Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture

Reviews / Votes

Andrew F. Herrmann and Art Herbig provide an exciting collection of essays with their edited series Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture. From fan culture to polymediation to the personal, interpersonal, and political ways by which we engage in popular culture, this book offers cutting edge theoretical and methodological research at the intersection of popular culture and communication scholarship. -- Stephanie L. Young, University of Southern Indiana In this volume Andrew and Art coordinate and smartly contribute to the advancement of popular culture scholarship. Their text reminds readers in vivid fashion that popular culture in all of its iterations is both pervasive and persuasive. Pop culture serves as THE most significant resource that citizens of our polymediated world use to construct and understand the fluid and fragmented realities (in both progressive and repressive ways) that comprise their everyday lives. The individual chapters provide beautifully written, rich examples of critical and interpretive analysis that Communication scholars and scholars-in-training will find engaging, thought provoking, and worthy of emulating. As an ethnographer and interpretive scholar, how various contributors addressed a wide range of research questions inspired me to think differently about what I consider when I operate in the liminal space between data and local cultural understandings. -- Robert L. Krizek, Saint Louis University Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture delivers on the promise of the series to come by including a number of different popular culture artifacts analyzed from numerous academic perspectives that create space for larger discussions. The book includes foundational concepts (such as discussions for high vs. low culture) and traditional analyses of popular culture artifacts (such as textual analyses of television shows) which provide excellent introductions for the uninitiated. The greatest strength of the book, however, lies with the unexpected and unique theoretical perspectives suggested (such as queering popular culture and approaching popular culture as a verb) and contexts explored (organizational communication and politics). Students and scholars of popular culture, communication, media, and politics would benefit greatly from including this book in their classes and future research. -- Jennifer C. Dunn, Dominican University An invaluable contribution to popular culture studies in media and communications. This volume has an excellent cast of contributors who discuss a variety of fascinating subjects, from popular television shows to the Tea Party movement, to illuminate our mediated, transmediated, polymediated world. Smart and accessible, this volume will appeal to scholars and students alike. -- Ann Larabee, Michigan State University