Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity

Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity
Author: Jason Dittmer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 249
Release: 2019-03-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1538116731

Now in a thoroughly revised edition, this innovative and engaging text surveys the field of popular geopolitics, exploring the relationship between popular culture and international relations from a geographical perspective. Jason Dittmer and Daniel Bos connect global issues with the questions of identity and subjectivity that we feel as individuals, arguing that who we think we are influences how we understand the world. Building on the strengths of the first edition, each chapter focuses on a specific theme—such as representation, audience, and affect—by explaining the concept and then outlining some of the emerging debates that have revolved around it. New and updated case studies—including heritage and social media—help illustrate the significance of the concepts and capture the ways popular culture shapes our understandings of geopolitics within everyday life. Students will enjoy the text's accessibility and colorful examples, and instructors will appreciate the way the book brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary literature and makes it understandable and relevant.

Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity

Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity
Author: William Clapton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2024-11-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1040223389

Popular Culture, Social Media, and the Politics of Identity advances a novel methodological approach – pop culture as political object – to capture the centrality of popular culture as an object of a broad range of political contests and debates that constitute pop culture artefacts by generating and informing specific meanings and understandings of them. It is no longer novel to claim that popular culture matters to world politics. The literature on Popular Culture and World Politics (PCWP) has demonstrated the cultural basis of political action and meaning-making. However, this book argues that in doing so, the PCWP literature has focused primarily on the traditionally narrow range of issues, actors, and things that mainstream International Relations regards as part of world politics. While PCWP challenges restrictive disciplinary understandings of the sites of legitimate inquiry where one can purposefully gain knowledge about world politics, comparatively little has been done to challenge constricted understandings of what world politics is, who it involves, and where it takes place. Methodological approaches in the literature largely treat popular culture and politics as separate and therefore focus on understanding how popular culture relates to and intersects with a relatively circumscribed notion of world politics. Focusing on the everyday politics of how audiences perceive and contest popular cultural artefacts, this book demonstrates that pop culture does not merely intersect with or reflect discrete political processes; it is also directly situated as an object of politics. The author analyses current debates over identity politics across a range of contemporary pop cultural artefacts, including films and video games. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations, Political Science, and Cultural and Media Studies.

Popular Culture and World Politics

Popular Culture and World Politics
Author: E-International Relations
Publisher:
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2015-04-21
Genre:
ISBN: 9781910814024

This edited collection brings together cutting edge insights from a range of key thinkers working in the area of popular culture and world politics (PCWP). Offering a holistic approach to this exciting field of research, it contributes to the establishment of PCWP as a sub-discipline of International Relations. Canvassing issues such as geopolitics, political identities, the War on Terror and political communication - and drawing from sources such as film, videogames, art and music - this collection is an invaluable reader for anyone interested in popular culture and world politics. Contributors include: Jutta Weldes, Christina Rowley, Constance Duncombe, Roland Bleiker, Jason Dittmer, Klaus Dodds, Linda Ahall, Nicholas J. Kiersey, Iver B. Neumann, Michael J. Shapiro, Nick Robinson, Daniel Bos, Saara Sarma, Matt Davies, M.I. Franklin, Robert A. Saunders, Kyle Grayson, and William Clapton."

Searching for a Self: Identity in Popular Culture, Media and Society

Searching for a Self: Identity in Popular Culture, Media and Society
Author: Arthur Asa Berger
Publisher: Vernon Press
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2022-03-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1648893902

How do people turn out the way they do? How do they “arrive” at themselves and attain an identity? How are our identities affected by our birth order, our hair color, how tall or short we are, our intelligence, our occupation, our race, our religion, our nationality, the socio-economic level of our parents (or our being raised in a single-parent family), where we are born and where we grow up, the language we learn, the way we use language, our fashion tastes, our gender, our education, our psychological makeup, chance experiences we have, the people we marry (if we marry), and countless other factors? There are numerous matters to consider when dealing with identity, which, as Nigel Denis, the author of 'Cards of Identity', reminds us, “is the answer to everything.” 'Searching for a Self' takes a deep dive into the question of identity formation from various perspectives; it is written in a reader-friendly accessible style and makes use of insightful quotations from seminal thinkers who have dealt with the topic. Split into two parts, the first “Theories of Identity,” offers evaluations of identity from semioticians, psychologists, sociologists and Marxists while the second, “Applications,” offers case studies on topics such as Russian identity, Donald Trump’s identity, fashion and identity, LGBTQIA+ identity, Orthodox Jewish identity, elite university education and identity, tattoos and identity, travel and identity, and politics and identity. Covering a wide array of subject areas, this book will be a valuable resource for undergraduate students taking courses in identity, sociology, psychology, cultural studies, and other related fields.

Media Culture

Media Culture
Author: Douglas Kellner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2020-05-05
Genre: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN: 0429534442

In this thorough update of one of the classic texts of media and cultural studies, Douglas Kellner argues that media culture is now the dominant form of culture that socializes us and provides and plays major roles in the economy, polity, and social and cultural life. The book includes a series of lively studies that both illuminate contemporary culture and society, while providing methods of analysis, interpretation, and critique to engage contemporary U.S. culture. Many people today talk about cultural studies, but Kellner actually does it, carrying through a unique mixture of theoretical analysis and concrete discussions of some of the most popular and influential forms of contemporary media culture. Studies cover a wide range of topics including: Reagan and Rambo; horror and youth films; women’s films, the TV series Orange is the New Black and Hulu’s TV series based on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; the films of Spike Lee and African American culture; Latino films and cinematic narratives on migration; female pop icons Madonna, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga; fashion and celebrity; television news, documentary films, and the recent work of Michael Moore; fantasy and science fiction, with focus on the cinematic version of Lord of the Rings, Philip K. Dick and the Blade Runner films, and the work of David Cronenberg. Situating the works of media culture in their social context, within political struggles, and the system of cultural production and reception, Kellner develops a multidimensional approach to cultural studies that broadens the field and opens it to a variety of disciplines. He also provides new approaches to the vexed question of the effects of culture and offers new perspectives for cultural studies. Anyone interested in the nature and effects of contemporary society and culture should read this book.

Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination

Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination
Author: Henry Jenkins
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2020-02-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1479891258

How popular culture is engaged by activists to effect emancipatory political change One cannot change the world unless one can imagine what a better world might look like. Civic imagination is the capacity to conceptualize alternatives to current cultural, social, political, or economic conditions; it also requires the ability to see oneself as a civic agent capable of making change, as a participant in a larger democratic culture. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination represents a call for greater clarity about what we’re fighting for—not just what we’re fighting against. Across more than thirty examples from social movements around the world, this casebook proposes “civic imagination” as a framework that can help us identify, support, and practice new kinds of communal participation. As the contributors demonstrate, young people, in particular, are turning to popular culture—from Beyoncé to Bollywood, from Smokey Bear to Hamilton, from comic books to VR—for the vernacular through which they can express their discontent with current conditions. A young activist uses YouTube to speak back against J. K. Rowling in the voice of Cho Chang in order to challenge the superficial representation of Asian Americans in children’s literature. Murals in Los Angeles are employed to construct a mythic imagination of Chicano identity. Twitter users have turned to #BlackGirlMagic to highlight the black radical imagination and construct new visions of female empowerment. In each instance, activists demonstrate what happens when the creative energies of fans are infused with deep political commitment, mobilizing new visions of what a better democracy might look like.

Identity and Pleasure

Identity and Pleasure
Author: Ariel Heryanto
Publisher: NUS Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2014-07-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9971698218

Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture critically examines what media and screen culture reveal about the ways urban-based Indonesians attempted to redefine their identity in the first decade of this century. Through a richly nuanced analysis of expressions and representations found in screen culture (cinema, television and social media), it analyses the waves of energy and optimism, and the disillusionment, disorientation and despair, that arose in the power vacuum that followed the dramatic collapse of the militaristic New Order government. While in-depth analyses of identity and political contestation within the nation are the focus of the book, trans-national engagements and global dimensions are a significant part of the story in each chapter. The author focuses on contemporary cultural politics in Indonesia, but each chapter contextualizes current circumstances by setting them within a broader historical perspective.

National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life

National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life
Author: Tim Edensor
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2020-06-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 100018367X

The Millennium Dome, Braveheart and Rolls Royce cars. How do cultural icons reproduce and transform a sense of national identity? How does national identity vary across time and space, how is it contested, and what has been the impact of globalization upon national identity and culture?This book examines how national identity is represented, performed, spatialized and materialized through popular culture and in everyday life. National identity is revealed to be inherent in the things we often take for granted - from landscapes and eating habits, to tourism, cinema and music. Our specific experience of car ownership and motoring can enhance a sense of belonging, whilst Hollywood blockbusters and national exhibitions provide contexts for the ongoing, and often contested, process of national identity formation. These and a wealth of other cultural forms and practices are explored, with examples drawn from Scotland, the UK as a whole, India and Mauritius. This book addresses the considerable neglect of popular cultures in recent studies of nationalism and contributes to debates on the relationship between ‘high' and ‘low' culture.

Identity Politics and Popular Culture in Taiwan

Identity Politics and Popular Culture in Taiwan
Author: Hsin-I Sydney Yueh
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2016-12-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1498510337

In the past two decades, a uniform representation of cutified femininity prevails in the Taiwanese media, evidenced by the shift of Taiwan’s popular cultural taste from a Chinese-centered tradition to a mixed absorption from neighboring cultural capitals in the global market. This book argues that the native term “sajiao” is the key to understand the phenomenon. Originally referring to a set of persuasive tactics through imitating a spoiled child’s gestures and ways of speaking to get attention or material goods, sajiao is commonly understood to be women’s weapon to manipulate men in the Mandarin-speaking communities. By re-interpreting sajiao as a “feminine” tactic, or the tactic of the weak, the book aims to propose a “feminine framework” in exploring identity politics in the following three aspects: the rising obsession with the immature female image in Taiwan’s popular culture, the adoption of the feminine communication style in native speakers’ everyday language and interactions, and the competing discourses between dominant/subordinate, central/peripheral, global/local, and Chinese/Taiwanese in shaping the identity politics in current Taiwanese society. The micro-analysis of everyday language politics leads the reader to examine layers of discourse about gender, identity, and communication, and finally to inquire how to situate or categorize “Taiwan” in area studies. The “feminine framework” is a useful theoretical tool that not only deconstructs everyday communication practice but also provides a bottom-up, alternative angle in analyzing Taiwan’s role in political, economic, and cultural flows in East Asia. The massive imports of popular cultural products in the late 80s, mainly from Japan, fermented the kawaii (Japanese cute) type of femininity in regulating everyday communication and the perception of gender roles in Taiwan. The popularity of the baby-like female image is concurrent with the simmering debate on Taiwanese identity. Taiwan offers a unique perspective for observing identity politics because it still holds an undetermined status in the international community. The collective uncertainty about the island’s future and the diminishing voice in the international society become the backdrop for the growth of defining, interpreting, and appropriating sajiao elements in the popular culture. This book offers an in-depth examination of the interplay among local historical contexts, cross-border capitalist exchange, and everyday communication that shapes the dialogism of Taiwanese identity.

The Politics of Identity

The Politics of Identity
Author: Stanley Aronowitz
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2014-02-25
Genre: Art
ISBN: 113520554X

In The Politics of Identity, Stanley Aronowitz offers provocative analysis of the complex interactions of class, politics, and culture. Beginning with the premise that culture is constitutive of class identities, he demonstrates that while feminist analyses of both racial and gay movements have discussed these components of culture, class contributions to cultural identity have yet to be fully examined. In these essays, he uses class as a category for cultural analysis, ranging over issues of ethnicity, race and gender, portrayals of class and culture in the media, as well as a range of other issues related to postmodernism.