Popular culture in International Relations ; a content analysis of Netflix's Black Mirror

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, there had been a significant shift in the area of technology and mass media. In which both has merged together to form an entirely new concept based on those respective aspects, by the name of 'new media'. Internet, for instance, has quickly turned into a powerful source of influence and information without borders. Contents in the internet are made to be mass produced and consumed by a large portion of the world’s population which led to the creation of certain shared beliefs amongst the people. Unfortunately, that element of popular culture had been overlooked as a subject of research in the study of international relations. Ergo, the author intend to analyze further the relevance and interconnectedness of popular culture in international relations using qualitative content analysis method. To answer the questions on how popular culture help understand towards IR issues through the content analysis of Netflix’s online series Black Mirror, the findings will be implementing Critical Theory as the theoretical frame of reference. By the end, it could be concluded that popular culture does play an important part in international relations. Not only it could encourage an understanding of relevant issues through media such as movies, books and music, it could also be an approach to raise awareness on issues that are not usually notable to many. Popular culture was built on new media platforms which attract massive audience, therefore it is able to build consensus, norms, and form a reflection to international relations.