Common Culture: Reading and Writing about American Popular Culture (3rd Edition)

From Barbie to the internet, the Simpsons to the Malls, this engaging book on pop culture helps readers develop critical and analytical skills and write clear prose while reading, thinking, and writing about subjects they find inherently interesting. Spanning a full range of topics, it provides key reading and writing strategies, and contains essays that address a topic generally and then explore related material in depth. Chapter and article introductions for each article encourage readers to consider the underlying meanings, purposes, and ideas in various pop-cultural artifacts and practices. Readings cover the full range of topics in the field of popular culture--from advertising, television, and popular music, to cyberculture, sports, movies and leisure. "Casebooks" on certain pop-cultural phenomena (e.g., the Barbie Doll, rap and hip-hop music, horror movies, and virtual communities) provide in-depth studies of certain artifacts and practices and encourage readers to consider the social impact of the phenomena and how it may have impacted their own lives. For anyone interested in pop culture or strategies for writing about pop culture.

Following a general introduction that discusses and illustrates approaches to reading and writing about popular culture, chapters focus on: Advertising, Television, Popular Music, Cyberculture, Sports, Movies, and Leisure. The Third Edition features:

• New readings focusing on contemporary pop culture topics like talk shows and Latino music
• New Internet activities at the end of every chapter

THE NEW COMMON CULTURE, Third edition, WEBSITE expands on the text by mirroring each of its chapters and providing an interactive environment with additional exercises and links to related websites.

Features include:

• Corresponding activities for each and every reading including multiple choice, essay, and short answer questions
• Pop culture links expanding on the content featured in each chapter
• Net search feature highlighting key terms from each chapter
• Message board and chat room for whole-class participation