Media Phobia

In Media phobia by Kren Sternheimer she talks about how panics about pop culture are shown throughout history and that they are often masked by putting the blame on the less powerful social groups in society at the time. She shows how this works in several examples throughout the reading. One example she talks about is popular music at the time. More specifically Rock and Roll music. At the time this sort of music was very new to society and caused a lot of panic because the powerful music often made people intermix races because they all had similarities and enjoyment for that music genre.

Keren talks about other genres of music. For example she talks about how society does this by bringing up the genre of rap music. Rap music when it first came about caused a lot of fear and panic because of the language that was used and the talk of violence, drugs and even gangs. The media and society as a whole even till this day puts the blame on violent acts and the way teens act now on the type of music that they affiliate themselves with. When society panics they pin the blame on something that is smaller and much easier to pinpoint a reason for the issue on. These groups are less powerful which makes the blame just that much easier for others.

Keren also brings up the fact that panic occurs due to the fact the it's usually two different generations intermixing ( Parents and Children). Parents were raised and lived in a different generation. Therefore parents do not know everything in their child's new generation. This also causes panic to occur at times.  Newer generations spend a lot of time in private with pop culture without parents super vision. Parents blame less powerful social groups in these situations as well.