Come on down? : the politics of popular media culture in post-war Britain

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. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Notes on contributors......Page 10 Introduction: Come on down?;popular culture today......Page 14 Homeward Bound: Leisure, popular culture and consumer capitalism......Page 22 The taste of America: Americanization and popular culture in Britain......Page 59 The impossibility of Best: Enterprise meets domesticity in the practical women's magazines of the 1980s......Page 95 From the East End to EastEnders: Representations of the working class, 1890 1990......Page 129 British soaps in the 1980s......Page 146 'One I made earlier': Media, popular culture and the politics of childhood......Page 163 The price is right but the moments are sticky: Television, quiz and game shows, and popular culture......Page 192 Embedded persuasions: The fall and rise of integrated advertising......Page 215 'You're nicked!': Television police series and the fictional representation of law and order......Page 245 You've never had it so silly: The politics of British satirical comedy from Beyond the Fringe to Spitting Image......Page 267 A 'divine gift to inspire'?: Popular cultural representation, nationhood and the British monarchy......Page 298 Shock waves: The authoritative response to popular music......Page 315 Digging for Britain: An excavation in seven parts......Page 338 Index......Page 391

Come on Down 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 analyse 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 the collection, making it a much-needed and extremely accessible, 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.