The story ‘How pop culture helped win the Cold War’ talks about how pop music was used to support the United States. This soft power was vital to waging the cold war, cultural imperialism and superiority over the enemy. The story of the ‘Modern art was a CIA ‘weapon’, which informs us that the CIA used artists such as de Kooning and Pollock to wage a cultural war against the East during the Cold War. It used secret funds to support the pop musicians. The economic factors that led to the end of the cold war include the change in the global economic system. Several factors contributed to the triumph of capitalism over communism. Media was a lethal weapon in the propaganda war and projecting the Western values and lifestyle as superior. The West was projected as a developed region than the East, with a very classy living. As a result, the global public opinion was more attracted to the western culture than to the Eastern ideology. Additionally, the pop culture was more appealing to the young people, thus the spread of the American values via music .The cold war was a duel that was complicated, which saw the main actors employ the use of soft and hard powers. However, it is believed the former proved to be decisive in determining who won the cold war. The country that had the strongest soft power triumphed in the end. The pop music represented the American values, the message that it passed across was purely anchored in the life experiences in the United States. The CIA was a crucial entity in collecting intelligence, and it covertly used the media to infiltrate various areas and harness vital information that was needed to tackle socialism and communism. It sponsored the artists, expositions, and publication of magazines and articles abroad as one way of selling the American values and understanding the reaction of the population to socialism and communism relative to capitalism .I agree that the pop music and modern art were used as an illustration of how free the western world was in comparison to the Soviet art and music. The society was becoming freer as it advanced, and hence the demand for more individual freedoms and rights. The pop music culture stirred changes in the way the society perceived life, their expectations, and values. The triumph of the United States in the propaganda war coincided with the advancements in communication technology, which made it easier to spread the American artwork to the rest of the world. However, the CIA had to inject a lot of funds into the propaganda war to get a significant hold on the leadership in the art industry, which was to be exploited via media outlets. However, it is essential to note that the media-supported propaganda was more successful because the United States enjoyed the use of a popular language than the Soviets. This is because the English language was widely used in Europe and most of the third world countries. Moreover, the United States was endowed with more economic and human resources that were necessary to advance and win media propaganda. The American pop music, magazines, and soap operas dominated the world’s modern arts, which was engineered by the CIA to show the freedom and advanced lifestyles experienced in the United States. Communism and socialism were depicted negatively in the artistic works, thus playing down on the values of the East. Therefore, the media was a reliable soft power that was used by the United States to shame and bring down communism .
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