Popular Culture and Youth: Value, Attitude, and Behavior Formation through Music, Film, and Digital Content

Abstrak

This study examines the influence of popular culture on adolescent behaviour through a qualitative literature review. It focuses on two main questions: how music, films and digital content shape adolescents’ values, attitudes and behaviour, and how the process of internalising popular cultural values takes place, along with the factors that influence adolescents’ vulnerability or resilience. The results indicate that music exerts influence through repetition and identification with idolised artists, whilst films enable adolescents to experience life situations imaginatively, with characters serving as models for internalisation. Digital content introduces a participatory dimension through social comparison and rapid feedback, which shapes standards of appearance, lifestyle, and success. The internalisation process encompasses exposure, selective attention, retention, reproduction, and full internalisation, influenced by value congruence and social reinforcement. Factors of vulnerability and resilience include identification with celebrities, family and peer relationships, media literacy, self-esteem, cognitive development, diversity of exposure, and socio-economic context, which interact in complex ways and determine the impact of popular culture.