Roman - Mix it Up Ch. 1-4

In a change of pace from historical events to modern ones, the first four chapters of David Grazian's "Mix it Up" focus on recent events in an attempt to understand popular culture. He begins by acknowledging the complexity of defining the term pop culture, and then sets out and identifies three approaches to sociology and pop culture. These three approaches include the functionalist, critical, and interaction approaches. The functionalist approach argues that pop culture acts as a glue that holds society together. The critical view states that perhaps big business controls pop culture. Finally, the interaction approach argues that it is person to person interaction that drives the progression of pop culture.

The approach to explaining pop culture that I found the most convincing was the interaction approach. The example of baby names was stunning. Baby names are not marketed because no one stands to profit off of them. However, as evidenced by statistics there are clear trends in naming such as the rising popularity of the name "Emma." This shows that as a society we interact to determine what's in style and favorable.

Do you guys have a viewpoint from the three posed by Grazian that you liked the most? I think they're all valid and well argued but some points are more convincing than others. Any thoughts on the strengths/weaknesses of these theories?

-Roman