This thesis explores the relationship between media regulation and social status by conducting comparative study between Australian and American college students. The thesis defines popular culture as a new form of high culture used to elevate social status. The hypothesis states that less media regulation exposes people to more popular culture and therefore improves their social status. Australians live in a context of less media regulation and are therefore popular culture and media exposures are hypothesized to have less of an impact on their social statuses compared to Americans. In order to test this hypothesis, a survey was sent to Australian students at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, and to students at the Colorado College in the United States. The survey results and analysis revealed that though American students have higher levels of achievement and aspiration in college compared to Australian students, American students have significantly lower prestige scores. The results of the thesis as well as other alternative hypotheses ask questions and start a discussion for future comparative research on media regulation and society.
This paper explores the imposition of an Indianist framework to examine the material aesthetics of tourist attractions and souvenirs along U.S. Route 66 that depict stereotypical imagery of Indigenous peoples. In this paper, I intend to show how Indigenous stereotypes in popular material culture create instances of kitsch. However, on Route 66, this kitsch manifests as hyperkitsch in its attractions’ touristic natures that allow visitors to witness, enact, and play a role in the fantasized life and time of the American Indian. Tourist attractions and certain objects of kitsch create simulated environments and manifestations of hyperreality as tourist attractions that powerfully propel stereotypes that forge non-Native perspectives of Indigenous peoples. This evaluation takes place along the 2,448-mile stretch that is Route 66.
Why do some artists become famous, while others labor in obscurity? In this presentation, art historian Erika Doss traces the construction of art world celebrity from Jackson Pollock's feature spread in Life magazine in 1949 through Andy Warhol's Factory fame, to the present art world infatuation with Matthew Barney. Part of Notable Lectures & Performances series, Colorado College. Recorded November 30, 2006.
