Popular culture is more than just a broad term for entertainment and frivolous diversions; it is also highly relevant to our understanding of society. This exciting book is the first to offer insights into the important, but often overlooked, relationship between popular culture and social problems. Drawing on historical and topical examples, the authors apply an innovative theoretical framework to examine how facets of popular culture from movies and music to toys, games, billboards, bumper stickers, and bracelets shape how we think about, and respond to, social issues, such as problems of gender, sexuality, and race. Including student features, evocative case studies, and access to online material, this book will help students explore and understand the essential connection between popular culture and social problems. Deftly combining the fun and irreverence of popular culture with critical scholarly inquiry, this timely book delivers an engaging account of how our interactions with and consumption of popular culture matter far more than we may think."

Is violence on the streets caused by violence in video games? Does cyber-bullying lead to an increase in suicide rates? Are teens promiscuous because of Teen Mom? As Karen Sternheimer clearly demonstrates, popular culture is an easy scapegoat for many of society's problems, but it is almost always the wrong answer. Now in its second edition, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture goes beyond the news-grabbing headlines claiming that popular culture is public enemy number one to consider what really causes the social problems we are most concerned about. The sobering fact is that a "media made them do it" explanation fails to illuminate the roots of social problems like poverty, violence, and environmental degradation. Sternheimer's analysis deftly illustrates how welfare "reform," a two-tiered health care system, and other difficult systemic issues have far more to do with our contemporary social problems than Grand Theft Auto or Facebook. The fully-revised new edition features recent moral panics—think sexting and cyberbullying—and an entirely new chapter exploring social media. Expanded discussion of how we understand society's problems as social constructions without disregarding empirical evidence, as well as the cultural and structural issues underlying those ills, allows students to stretch their sociological imaginations.

‘Popular culture’ is more than just a broad term for entertainment and frivolous diversions and is highly relevant to many aspects of society. In this exciting textbook, the authors offer insights into the important, but often overlooked, relationship between popular culture and social problems. Drawing on historical and topical examples, they apply an innovative theoretical framework to examine how facets of popular culture—from movies and music, to toys and games, as well as billboards, bumper stickers, and bracelets—shape how we think about, and respond to, social issues. Including student features and evocative case studies, this is the first book to make the link between popular culture and social problems and will help students understand the relationship between them. Deftly combining the fun and irreverence of popular culture with a critical scholarly inquiry, this timely book delivers an engaging account of how our interactions with popular culture matter more than we think!

MAJOR PROBLEMS IN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE, International Edition is part of a highly respected series of edited collections of primary documents and scholarly essays designed for use in history courses at the undergraduate level. The basic goal of these texts is to provide students and instructors with the most distinguished, readable, and stimulating writing available: essays centered on major historical questions, complemented by related primary source materials.

Moral panics reveal much about a society’s social structure and the sociology embedded in everyday life. This short text examines extreme reactions to American popular culture over the past century, including crusades against comic books, music, and pinball machines, to help convey the "sociological imagination" to undergraduates. Sternheimer creates a critical lens through which to view current and future attempts of modern-day moral crusaders, who try to convince us that simple solutions—like regulating popular culture—are the answer to complex social problems. Pop Culture Panics is ideal for use in undergraduate social problems, social deviance, and popular culture courses.

Popular Culture and Social Change: The Hidden Work of Public Relations argues the complicated and contradictory relationship between public relations, popular culture and social change is a neglected theoretical project. Its diverse chapters identify ways in which public relations influences the production of popular culture and how alternative, often community-driven conceptualisations of public relations work can be harnessed for social change and in pursuit of social justice. This book opens up critical scholarship on public relations in that it moves beyond corporate understandings and perspectives to explore alternative and eclectic communicative cultures, in part to consider a more optimistic conceptualisation of public relations as a resource for progressive social change. Fitch and Motion began with an interest in identifying the ways in which public relations both draws on and influences the production of popular culture by creating, promoting and amplifying particular narratives and images. The chapters in this book consider how public relations creates popular cultures that are deeply compromised and commercialised, but at the same time can be harnessed to advocate for social change in supporting, reproducing, challenging or resisting the status quo. Drawing on critical and sociocultural perspectives, this book is an important resource for researchers, educators and students exploring public relations theory, strategic communication and promotional culture. It investigates the entanglement of public relations, popular culture and social change in different social, cultural and political contexts – from fashion and fortune telling to race activism and aesthetic labour – in order to better understand the (often subterranean) societal influence of public relations activity.

Is violence on the streets caused by violence in video games? Does cyber-bullying lead to an increase in suicide rates? Are teens promiscuous because of Teen Mom? As Karen Sternheimer clearly demonstrates, popular culture is an easy scapegoat for many of society's problems, but it is almost always the wrong answer. Now in its second edition, Connecting Social Problems and Popular Culture goes beyond the news-grabbing headlines claiming that popular culture is public enemy number one to consider what really causes the social problems we are most concerned about. The sobering fact is that a "media made them do it" explanation fails to illuminate the roots of social problems like poverty, violence, and environmental degradation. Sternheimer's analysis deftly illustrates how welfare "reform," a two-tiered health care system, and other difficult systemic issues have far more to do with our contemporary social problems than Grand Theft Auto or Facebook. The fully-revised new edition features recent moral panics (think sexting and cyberbullying) and an entirely new chapter exploring social media. Expanded discussion of how we understand society's problems as social constructions without disregarding empirical evidence, as well as the cultural and structural issues underlying those ills, allows students to stretch their sociological imaginations.