Popular Culture in a New Age

Marshall Fishwick

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780789012975
• eBook ISBN: 9781317956723
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Media Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

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.

Index

adaptability, 196–197

advertising

and Coca Cola, 52–53

and Disney, 64

and hype, 94

impact, 82, 83

in school curriculum, 29–30

and symbols, 195

and Ziegfeld, 51

aesthetics, 120, 124–125

of African Americans, 134

African Americans, 129–137

civil rights movement, 136

early leaders, 134–136

prominent figures, xiv, 137

and slavery, 129–130

and sports, 137

Vietnam era groups, 169

Alger, Horatio, Jr., 175–177

American Dream

and celebrity, 86

and individualism, 22

and Kennedy, 180

and Sixties counterculture, 166

and stereotypes, 122

and success, 172–177, 181

Americanization

European viewpoints, xiii–xv, 62, 103–104

and Founding Fathers, 119

and myths, 172, 180

amusement parks, 58–62, 68–73, 80

Ancients

and celebrations, 67

and icons, 47–48, 49

and Nature, 44

rhetoric, 6–7

and style, 117–118

Anderson, Karen, 9

Anheuser-Busch, 70

animals, 71–72, 80

Mickey Mouse, 58, 61–62, 63, 65

apocalypticism, 10–12

Arnold, Matthew, 155

art

and African Americans, 132, 133

Coca Cola bottle, 52

twen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Table of Contents
• A Different World
• 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