OBrien Susie - Popular culture: a users guide

1. Chapter 02
2. Chapter 04

1. Chapter 01
2. Chapter 02
3. Chapter 03
4. Chapter 04
5. Chapter 05
6. Chapter 06
7. Chapter 07
8. Chapter 08
9. Chapter 09
10. Chapter 10

Popular Culture: A Users Guide, International Edition is a lively and engaging introduction to popular culture. It provides the tools and knowledge for an analysis of the contemporary cultural landscape across a range of disciplines, from literary theory and cultural studies to philosophy and sociology.

The text covers a broad range of key topics, such as the underlying socioeconomic structures that affect media and our consciousness, the politics of pop culture, the role of consumers, subcultures and countercultures, and the construction of social reality. It examines the ways in which individuals and societies act as consumers and agents of popular culture. It is also filled with a variety of helpful learning features including case studies, reallife examples, suggested activities, boxed features on specific topics, and a glossary of terms. Popular Culture helps readers navigate the complexities of twentyfirst century popular culture, arming them with the awareness and ability to critically evaluate everyday life and practices.

IMRE SZEMAN is Canada Research Chair of Cultural Studies and Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada. He is also Adjunct Professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, Canada. He is the founder of the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies and a founding member of the US Cultural Studies Association. He is the author or editor of more than 16 books, including Cultural Theory: An Anthology (Wiley Blackwell, 2010) and After Globalization (Wiley Blackwell, 2011).

SUSIE OBRIEN is Associate Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University, Canada. Her research and teaching focus on postcolonial and environmental cultural studies. She has published on postcolonial literature, the slow and local food movements, scenario planning, and the temporality of globalization. She is coeditor of Time, Globalization and Human Experience (forthcoming 2017).

Imre Szeman

Susie OBrien

This edition first published 2017
2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Edition History
Adapted from Popular Culture: A Users Guide, Third Edition, by Susie OBrien and Imre Szeman, published by Nelson Education Ltd. Copyright 2014 by Nelson Education Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

The right of Imre Szeman and Susie OBrien to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with law.

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Szeman, Imre, 1968 author. | OBrien, Susie, author.
Title: Popular culture : a users guide / Imre Szeman, University of Waterloo, Canada, Susie OBrien, McMaster University, Canada.
Description: International edition. | Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017. | Adapted from Popular Culture: A Users Guide, Third Edition [published in 2014 by Nelson Education]. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017011125 (print) | LCCN 2017026179 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119140368 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119140375 (epub) | ISBN 9781119140337 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119140344 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Popular culture.
Classification: LCC HM621 (ebook) | LCC HM621 .S995 2017 (print) | DDC 306dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011125

Cover Image: Courtesy of Jessica Sabogal
Cover Design: Wiley

The goal of Popular Culture: A Users Guide is to provide readers with an introduction to the critical study of popular culture. Our aim is to give readers the analytical tools to understand the everyday texts and practices that surround them, as well as their own roles as consumers of and participants in popular culture.

Why does anyone need a guidebook to popular culture? Dont we all already know not only what is meant by popular culture, but also how to consume and use it? Guidebooks are supposed to make mysterious lands with unusual customs more familiar, or help us learn how to navigate complex tasks (like building a deck or planting a goodlooking garden) with greater ease. Popular culture, on the other hand, is, well, popular. When it comes to watching films, listening to pop music, shopping, or sucking down cups of coffee, we believe that we know exactly what we are doing and why we are doing it. Like our native tongue, popular culture is something we know how to speak without resorting to lessons, audiotapes, courses, or guidebooks. So what can a users guide tell us about popular culture that we dont already know?

In many respects, it is precisely the intimacy and familiarity with which we engage in contemporary popular culture that require critical reflection, exploration, and analysis. After all, knowing how to speak a language because we are immersed in it does not mean that we are necessarily able to read or write it, or that we understand its syntax and structure. Reading and writing take an enormous amount of effort to get right. And once we have learned how to read, we are faced with other questions, such as how written language on a page can convey information about real and imagined worlds.