Putting forward an alternative to the endless complaints about reality TV, throwaway movies and violent video games, this book shows that mass culture is actually more sophisticated and challenging than ever before.

Western culture is exhibiting its fascination with sex in new, often surprising ways. Pole dancing is a form of keep fit, porn stars find work as agony aunts, pornography itself is just 'a mouse click away', and phone sex, email affairs and cybersex are part of our everyday lives. This book discusses sexualization of modern culture.

Critiques the supposed liberating and expressive potential of nightclubs by theorizing them within the linked themes of risk, consumption and security in late capitalism.

Kings of the Road. Reissue.

Includes photographs and interviews with truckers all over America.

Tells of spectacular failures and unexpected success of the French language - second only to English for the number of countries where it is officially spoken. This work is written in a chronological narrative spanning more than 10 centuries, from ancient French dialects of the 8th century to the French spoken in Quebec, Algeria, Beirut and more.

Presents the history of Japanese mass culture during the decades preceding Pearl Harbor. This work argues that the new gestures, relationship, and humor of ero-guro-nansensu (erotic grotesque nonsense) expressed a self-consciously modern ethos that challenged state ideology and expansionism.

Offers a cultural history of European and Egyptian interest in ancient Egypt and its material culture, from the early nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth. This book demonstrates that the emergence of Egyptology - the study of ancient Egypt and its material legacy - was as consequential for modern Egyptians as it was for Europeans.

Examines the media revolution and shows how it works. This book profiles groups of listeners and their different approaches to discovery, showing how breeds of technology make automated recommendations based on expert coding. It also shows creators how to fill the gaps in their knowledge about consumer behaviour.

Blurring the distinction between high and low, this work asks What is sport? In investigating the phenomenon, it considers five different national sports: bullfighting (Spain), car racing (America), cycling (France), hockey (Canada), and soccer (England).

Provides a critical survey of the theories, concepts, intellectual debates, substantive domains and traditions of study characterizing the analysis of things. This handbook charts an interdisciplinary field of studies that makes a fundamental contribution to an understanding of what it means to be human.

Presents an analysis of the extension of Disneyization throughout society. This book argues that the contemporary world is increasingly converging towards the characteristics of the Disney theme parks. It demonstrates the importance of control and surveillance in consumer culture. It is suitable for students of cultural studies, and media studies.

Intended for women who consider themselves modern maidens, this guide to living in the real world, discusses several of life's vital issues, from love, sex, drugs and alcohol to careers, money, plastic surgery, pregnancy, birth and the aftermath.

Provides an introduction to the study and interpretation of visual culture. This title contains a chapter on how to use the book. Each chapter follows the same structure.

In a world which may appears to be changing at a faster rate than at any time in history how can the social sciences help us to understand what is happening? This book offers an introduction to contemporary debates in the social sciences and to what matters to people in everyday life.

Written with the assistance, of those involved, including Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera, this book gives an account of how pop art, the avant garde underground of the 1960s, and the heady slipstream of London in the sixties was transformed into the fashion cults of revivalism, nostalgia and pop futurism in the early 1970s.

Post hip hop is not about the death of rap, but the birth of a new movement propelled by a paradigm shift often felt in the crowded spoken-word joints in North Philadelphia, the krump-dance dance-offs in Compton, and on a tattered stoop of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. This book details how hip hop has changed.

War has been an integral theme of the games industry since the invention of the first video game, Spacewar! in 1962. While war video games began as entertainment, military organizations soon saw their potential as combat simulation and recruitment tools. This anthology examines the reciprocal relationship between militarism and video games.

Explores the dynamism of the Gulf, reflected not just in high-rise buildings and booming stock markets, but also manifested in the realms of art, ideas and expression and their relationships with political authority.

An illustrated catalog of more than 35 of the most significant and timeless how-tos of personal style. Authors have approached respected hair stylists, skin specialists, fashion designers, makeup artists, style gurus, and design icons to learn the secrets of classic personal presentation straight from the source.