This introduction to popular media culture in Britain 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 processes.

This is a clear and comprehensive guide to the major theories of popular culture. Dominic Strinati provides a critical assessment of the ways in which these theories have tried to understand and evaluate popular culture in modern societies. Among the theories and ideas the book introduces are mass culture, the Frankfurt School and the culture industry, semiology and structuralism, Marxism, feminism, postmodernism and cultural populism. Strinati explains how theorists such as Adorno, Barthes, Althusser and Hebdige have grappled with the many forms of popular culture, from jazz to the Americanization of British popular culture, from Hollywood cinema to popular television series, and from teen magazines to the spy novel. Each chapter includes a guide to key texts for further reading and there is also a comprehensive bibliography. This new edition has been fully revised and updated.

How can we study popular culture? What makes 'popular culture' popular? Is popular culture important? What influence does it have?
An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture provides a clear and comprehensive answer to these questions. It presents a critical assessment of the major ways in which popular culture has been interpreted, and suggests how it may be more usefully studied.
Dominic Strinati uses the examples of cinema and television to show how we can understand popular culture from sociological and historical perspectives. The book:
* traces the development of popular Hollywood cinema
* addresses key topics such as production, distribution and exhibition, narrative, and genre
* provides case studies of gangster and horror films, and film noir.
Strinati shows how the study of television has differed from that of film, focusing on consumption and audience evaluation. He uses soap opera to show how genre can be used to study popular television. Finally, he turns to an assessment of television as a 'post-modern' medium.

How can we study popular culture? What makes 'popular culture' popular? Is popular culture important? What influence does it have?
An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture provides a clear and comprehensive answer to these questions. It presents a critical assessment of the major ways in which popular culture has been interpreted, and suggests how it may be more usefully studied.
Dominic Strinati uses the examples of cinema and television to show how we can understand popular culture from sociological and historical perspectives. He traces the development of popular Hollywood cinema, addressing key topics such as production, distribution and exhibition, narrative, and genre, with case studies of gangster and horror films, and film noir.
Strinati shows how television has been studied rather differently, with study focusing on consumption as much as on production, and he looks at how the television audience has been studied and evaluated. Returning to the idea of genre, he uses the example of soap opera to show how genre can be used to study popular television. Finally, he assesses whether or not popular television has become a 'post-modern' medium.

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 analyze 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 this collection, making it an 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.

This is a clear and comprehensive guide to the major theories of popular culture. Dominic Strinati provides a critical assessment of the ways in which these theories have tried to understand and evaluate popular culture in modern societies. Among the theories and ideas the book introduces are mass culture, the Frankfurt School and the culture industry, semiology and structuralism, Marxism, feminism, postmodernism and cultural populism. Strinati explains how theorists such as Adorno, Barthes, Althusser and Hebdige have grappled with the many forms of popular culture, from jazz to the Americanization of British popular culture, from Hollywood cinema to popular television series, and from teen magazines to the spy novel. Each chapter includes a guide to key texts for further reading and there is also a comprehensive bibliography. This new edition has been fully revised and updated.