TV shows, you must narrow your analysis to an individual episode or a selection of episodes; an entire series is too broad for this level of analysis. Therefore, if the area is television office dramas, then the specific example could be a particular episode or a few episodes of Mad Men.

Specifically, you must address the following rubric criteria:

  1. Evidence: You will use evidence to support your analysis throughout the project.
    1. Integrate reliable evidence from varied sources throughout your paper to support your analysis. Use at least two resources from the module resources sections of this course and two resources that you find through your own research using the Shapiro Library.
      1. It is important to draw from a more diverse pool of perspectives from varied sources to support the analysis, which is different from the Citations and Attributions rubric criterion.
      2. Reliable evidence from varied sources should be interwoven throughout the paper itself. Citing and attributing sources will be represented as APA in-text citations and a reference list at the end of your work.
      3. You will be evaluated on both criteria.
  2. Topic Description: In this section, you will identify and discuss the factors that shape your thesis statement.
    1. Describe the area of popular culture that you will analyze and a specific example that represents this area by using effective details.
      1. Effective details include the kind of popular culture it is, where it exists, how people engage with it, or what value they get from engaging with it.
    2. Describe the relationships between the example you chose, the area of popular culture it represents, and the population that engages with this area of popular culture by using effective details.
      1. Effective details about the example include how it represents or is connected to this area of popular culture.
      2. Effective details about the population include demographics, cultural practices, social identity, or key aspects.
    3. Assess how society may impact the example and the area you chose.
    4. Explain your choice of general education interdisciplinary lens for analyzing the example and the area you chose.
    5. Construct a thesis statement that combines the example you chose, area of popular culture, population, societal situation, and choice of general education interdisciplinary lens.
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