Unplugging Popular Culture: Reconsidering Analog Technology, Materiality, and the “Digital Native" (Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies) - Hardcover

Howard, K. Shannon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1138588393 ISBN 13: 9781138588394

Publisher: Routledge, 2018

Synopsis

Unplugging Popular Culture showcases youth and young adult characters from film and television who defy the stereotype of the "digital native" who acts as an unquestioning devotee to screened technologies like the smartphone. In this study, unplugged tools, or non-digital tools, do not necessitate a ban on technology or a refusal to acknowledge its affordances but work instead to highlight the ability of fictional characters to move from high tech settings to low tech ones. By repurposing everyday materials, characters model the process of reusing and upcycling existing materials in innovative ways. In studying examples such as Pitch Perfect, Supernatural, Stranger Things, and Get Out, the book aims to make theories surrounding materiality apparent within popular culture and to help today’s readers reconsider stereotypes of the young people they encounter on a daily basis.

About this title

About the Author

K. Shannon Howard is Assistant Professor in the Department of English and Philosophy at Auburn University Montgomery, USA

Review

"There are a lot of books about digital natives that simplify the complex nature of their experience with culture, technology and how that defines their lives. Professor Howard skilfully illustrates the complex nature of digital natives and their love for both their own tech savvy lives and the wonders of the glitches and DIY projects that are as meaningful today as ever before." --Brian Cogan, Molloy College, USA

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1138588393
• ISBN 13: 9781138588394
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 166