Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture

Popular culture helps construct, define, and impact our everyday realities and must be taken seriously because popular culture is, simply, popular. Communication Perspectives on Popular Culture brings together communication experts with diverse backgrounds, from interpersonal communication, business and organizational communication, mass communication, media studies, narrative, rhetoric, gender studies, autoethnography, popular culture studies, and journalism. The contributors tackle such topics as music, broadcast and Netflix television shows, movies, the Internet, video games, and more, as they connect popular culture to personal concerns as well as larger political and societal issues. The variety of approaches in these chapters are simultaneously situated in the present while building a foundation for the future, as contributors explore new and emerging ways to approach popular culture. From case studies to emerging theories, the contributors examine how popular culture, media, and communication influence our everyday lives.

Bob Batchelor is a cultural historian and assistant professor of communication, media, and culture at Coastal Carolina University . His books include Stan Lee: A Life; Stan Lee: The Man Behind Marvel, Young Reader's Edition; and Roadhouse Blues: Morrison, the Doors, and the Death Days of the Sixties. He is a three-time winner of the IPA Book Award. Batchelor's work has appeared in or been featured by the New York Times, Cincinnati Enquirer, Los Angeles Times, Today.com, The Guardian, PopMatters, and Time. Batchelor is a host on the New Books Network podcast and creator and host of the podcast John Updike: American Writer, American Life. He has appeared as an on-air commentator for The National Geographic Channel, PBS NewsHour, BBC, PBS, and NPR.

Adam W. Tyma is Professor of Critical Media Studies in the College of Communication, Fine Arts, and Media at University of Nebraska Omaha, USA.