If you were taking a course on popular culture, what would you hope to learn?

I like Earl's idea -- but make it broader.

Compare Rap replacing Rock with Rock replacing Swing.

This week's "British Invasion" theme on American Idol reminded me that every movement has a wide distribution. Looking objectively at early Beatles songs, one finds that they are incredible catchy -- but songs by The Animals were much deeper, and songs by Jerry and the Pacemakers were much more melodic -- yet neither acheived the kind of popularity that they did. On the other end of the spectrum, you had Herman's Hermits who played insipid pop songs that sold almost as well as as the Beatles. Who bought that crap? (well -- we know it was 13 year old girls -- but you get my meaning).

Compare this with recent trends. Why did Britney sell so much (hint -- it isn't her music)?

In other types of entertainment, you can look at what has happened in movies. I saw a recent article that looked at DVD sales for Oscar winning movies versus those that were nominated and didn't win. The movies with the biggest staying power are often the ones that didn't win.

Another phenomenon to look at is entertainment formats. Look at what happened with Betamax vs VHS formats in videotape. Now look at the coming battle of BlueRay vs HT-DVD. Does the earlier battle tell us who to bet on here? For the answer, look to the porn industry. Betamax was the superior format -- but Sony would not allow porn to be distributed on Beta -- so VHS became the winner. Well -- who controls the rights to produce video on BlueRay?

There are lots of cool things you can do.

Unfortunately, I suspect that a lot of students will take your clas so they don't have to spend much time learning. Make them do it anyway.

Good luck.

I'd be very interested in seeing how the evolution of media affects pop culture. For example, compare and contrast the old gossip columns and columnists like Liz Smith or even Hedda Hopper to TV shows like Extra and Entertainment Tonight to the new gossip bloggers like Perez Hilton and internet sites like TMZ. How does the media affect the message?

I'd also be interested in seeing how changes in censorship have affected pop culture. I'd also like to see something about the rise of reality programming and the idea that anyone can be a "star." And I'm not sure if this is part of pop culture, but how about a section on criminal celebrities? From Bonnie and Clyde to Scott Peterson, what is the allure of certain cases and why do they become a part of our public conscious?

Well i guess... what influences the youth in society, what lessons do u learn in the media, what needs and goals do we have based on the big influences of our culture, why so many people watch reality shows like american idol? What do we accept in society and what dont we and why. Also what other worldy cultures do we embrace example like the fashion from France etc. I guess things like that.

I would want to know about the roots of popular culture since it truly is a recent event (in the great scheme of history).

Why did Rap replace Rock.