Essay Sample on American Culture: Media and Social Problems

What are some of the studies and articles linking smoking to popular culture, and what issues does Sternheimer point out about them? According to the reading, what are the more likely indicators/predictors of smoking in both the lives of teens and adults? Finally, what factors do you think to relate to the steady drop in smoking rates in the United States since the 1990s?

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Many studies have influenced society to blame media and popular culture for the occurrence and increased in the behavior of smoking. For instance, McCool (5) suggested that media has a significant influence on the culture of smoking among the youth. However, according to Sternheimer (294), the media can be attached to the behavior but should not be considered as the sole causal factor. The author, on this note, suggested that many hardly believe that the manufacturers and the tobacco industry are blamed more than any other party while ignoring the actual causal factors. They rather divert the blame and attach the teens and the intervention of the media on the same. Nevertheless, this not effective since the media campaigns are only directed to youths while the adults are the major smokers. The author added that the most considerable predictor of smoking is having a family member rooted in the behavior. This has been the most significant reason for which many youths are introduced into the smoking behavior in spite of being ignored. A few campaigns in America have demonstrated sensitivity for the actual cause and which tend to recognize that social influence within families and other social groups are the possible causes. This has subsequently led to a great reduction in smoking in America.

According to Sternheimer, why might media conglomerates themselves focus on media and popular culture in regards to social problems? What role might they play in how Americans frame social problems like poverty? Beyond money itself, what overall impact does poverty have on the lives of children? Finally, why do you believe Americans as a whole have seemed so reluctant to talk about racism and poverty in our own country?

Media might integrate themselves to the various aspects of media and popular culture in the context of social problems because it has been associated with promoting and producing structural conditions like racism, sexism, poverty and economic disparities which can lead social evils like smoking. According to Sternheimer (296), they can give an impression of social problems to be resulting from statuses like poverty among the Americas relative to how they frame the situation. On the same note, poverty has the capacity of shaping an individual to be a potential criminal. Nevertheless, poverty and racism are some of the most serious problems in America which are however hardly addressed, possibly because in the country, the concept of class is recognized and accepted.

Works Cited

Sternheimer, Karen. Connecting Social Problems And Popular Culture. 2nd ed., Westview Press, 2018.

McCool, Judith et al. "Perceived Social And Media Influences On Tobacco Use Among Samoan Youth". BMC Public Health, vol 14, no. 1, 2014. Springer Nature, Doi:10.1186/1471-2458-14-1100. Accessed 8 Sept 2019.