Christian Boehm/ CAPS 5

It seems Pop Culture is all around us.  We cannot escape it.  Pop Culture is not only reality TV, or sit coms, or MTV, or Teen Magazines, it’s now showing up on our local and national news.  Instead of reporting the news, most segments now have a Hollywood angle and/or what’s cool in the world. I wake up most mornings watching the Good Morning Show on ABC with George Stephanopoulos and Robin Williams. I will have to say it’s my favorite News Network Show.  With this blog in mind I took notes on the past three episodes of Good Morning America and came away how much Pop Culture is involved within their show and the stereotypes it portrays. According to Martin and Nakayama, stereotyping “is a general agreement about a social group and how we get our ideas about certain social groups.  In other words, we are making social judgments about other groups and pop culture is assisting in creating and reinforcing these stereotypes.”

The three key themes I took away from Good Morning America that surround pop culture and stereotyping are the following.  Number one is that the news show displays a gossip angle surrounding entertainment within America.  This includes Sport figures, actors from Hollywood and primetime shows that surround programming on ABC.  In fact, Good Morning America has an anchor, Laura Spencer, who is dedicated to talk about lifestyle behavior.  During my decoding process, these segments were strictly providing the audience with tweets of stars on social media, what clothes look good, and who is dating who to name a few.  For example, during this week some of the top headlines included, “Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone admit to sexting” and “Alexa Ray Joel slams plastic surgery rumors”.  With these types of examples, stereotypes take place. Viewers become fixated that these lifestyle are relevant topics and become more important than fact finding news that affects our daily living.  The second theme I took away from ABC Good Morning America and its pop culture is that all three women reporters were young and dressed sexy.  Instead of reporting the news, they came off like it was a reality TV show.  Their facial and body movements throughout the broadcast seemed they were modeling for the audience.  The set takes on a tone that it’s about me not the news they are reporting.  Stereotype characteristics take place in that the talent has taken on the personality of young women and its culture of social media.  This is probably why the Good Morning Show has the highest rating because of its pop culture reporting.  And finally, the third theme I took away from this show in terms of pop culture is the dialogue that is used with one another during the show.  Instead of reporting the news, the four talents on the set are always discussing things with one another about their opinions regarding a subject that simply is not news, but Hollywood trivia information.  An example is that each show they provide various tweets and then discuss with one another their views on the subject matter.  The dialogue could resemble a socialite setting between young women.

Britney Spears on Good Morning America

Although Good Morning America and its pop culture setting deliver important news throughout the world, the majority of their show resembles entertainment.  The resistance is that many Americans who view the show will figure out that they are not being educated but entertained.  Also, woman who view the show may get turned off by the flirtatious attitudes and sexiness of the anchorwomen.  Their credibility might get lost in this pop culture setting.  Overall, ABC Good Morning America is entertaining, but the resistance from some viewers is that they just want the news and not all the frills and thrills of the show.