POPULAR CULTURE AS AN EXPLANATORY PATTERN IN THE PROCESS OF CLASSROOM STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

One of important manifestations of globalization is the wide dissemination of popular culture (especially, films and TV series), which ignores political, economic and cultural boundaries. The transparency of borders is conditioned by Internet which allows one and the same popular model or story to become a universal cultural keynote, understandable in its basic elements to all content consumers regardless of race nation or cultural traits. On the other hand, attention and understanding of students during the classes are in crisis today. From the autor's point of view, one of the ways to improve the quality of knowledge transferring during the classes is to refer to cultural codes and symbols well known for student audience. Providing examples from popular culture allows the lecturer to solve at least two ambivalent tasks: 1 to explain the theoretical model on a specific example; 2 to identify from a particular popular case a theoretical component which can enhance students' understanding and explanation of the surrounding reality as well as to increase the attention of the student audience to the taught material.