How Popular Culture Identity Changed My Outlook on Advertising by Samantha

How Popular Culture Identity Changed My Outlook on Advertising by Samantha - September 2017 Scholarship Essay

As a sophomore in college I was lucky enough to take a class called Popular Culture and identity as a humanities elective. I learned quite a bit about the American Popular culture and how it can have a large influence on how people think about pretty much everything. Throughout the class, I realized that advertisements have a large number of subliminal messages in them to get the viewer to develop a strong need for the product based on psychological tricks.

The class went into depth in discussion the role of public relations, how that was introduced, and how it changed the very fabric of the American Culture starting in the 1930s. The change in America since that time is incredibly evident in the different outlooks and attitudes that American citizens have adopted in the decades that have passed.

Since taking Popular Culture Identity, I have made a conscious effort to decipher advertisements, whether in print, on the internet, radio, television, or in person sales pitches. The knowledge that I gained from that class has helped me to greatly improve my critical thinking skills as well as being more skeptical at taking thing at face value. I do not regret learning the things that I did in that class and I would recommend it to anyone who asked.