Pop Culture for Beginners

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Pop Culture for Beginners is written by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock and published by . It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 1554815657 (ISBN 10) and 9781554815654 (ISBN 13).

Pop Culture for Beginners promotes reflective engagement with the world around us and provides tools for thinking critically about how meaning is created, reinforced, and circulated. Privileging a semiotic approach, the book's first part, "The Pop Culture Toolbox," outlines the development of pop culture studies; explains the semiotic framework; introduces students to a variety of critical lenses including Marxism, feminism, postcolonialism, and Critical Race Theory; and then offers an overview of pop culture "pivot points," including authenticity, intersectionality, intertextuality, and subculture. The book's second part provides a series of units, prepared in consultation with subject area experts, built around topics central to popular culture studies: television and film, music, comics, gaming, social media, and fandom. Each chapter includes "Your Turn" activities and discussion questions, as well as possible assignments and suggestions for further reading. The chapters in part two also include questions as beginning points for thinking critically and readings demonstrating relevant scholarly approaches to popular culture. Important vocabulary terms are included in a substantive glossary at the end.