Be the best you can be' urge self-help books and makeover TV shows, but what kind of self is imagined as needing a makeover and what kind of self is imagined as the happy result? Drawing on recent sociology and psychology, this book explores the function of slummy mummies, headless zombies and living autopsies to creating an idea of self.

This book explores the emergence of "lifestyle" in the US, first as a term that has become an organizing principle for the self and for the structure of everyday life, and later as a pervasive form of media that encompasses a variety of domestic and self-improvement genres, from newspaper columns to design blogs. Drawing on the methodologies of cultural studies and feminist media studies, and built upon a series of case studies from newspapers, books, television programs, and blogs, it tracks the emergence of lifestyle’s discursive formation and shows its relevance in contemporary media culture. It is, in the broadest sense, about the role played by the explosion of lifestyle media texts in changing conceptualizations of selfhood and domestic life.

We often hear that selves are no longer formed through producing material things at work, but by consuming them in leisure, leading to 'meaningless' modern lives. This important book reveals the cultural shift to be more complex, demonstrating how people in postindustrial societies strive to form meaningful and moral selves through both the consumption and production of material culture in leisure. Focusing on the material culture of food, the book explores these theoretical questions through an ethnography of those individuals for whom food is central to their self: 'foodies'. It examines what foodies do, and why they do it, through an in-depth study of their lived experiences. The book uncovers how food offers a means of shaping the self not as a consumer but as an amateur who engages in both the production and consumption of material culture and adopts a professional approach which reveals the new moralities of productive leisure in self-formation. The chapters examine a variety of practices, from fine dining and shopping to cooking and blogging, and include rare data on how people use media such as cookbooks, food television, and digital food media in their everyday life. This book is ideal for students, scholars, and anyone interested in the meaning of food in modern life.

A scholarly work examining the continuing evolution of the magazine—part of the popular Handbooks in Media and Communication series The Handbook of Magazine Studies is a wide-ranging study of the ways in which the political economy of magazines has dramatically shifted in recent years—and continues to do so at a rapid pace. Essays from emerging and established scholars explore the cultural function of magazine media in light of significant changes in content delivery, format, and audience. This volume integrates academic examination with pragmatic discussion to explore contemporary organizational practices, content, and cultural impact. Offering original research and fresh insights, thirty-six chapters provide a truly global perspective on the conceptual and historical foundations of magazines, their organizational cultures and narrative strategies, and their influences on society, identities, and lifestyle. The text addresses topics such as the role of advocacy in shaping and changing magazine identities, magazines and advertising in the digital age, gender and sexuality in magazines, and global magazine markets. Useful to scholars and educators alike, this book: Discusses media theory, academic research, and real-world organizational dynamics Presents essays from both emerging and established scholars in disciplines such as art, geography, and women’s studies Features in-depth case studies of magazines in international, national, and regional contexts Explores issues surrounding race, ethnicity, activism, and resistance Whether used as a reference, a supplementary text, or as a catalyst to spark new research, The Handbook of Magazine Studies is a valuable resource for students, educators, and scholars in fields of mass media, communication, and journalism.

The first systematic, comprehensive and critical English-language study of radio in China, this book documents a historical understanding of Chinese radio from the early twentieth century to the present. Covering both public matters and private lives, Radio and Social Transformation in China analyses a range of themes from healthcare, migration and education, to intimacy, family and friendship. Through a concentrated and thorough scrutiny of a variety of new genres and radio practices in post-Mao China, it also investigates the interaction between radio and social change, particularly in the era of economic reform. Building on the core theoretical concept of ‘compressed modernity’, each of the radio genres explored is shown to embody China’s efforts to achieve modernity, while simultaneously exemplifying radio’s capacity to manage the challenges that have arisen from the country’s distinctive and perhaps unique process of modernization. Written in an engaging style, this book makes an important contribution to radio history internationally. As such, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of broadcast media, radio and Communication Studies, as well as Chinese culture and society.

The Celebrity Persona Pandemic explores how the construction of a public persona is fetishized in contemporary culture. As social media has progressively led to a greater focus on the production of the self, so this book looks at the most visible versions of persona through figures such as Stephen Colbert, Cate Blachett, and Justin Bieber, as well as fictional characters like Spock and Harry Potter. Ultimately, P. David Marshall closely studies how persona culture shapes our notions of value and significance, and dramatically shifts cultural politics. Forerunners is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital works. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

This book argues for the importance of considering social class in critical psychological enquiry. It provides a historical overview of psychological research and theorising on social class and socio-economic status; before examining the ways in which psychology has contributed to the surveillance, regulation and pathologisation of the working-class ‘Other’. The authors highlight the cost of recent austerity policies on mental health and warn against the implementation of further austerity measures in the current climate The book pulls together perspectives from critical social psychology, feminist psychology, sociology and other critical research which examines the discursive production of social class, classism and classed identities. The authors explore social class in educational and occupational settings, and analyse the intersections between class and other social categories such as gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality. Finally, they consider key issues in debates around social class in the broader social sciences, such as the limitations of approaches informed by poststructuralist theory. This book will be a useful resource for both academics and students studying class from a critical perspective.