Imagination to Reality: How popular culture can mask the facts

I just recently watched the Zombie Apocalypse on the Discovery Channel and up until seeing it I had learned everything that I knew about zombie's from Science Fiction movies, popular television shows and novels, all of which present zombie's as monsters. I have never seen a movie that presents zombies as humans with a virus or illness, I have never before considered the Science behind zombies, nor have I ever been taught about the difference in the brain structure of a zombie compared to a human being and how that would account for a zombies behavior. It never occured to me before having watched this documentary that zombies could be a real thing and that there are people out there who genuinely believe that there will someday be a zombie apocalypse. Why has this never occured to me before? Well the answer to that is simple, popular culture. The idea of a zombie, the image of a zombie and what being a zombie entails has been constructed within popular culture to be something that is unfathomable and unrealistic. Unfortunately, when it comes to zombie's, popular culture is the only thing that is providing the majority of society with knowledge on the topic. We do not educate our youth about the intricacies of being a zombie, we do not teach them about the history of zombies, nor do we discuss with them the many theories that exist explaining how someone becomes a zombie. As such, their knowledge is limited to what they are exposed to in popular culture, and while some may develop a deep interest in zombies and become committed to researching everything there is to know on the topic, most will simply be taught that zombies are monsters who want nothing other than to feed on humans. So, should it be a surprise that many people continue to view zombies as just a figure of the imagination and something that could never possibly exist in their reality? Just how much is popular culture teaching our youth and to what extent are they critically analyzing that which they are being taught? Or do they even realize that some of what they know and believe is the result of the shows they watch, the movies they see and the books they read?

Thank you Discovery Channel!