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| Module Availability |
| Semester 2 |
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| Assessment Pattern |
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Unit(s) of Assessment
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Weighting Towards Module Mark( %)
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2000 word essay
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50
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1 hour exam
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50
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Qualifying Condition(s)
A weighted aggregate mark of 40% is required to pass the module.
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| Module Overview |
| This module aims to provide a critical and reflexive approach to everyday popular cultural forms and practices, paying close attention to everyday and mediatised practices. The course covers the everyday significance of contemporary cultural and media forms, including visual/screen media; therapeutic culture and celebrity/tabloid culture. It also focuses upon the analysis of consumer culture, the social significance of phenomena such as music and fashion and the distinction between popular and high forms of culture. |
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| Prerequisites/Co-requisites |
| None |
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| Module Aims |
- To provide an introduction to theoretical understandings of contemporary popular culture
- To enable students to connect specific topics relating to the study of popular culture with broader understandings of media and of society
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| Learning Outcomes |
Having completed this module, students should be able to:
· Understand sociological and cultural studies approaches to popular mediatised culture
· Critically discuss contemporary visual culture and cultural trends
· Demonstrate an awareness of current debates with respect to consumer culture, fashion and popular music
· Deploy appropriate vocabulary in the academic discussion of popular culture and everyday life
· Relate substantive areas in cultural and media sociology to wider theoretical understandings of everyday life
- Produce written commentary on relevant everyday examples which demonstrates an understanding of theories of popular culture and everyday life
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| Module Content |
· Why it is important to understand and explain popular culture and everyday life
· The growth of tabloid, entertainment and celebrity culture
· The relationship between aesthetics, emotions, everyday life and popular culture
· The prominence and impact of emotionality and therapeutic culture
· Understandings of consumer and leisure cultures, particularly in relation to the role of fashion and popular music.
· The construction of distinctions between popular and ‘high’ form of culture.
· Screen cultures: history and significance of the primacy of the visual in cultural life and its consequences
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| Methods of Teaching/Learning |
· 11 lectures and 11 seminars
· Weekly reading and critical discussion
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| Selected Texts/Journals |
Clow, K.E. and Baack, Fiske, J. (1989) Understanding Popular Culture, London: Routledge.
FiskeFiStrinati, D. (2004) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, London: Routledge.
Highmore, B. (2010) Ordinary Lives: Studies in the Everyday. London: Routledge.
Marshall, P. D. (1997). Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press.
Mirzoeff, N. (1999) An Introduction to Visual Culture. Routledge.
Storey, J. (ed.) (2006) Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: a Reader. Pearson Education
Storey, J. (2010) Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture. Edinburgh. |
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| Last Updated |
| April 2011 |
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