Livets manuskript : En studie i livsåsfrågor i populärkulturen

It’s not for nothing the time we live in is often referred to as the age of information. Children and young adults who grow up I today’s society have greater access to facts and opinions than any earlier generations. This also applies to popular culture that during the last couple of decades have taken new expressions that no one could have ever dreamed of and more time goes to the consumption of it via visits to the cinema, television and computers. This essays aim is to find out on what level the popular culture that young adults expose themselves to and their interaction with fictional characters can influence their thoughts about existential and moral issues. The essay contains a review of the relevant research that has be done on this field of science. I have conducted a study in which I interviewed three students on a senior high school in western Sweden about a popular culture work that they think has made a great impression on them as human beings and issues regarding philosophy of life are processed in this work. The works that were chosen by the people I interviewed are the TV-series “Sherlock” from 2010, the motion picture “A Christmas Carol” from 1984 and 1992 and the computer game “World of Warcraft” from 2004. The result of the essay that I have reached is the tendencies can be seen that interpretations, understandings and views on life that has come up in the popular cultural work also to a certain extent can be seen in the values of the students themselves. Issues concerning the value of human life and the meaning of life that are processed in the work sometimes match opinions that the student can stand for. Whether this is because the student has been influenced by the value system of the popular culture work or the values they already carried with them resulted in them being drawn towards a certain kind of popular culture appears to differ from time to time