Social Problems in Popular Culture

Social Problems in Popular Culture PDF Author: Maratea, R. J.
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 144732157X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
‘Popular culture’ is more than just a broad term for entertainment and frivolous diversions and is highly relevant to many aspects of society. In this exciting textbook, the authors offer insights into the important, but often overlooked, relationship between popular culture and social problems. Drawing on historical and topical examples, they apply an innovative theoretical framework to examine how facets of popular culture—from movies and music, to toys and games, as well as billboards, bumper stickers, and bracelets—shape how we think about, and respond to, social issues. Including student features and evocative case studies, this is the first book to make the link between popular culture and social problems and will help students understand the relationship between them. Deftly combining the fun and irreverence of popular culture with a critical scholarly inquiry, this timely book delivers an engaging account of how our interactions with popular culture matter more than we think!

Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture

Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture PDF Author: Karen Sternheimer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429974973
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Is violence on the streets caused by violence in video games? Does cyber-bullying lead to an increase in suicide rates? Are teens promiscuous because of Teen Mom? As Karen Sternheimer clearly demonstrates, popular culture is an easy scapegoat for many of society's problems, but it is almost always the wrong answer. Now in its second edition, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture goes beyond the news-grabbing headlines claiming that popular culture is public enemy number one to consider what really causes the social problems we are most concerned about. The sobering fact is that a "media made them do it" explanation fails to illuminate the roots of social problems like poverty, violence, and environmental degradation. Sternheimer's analysis deftly illustrates how welfare "reform," a two-tiered health care system, and other difficult systemic issues have far more to do with our contemporary social problems than Grand Theft Auto or Facebook. The fully-revised new edition features recent moral panics (think sexting and cyberbullying) and an entirely new chapter exploring social media. Expanded discussion of how we understand society's problems as social constructions without disregarding empirical evidence, as well as the cultural and structural issues underlying those ills, allows students to stretch their sociological imaginations.

Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture

Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture PDF Author: Karen Sternheimer
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN: 9780813347233
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Is violence on the streets caused by violence in video games? Does cyber-bullying lead to an increase in suicide rates? Are teens promiscuous because of Teen Mom? As Karen Sternheimer clearly demonstrates, popular culture is an easy scapegoat for many of society's problems, but it is almost always the wrong answer. Now in its second edition, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture goes beyond the news-grabbing headlines claiming that popular culture is public enemy number one to consider what really causes the social problems we are most concerned about. The sobering fact is that a "media made them do it" explanation fails to illuminate the roots of social problems like poverty, violence, and environmental degradation. Sternheimer's analysis deftly illustrates how welfare "reform," a two-tiered health care system, and other difficult systemic issues have far more to do with our contemporary social problems than Grand Theft Auto or Facebook. The fully-revised new edition features recent moral panics—think sexting and cyberbullying—and an entirely new chapter exploring social media. Expanded discussion of how we understand society's problems as social constructions without disregarding empirical evidence, as well as the cultural and structural issues underlying those ills, allows students to stretch their sociological imaginations.

Popular Culture

Popular Culture PDF Author: Lee Harrington
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN: 9780631217107
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
This is a rich collection of contemporary perspectives on how culture is produced and commodified using current examples from music, television, magazines, sports, and advertising. Incorporating a variety of theoretical frameworks, the book addresses, in addition, issues of social and cultural diversity in readings by key scholars that are accessible and provocative for both students and academics.

Pop Culture Panics

Pop Culture Panics PDF Author: Karen Sternheimer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317751345
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Moral panics reveal much about a society’s social structure and the sociology embedded in everyday life. This short text examines extreme reactions to American popular culture over the past century, including crusades against comic books, music, and pinball machines, to help convey the "sociological imagination" to undergraduates. Sternheimer creates a critical lens through which to view current and future attempts of modern-day moral crusaders, who try to convince us that simple solutions—like regulating popular culture—are the answer to complex social problems. Pop Culture Panics is ideal for use in undergraduate social problems, social deviance, and popular culture courses.

Encyclopedia of Social Problems

Encyclopedia of Social Problems PDF Author: Vincent N. Parrillo
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1412941652
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 1209

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Book Description
From terrorism to social inequality and from health care to environmental issues, social problems affect us all. The Encyclopedia will offer an interdisciplinary perspective into these and many other social problems that are a continuing concern in our lives, whether we confront them on a personal, local, regional, national, or global level.

Popular Culture

Popular Culture PDF Author: Imre Szeman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119140374
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Popular Culture: A User’s Guide, International Edition ventures beyond the history of pop culture to give readers the vocabulary and tools to address and analyze the contemporary cultural landscape that surrounds them. Moves beyond the history of pop culture to give students the vocabulary and tools to analyze popular culture suitable for the study of popular culture across a range of disciplines, from literary theory and cultural studies to philosophy and sociology Covers a broad range of important topics including the underlying socioeconomic structures that affect media, the politics of pop culture, the role of consumers, subcultures and countercultures, and the construction of social reality Examines the ways in which individuals and societies act as consumers and agents of popular culture Numerous learning features including case studies, real-life examples, suggested activities, boxed features, a glossary, and an instructor’s manual

Rethinking Popular Culture

Rethinking Popular Culture PDF Author: Chandra Mukerji
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520068933
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
Rethinking Popular Culture presents some of the most important current scholarship analyzing popular culture. Drawing upon recent developments in cultural theory and exciting new methods of critical analysis, the essays in this volume break down disciplinary boundaries and offer fresh insight into popular culture.

Popular Culture as Everyday Life

Popular Culture as Everyday Life PDF Author: Dennis D. Waskul
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317564103
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
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.

A Companion to Popular Culture

A Companion to Popular Culture PDF Author: Gary Burns
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118883330
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 608

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Book Description
A Companion to Popular Culture is a landmark survey of contemporary research in popular culture studies that offers a comprehensive and engaging introduction to the field. Includes over two dozen essays covering the spectrum of popular culture studies from food to folklore and from TV to technology Features contributions from established and up-and-coming scholars from a range of disciplines Offers a detailed history of the study of popular culture Balances new perspectives on the politics of culture with in-depth analysis of topics at the forefront of popular culture studies