Popular Culture in a New Age / Edition 1

by Marshall Fishwick

Overview

With a Foreword by Dr. Fishwick's student—Tom Wolfe.

This book redefines popular culture in the light of the revolutionary changes brought about by the information revolution and the digital divide. It explores the phenomenal growth and extension of popular culture in the last decade and ties in the vast changes brought about by technology and the Internet. In an era when American television and the Internet reach virtually every corner of the globe, Popular Culture in a New Age shows how the poorly understood and often underestimated area known as popular culture affects all of our lives.

Beginning with an evaluation of the millennium celebrations and the enormous error of Y2K madness, Popular Culture in a New Age then moves on to the “New Gold Rush” brought about by technology and takes a hard look at its risks. The book examines a wide variety of pop culture phenomena such as carnivals, celebrities, and the road from nineteenth century humbuggery (P. T. Barnum's term) to today's hype.

In Popular Culture in a New Age you'll learn about:

• the three faces of popular culture: folk, fake, and pop—how they relate and how they differ
• today's popular icons
• the empire of Disney World
• Marshall McLuhan, our era's most profound and shocking electronic thinker
• African-American popular culture and style

Popular Culture in a New Age gives characterization to the postmodern world in a chapter on “postmodern pop,” followed by the shift from civil religion to civil disobedience and the “myth of success.” This insightful book will help you understand the way we eat, think, vote, and respond to our fast-changing world in the era of hype, spin doctors, chat rooms, and jargon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780789012982
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/17/2001
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Contents

• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Millennium Merrymaking
• What to Make of the Millennium
• Popular Culture: The Beggar at the Gate of Our Public Schools
• The New Gold Rush
• Folk/Fake/Pop
• Sacred Symbols
• The Man and the Mouse
• Carnivals—Old and New
• The Celebrity Cult
• From Humbuggery to Hype
• Surprise Attacks
• The Electric Shocker
• Style
• Black Popular Culture
• The Most Popular War
• Postmodern Pop
• Faith Takes a New Face
• The Most Popular Myth
• Global Village—Utopia Revisited?
• Some Final Thoughts
• Notes
• Further Reading
• Index
• Reference Notes Included