Handbook Popular Culture. Notions, theories, and discussions
This handbook is authored by folklorists, sociologists, scholars of the media, theater, communication science, cultural studies, etc. It introduces ´popular culture´ in eleven essays of ´types´ of culture, such as everyday culture, leisure culture, the culture industry, mass culture, subculture, entertainment, and folk culture. Then there are roughly 100 basic notions to the overall topic, such as: action, comic, design, Diva, TV, photography, gender, violence, movies, Kitsch, cult, juke box, radio, serial, sex, vamp, crime, video games, future, censorship, advertizing, games... These notions are derived from, and may be subsumed under, a few systematic headings: concepts, basic notions, places, different forms of media, distributive media, hardware devices, distribution channels, genres, reception and functional figures, media- and genre figures, ways of narration.
The field of ´popular culture´, established some 20, 30 years ago on the basis of the insight that a dichotomy of high vs. popular culture is an inappropriate value judgment, is ´practiced´ in Germany mainly by media scientists, literary scholars, sociology, folklore studies, ethnographers, psychology, and journalism. Thus, the historicity of popular culture, its relationship with ´high culture´, and a hermeneutics of popular culture is part of the research agenda. The handbook takes popular culture as entertainment culture; it accentuates the German field, but includes US-American and European connections.
Keywords: popular culture, handbook of pop culture, high culture vs. pop culture, cultural studies, media and culture, folklore studies
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
| ||||||
