24 - Popular Culture and Politics

Summary

“Popular Culture and Politics” seek to understand the influential force of popular culture, which can be optimized and utilized to transform the country’s sociopolitical future. As a social institution that arose from the forces of colonization, popular culture has a specific social role to play in that process. Characterized with an elastic capacity to instigate social ideas, popular culture in Nigeria can be used to bring about transformational changes and revolutionary thinking that can shape the Nigerian environment. Although the general belief is that popular culture serves as entertainment with no significant social benefits, that is not entirely the case. This study reveals the existing interconnection between politics and popular culture, highlighting the significance and the different approaches that can actively target a better Nigerian future through popular culture. Nigerian popular culture can use its transformational capacity to inspire desirable changes in the country’s political trajectory. It can be seen beyond its traditional role of entertainment, where it currently receives minimal national recognition. When the people who create cultural materials understand the power that they wield as a social institution, and when they use that power objectively, they can enact a revolution without violence.