Popular Media Cultures

Popular Media Cultures explores the relationship between audiences and media texts, their paratexts and interconnected ephemera. Authors focus on the cultural work done by media audiences, how they engage with social media and how convergence culture impacts on the strategies and activities of popular media fans.

Come on Down represents an introduction to popular media culture in Britain since 1945. It discusses the ways in which popular culture can be studied, understood and appreciated, and covers its key analytical issues and some of its most important forms and processes. The contributors analyse some of popular culture's leading and most representative expressions such as TV soaps, quizzes and game shows, TV for children, media treatment of the monarchy, Pop Music, Comedy, Advertising, Consumerism and Americanization. The diversity of both subject matter and argument is the most distinctive feature of the collection, making it a much-needed and extremely accessible, interdisciplinary introduction to the study of popular media culture. The contributors, many of them leading figures in their respective areas of study, represent a number of different approaches which themselves reflect the diversity and promise of contemporary theoretical debates. Their studies encompass issues such as the economics of popular culture, its textual complexity and its interpretations by audiences, as well as concepts such as ideology, material culture and postmodernism.

Praise for the First Edition: `I can′t think of a book in media studies that handles so well the diversity of perspectives and issues that Stevenson addresses. Whether reconstructing Marxism or deconstructing postmodernism, tackling the pleasures of soap opera or the repetitive structures of daily news presentation, Stevenson is always clear and insightful′ - Sociology The Second Edition of this book provides a comprehensive overview of the ways in which social theory has attempted to theorize the importance of the media in contemporary society. Now fully revised to take account of the recent theoretical developments associated with `new media′ and `information society′, as well as the audience and the public sphere, Understanding Media Cultures: - Critically examines the key social theories of mass communication - Highlights the work of individual theorists including Fiske, Williams, Hall, Habermas, Jameson, McLuhan and Baudrillard. - Covers the important traditions of media analysis from feminism, cultural studies and audience research. - Now includes a discussion of recent perspectives developed by Castells, Haraway, Virilio and Schiller. - Provides a glossary of key terms in media and social theory. Retaining all the strengths of the previous edition, Understanding Media Cultures offers a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the field. It will be essential reading for students of social theory, media and cultural studies.

In this thorough update of one of the classic texts of media and cultural studies, Douglas Kellner argues that media culture is now the dominant form of culture that socializes us and provides and plays major roles in the economy, polity, and social and cultural life. The book includes a series of lively studies that both illuminate contemporary culture and society, while providing methods of analysis, interpretation, and critique to engage contemporary U.S. culture. Many people today talk about cultural studies, but Kellner actually does it, carrying through a unique mixture of theoretical analysis and concrete discussions of some of the most popular and influential forms of contemporary media culture. Studies cover a wide range of topics including: Reagan and Rambo; horror and youth films; women’s films, the TV series Orange is the New Black and Hulu’s TV series based on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; the films of Spike Lee and African American culture; Latino films and cinematic narratives on migration; female pop icons Madonna, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga; fashion and celebrity; television news, documentary films, and the recent work of Michael Moore; fantasy and science fiction, with focus on the cinematic version of Lord of the Rings, Philip K. Dick and the Blade Runner films, and the work of David Cronenberg. Situating the works of media culture in their social context, within political struggles, and the system of cultural production and reception, Kellner develops a multidimensional approach to cultural studies that broadens the field and opens it to a variety of disciplines. He also provides new approaches to the vexed question of the effects of culture and offers new perspectives for cultural studies. Anyone interested in the nature and effects of contemporary society and culture should read this book.

This book explores the material and everyday intersections between popular culture and new media. Using a range of interdisciplinary resources the chapters open up various hidden dimensions, including objects and infrastructures, archives, algorithms, data play and the body that force us to rethink our understanding of culture as it is today.

'A beautifully written, intellectually challenging, and highly readable exploration of the mysteries of contemporary mass media and popular culture. Real does a masterful job of empowering his readers. Students will find this book fascinating, and in some cases terrifying' - Arthur Asa Berger, San Francisco State University

A provocative collection of articles that begins with the idea that the "popular" in classrooms and in the everyday lives of teachers and students is fundamentally political. This anthology includes articles by elementary and secondary public school teachers, scholars and activists who examine how and what popular toys, books, films, music and other media "teach." The essays offer strong critiques and practical pedagogical strategies for educators at every level to engage with the popular.

A focused multisited cultural analysis that reflects on the symbiotic relationship between the local, the national, and the global