 Greetings and welcome to this video course preview of Popular Culture in the US, an online course being taught at North Shore Community College. So this course really, the crux of it is studying popular culture in its many forms in media. Students get to assess, explain and analyze products of popular culture by connecting them with overall cultural values, norms and ideologies. Issues related to popular culture such as consumerism, mass media, technology and viewer participation are some of the subjects we're going to explore. One thing I do like to note is that many students here, popular culture or an online course and think this is going to be an easy course, but the course does require a lot of academic inquiry and it's a rigorous course. It's not just a course that people can move through particularly easily. We have lots of interesting subjects, but they all require a critical frame and we'll explore what critical frames look like and how we get to them. But it's important for students to know from the beginning that this will be a challenging course. I hear from many students that it ends up being one of the more challenging courses that they take here at the college and that's not a bad thing, that's not a critique. They actually appreciate it because it makes them a better student elsewhere and they learn about a lot of things about popular culture that they just never considered. So some of the subjects that we actually explore in this course include pulp novels, movies, particularly older movies. We look at comics, we look at old time radio, we look at television, and of course social media. And so we look at these subjects through a critical lens to really think about what it means to engage in these and what we communicate when we do. So some of the course required materials here, we do three films or three videos and they'll all be available for in-library use at the Danvers or Lane campus depending on where students prefer them to be. So we have Tales from the Crypt, which is the documentary, not the TV show, but I like the TV show as well, Bamboozled, but I'm a cheerleader. So these are three videos that we'll be watching over during the semester and talking about them in the course. As for the course textbook, there are no book purchases required. All readings will be provided in the course environment, but you will need your library card in order to access them. We use a lot of the library databases in their eBritery catalog and such. So even though there are no book purchases, there will be plenty of readings and you will need to use your library card to access them. So some of the things that we do in this course, some of the assignments that would, you know, help us kind of get into and explore popular culture. We have the introductory material. This is just basically the initial assignments to get you on board ready to learn and maximize your preparedness for the course. I have students do an article analysis, which is really kind of a book review, but of an academic article instead of a book. Every week we have a discussion where students will apply the ideas and thoughts in a course discussion forum along with their peers and kind of have a really good, strong discussion about what they're exposed to that week. Students are also going to be blogging in this course and it's going to be about popular culture. Popular culture, they're interested in, but taking the course materials that they've been exposed to and now applying it and sharing that with the public at large, kind of having it, trying to have a public discourse around popular culture. And then finally, the what is popular culture project, which is something we'll come back to time and again in the course. It's largely an attempt to get you to think about and rethink and continually to revisit that question, what is popular culture? Why study popular culture? And through submitting different pieces of it and getting feedback, the idea is that that becomes a very strong analytical piece because there's continued new information from the readings as well as feedback from me about what you have produced thus far. Some of the benefits of taking this course, well, you get to learn how to apply theoretical analysis to popular culture that is doing more than just saying I like it or dislike it, providing really strong analysis about what it does. Evaluate how popular culture has influenced history, so kind of learning about what popular culture has done to historical events and then also recognizing how historical events have influenced popular culture. We also get to learn or delve into being able to explain what popular culture is and why it exists. That's not something people think that might be easy, but it's actually a very, very technical or detailed process and learning that skill set, being able to articulate why there is value, why there is something important about popular culture. And along those lines articulate that purpose in the value of popular culture studies. That is why is it important to study popular culture? What value does it give us? What can it help us understand about ourselves, about our culture? And then finally, analyze popular culture from various disciplines and theories such as history, semiology, literary studies, et cetera. Not just being able to apply theoretical analysis, but really getting these different viewpoints of studying popular culture because many different disciplines go into explaining and exploring popular culture. But wait, there's more. You also get the opportunity to be challenged intellectually in a safe environment. This course is going to push you intellectually. It's going to be challenging. It's going to, you're going to find yourself sometimes really reaching to understand concepts and elements. And that's okay, this is why we do it in this course. It's a safe environment for you to learn, misunderstand, and then relearn. So I really, I think that's a really powerful element about learning about this course is to try things out, get misdirected and then come back and try to find a different path. It's the chance to improve your written spoken and thinking skills that apply beyond the content of the course. This is big for me. I think students get a lot of this within this course of really improving those skills and being able to kind of take some really strong communication skills from the course. You also get access to a lifelong learner who's passionate in about not just the subject matter, but students learning, and that's me. I really am invested in the subject matter. I really do love seeing students learn, seeing them grow and trying to kind of move further or move into larger and larger concepts. And then finally to be part of a learning environment that explores and discusses the rich and complex elements of popular culture. So it's not just the fact that you're in the course with an instructor, but there's all of your peers. And there's so much learning from one another that takes place. I learn from my students all the time. I think it's such a valuable, rich experience for all of us to be in there talking about popular culture and really learning what we take from the readings and how we can apply that. So that's the course, or at least that's the basic intro. If you have further questions, shoot me an email at leaton.edu. And please feel free to go on and register for the course. And I hope to see you online. Thank you very much.