SOCIAL MEDIA: SHAPING AND TRANSMITTING POPULAR CULTURE

Communication is the bedrock of any culture. In fact, language, dressing, music, lifestyle, taste, values of life, and whatever that constitutes any given culture are expressed through communication. Accordingly, the media through their several stages of development and transformation have always played the role of transmitting a people‟s cultural heritage across generations and borders. In contemporary society, much of media communication finds expression in various social media platforms. Social media have also become embedded in our everyday lives that they largely fashion our perceptions, understandings, construction of meanings, and general view of reality or the world. It is against this premise that one wonders if social media have maintained this responsibility of shaping and transmitting culture. It became crucial, therefore, to investigate specifically what role social media play in the construction and transmission of popular culture. Evidence from the study sustains the thesis of the Reflective Projective Theory that the media, in this case social media, replicate societal values and norms, yet those societal inputs are defined and shaped by the same media. Key words: Culture, Communication, Social Media, Popular culture, Reflective Projective Theory.