Pop Culture & Media Theory Lecture

15 vocabulary flashcards summarizing key theorists, terms, and concepts from the Pop Culture 1600 lecture video, prepared to aid exam review.

Disruptive Innovation

Clayton Christensen’s idea that low-cost or simpler innovations can eventually displace established, higher-priced products without immediately threatening them.

Subculture

A self-identified group that develops distinct styles, values, and practices to resist or differentiate itself from the dominant culture.

Spectacle

Guy Debord’s concept that modern society presents images and consumer experiences as the unquestioned, ultimate truth, masking real social relations.

Postmodernism

A cultural condition marked by skepticism toward universal truths, reliance on pastiche and intertextuality, and rejection of a single grand narrative.

Grand Narrative

A sweeping, universal explanation of history or society that postmodernism claims no longer holds authority.

Meaning Implosion

Jean Baudrillard’s notion that media saturates society with signs until distinctions between true and false collapse.

Hyperreality

Baudrillard’s term for a state where the boundary between reality and simulation blurs, creating experiences perceived as ‘more real than real.’

Intertextuality

The practice of referencing or weaving together elements from existing texts to create new meanings.

Parody

A form of intertextual media that imitates or mocks a pre-existing work to highlight or critique its features.

Hegemony

The dominant culture’s power to shape norms, values, and beliefs so thoroughly that they appear natural or unquestioned.

Pre-Modern Culture

A period in which religion was viewed as the fundamental force guiding life and artistic expression.

Dick Hebdige

Cultural theorist who argued that subcultures decode and re-style mainstream symbols to express resistance and alternative identities.

Clayton Christensen

Business scholar who formulated the theory of disruptive innovation describing how new entrants upend established markets.

Guy Debord

French theorist who developed the idea of the spectacle, critiquing how capitalist society turns lived experience into mere representations.

Dominant Culture

The prevailing set of norms, values, and practices that holds social, political, and economic power within a society.