Mass Culture and Everyday Life is a collection of lively work from the small but seminal journal Tabloid. The book offers a clarification of the study of mass culture as it transforms daily life, providing a detailed survey of a wide range of the mass culture phenomena that have defined our everyday lives in recent years: from Hillary's hairdo to tampons, exercise fads and fashion trends; from soaps to opera to rythmn and blues; from horror movies to the interrelation of cats, pigs and mothers in Babe. This volume includes ground-breaking essays on: the boom of talk radio and talk TV; shopping as cinematic spectacle; and how "everyday life" in the university community has become a key battleground in America's "culture wars." The direct, accessible, and refreshingly personal work speak not only to an academic audience but to a wide general readership.

Thisbroad-ranging survey of social and cultural theory issues an audacious challenge to contemporary cultural studies' emphasis on speculation, rather than observation. Toby Miller and Alec McHoul invite the reader to question their participation in both dominant and subcultural practices by providing perspectives on the everyday through ethnography, textual reading, discourse analysis and political economy. Following a summary of key ideas on an everyday practice, such as eating' or talking', each chapter considers the discourses that construct these practices, and concludes with one or more empirical investigations, opening up the possibility of a significant departure in cultural studies. The book ends with an excellent glossary of cultural studies terms.

From Popular Culture to Everyday Life presents a critical exploration of the development of everyday life as an object of study in cultural analysis, wherein John Storey addresses the way in which everyday life is beginning to replace popular culture as a primary concept in cultural studies. Storey presents a range of different ways of thinking theoretically about the everyday; from Freudian and Marxist approaches, to chapters exploring topics such as consumption, mediatization and phenomenological sociology. The book concludes, drawing from the previous nine chapters, with notes towards a definition of what everyday life might look like as a pedagogic object of study in cultural studies. This is an ideal introduction to the theories of everyday life for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of cultural studies, communication studies and media studies.

In Popular Culture and Everyday Life Phillip Vannini and Dennis Waskul have brought together a variety of short essays that illustrate the many ways that popular culture intersects with mundane experiences of everyday life. Most essays are written in a reflexive ethnographic style, primarily through observation and personal narrative, to convey insights at an intimate level that will resonate with most readers. Some of the topics are so mundane they are legitimately universal (sleeping, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, etc.), others are common enough that most readers will directly identify in some way (watching television, using mobile phones, playing video games, etc.), while some topics will appeal more-or-less depending on a reader’s gender, interests, and recreational pastimes (putting on makeup, watching the Super Bowl, homemaking, etc.). This book will remind readers of their own similar experiences, provide opportunities to reflect upon them in new ways, as well as compare and contrast how experiences relayed in these pages relate to lived experiences. The essays will easily translate into rich and lively classroom discussions that shed new light on a familiar, taken-for-granted everyday life—both individually and collectively. At the beginning of the book, the authors have provided a grid that shows the topics and themes that each article touches on. This book is for popular culture classes, and will also be an asset in courses on the sociology of everyday life, ethnography, and social psychology.

An accessible and engaging introduction to the critical study of popular culture, which provides students with the tools they need to make sense of the popular culture that inundates their everyday lives. This textbook centers on media ecology and equipment for living to introduce students to important theories and debates in the field. Each chapter engages an important facet of popular culture, ranging from the business of popular culture to communities, stories, and identities, to the simulation and sensation of pop culture. The text explains key terms and features contemporary case studies throughout, examining aspects such as memes and trends on social media, cancel culture, celebrities as influencers, gamification, "meta" pop culture, and personalized on-demand music. The book enables students to understand the complexity of power and influence, providing a better understanding of the ways pop culture is embedded in a wide range of everyday activities. Students are encouraged to reflect on how they consume and produce popular culture and understand how that shapes their sense of self and connections to others. Essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, popular culture, and other related subjects.

The Millennium Dome, Braveheart and Rolls Royce cars. How do cultural icons reproduce and transform a sense of national identity? How does national identity vary across time and space, how is it contested, and what has been the impact of globalization upon national identity and culture?This book examines how national identity is represented, performed, spatialized and materialized through popular culture and in everyday life. National identity is revealed to be inherent in the things we often take for granted - from landscapes and eating habits, to tourism, cinema and music. Our specific experience of car ownership and motoring can enhance a sense of belonging, whilst Hollywood blockbusters and national exhibitions provide contexts for the ongoing, and often contested, process of national identity formation. These and a wealth of other cultural forms and practices are explored, with examples drawn from Scotland, the UK as a whole, India and Mauritius. This book addresses the considerable neglect of popular cultures in recent studies of nationalism and contributes to debates on the relationship between ‘high' and ‘low' culture.

"This text is important for any introductory anthropology course, particularly in conveying to students the relevance of anthropology by engaging with the very aspects of popular culture that are significant in their everyday lives." - Kristin L. Dowell, University of Oklahoma

Culture and Everyday Life provides students with a comprehensive overview of theoretical models, issues and examples of contemporary cultural practice. Andy Bennett begins by summarising and situating - in everyday settings - the key theoretical models applied in the study of existing cultural practices. This entails a systematic study of how academic thinking about mass culture has changed, from critical accounts of early mass cultural theorists to radical postmodernist critiques of mass cultural accounts and to 'the cultural turn', which explored how various social identities are culturally constructed.

Popular Culture: A Reader helps students understand the pervasive role of popular culture and the processes that constitute it as a product of industry, an intellectual object of inquiry, and an integral component of all our lives. The volume is divided into 7 thematic sections, and each section is preceded by an introduction which engages with, and critiques, the chapters that follow. The book contains classic writings from all the 'big names;' plenty of contemporary cultural references that will appeal to students, including skateboarding, hip hop, fashion (Tommy Hilfiger, vintage) websites, Star Trek, Disney, etc; material organized in a skills-focused and learning-focused way; strong pedagogic features throughout, making this an excellent classroom text; pieces drawing on diverse national, disciplinary and subdisciplinary contexts; and sensitivity to issues of gender, race and sexuality.

On subjects from Superman to rock 'n' roll, from Donald Duck to the TV news, from soap operas and romance novels to the use of double speak in advertising, these lively essays offer students of contemporary media a comprehensive counterstatement to the conservatism that has been ascendant since the seventies in American politics and cultural criticism. Donald Lazere brings together selections from nearly forty of the most prominent Marxist, feminist, and other leftist critics of American mass culture-from a dozen academic disciplines and fields of media activism. The collection will appeal to a wide range of students, scholars, and general readers.