Social Issue Values and Popular Culture Messaging

Popular culture artifacts such as advertisements and music sometimes focus on current events and also social and political issues going on in the world. If you look at the months and years after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, you will see a flood of patriotic songs and songs that evoked feelings of the day the Twin Towers collapsed. Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” is just one example. Many people can also recall a surge in patriotic advertisements on television and billboards. Long-running television shows such as The West Wing and Law and Order wrote in special episodes that portrayed terrorist attacks after 9/11. Countless movies addressed both the terrorist attacks and the wars following. United 93 was released in 2006 and portrayed the stories of the courageous people aboard United Airlines Flight 93 who tried to regain control of the plane from the terrorists that were hijacking it. For this assessment, you will consider what you have explored in this Competency related to the influence of popular culture on society as well as the impact society and world events have on popular culture.