Pop culture has been important to Rich Lee. He spent some of his career as a journalist covering rock and roll, and some covering government and politics. 

"On the surface would seem like there's no connection," said Lee, a professor at St. Bonaventure School of Communication. "But over the years, I've seen how they're related. And in the last year or two years, I've seen pop culture playing a greater and greater role in public policy."

The concept behind his class is that a song, movie or film, is more than just entertainment. The online articles and other class material look at how different elements of pop culture can function as journalism and their effect on public policy. 

"We started with protest music from the 1960s," Lee said. "I had done some research in graduate school, and I wrote a book chapter about how people were learning more about what was really going on in the Vietnam War from the lyrics of protest songs than they were from news reports and, you know, kind of taking that forward."

Another topic included in the syllabus is Nikki Haley’s cameo on "Saturday Night Live." Cassidey Kavathas is taking the class and she says she’s made a lot of connections.

"It's interesting when we're talking about Taylor Swift and how she could affect the 2024 election if she was to say something about one of the candidates," Kavathas said. "So just how much our worlds are interlaced with each other when you think of like hard news and hard media and then the funniness that is pop culture and stuff like the Super Bowl, where each things are called like all interconnected."

Lee says the Swift phenomenon is new. He doesn’t teach his students about her music per say, but her effect on the economy of a town or city she visits or her effect on culture in general. He’d like all types of education institutions to see that when you have material that’s relevant to students, they’re more interested in it. That doesn’t mean you can’t teach the basics of the course.

"But we're using modern examples," Lee said. "And I think when you use something that's a current event, you know, a popular singer, a popular movie and show, how that relates to some of the principles and concepts behind the course. You know, they still learn about it. You don't have to use something from the 50 or 40 years or whatever to make that point."