Cultural Studies in Question [Paperback]

This major text offers a critical reappraisal of the contemporary practice of cultural studies. It focuses in particular on the contribution of cultural studies to the understanding of media, communications and popular cultures in contemporary societies. The contributors, an outstanding group of internationally acclaimed scholars, examine topics such as: the different strands of cultural studies and how they are developed; whether cultural studies is a coherent discipline; tensions and debates within cultural studies; alternative or related approaches to contemporary media and society; and the movement by cultural studies revisionists towards more empirical and sociological modes of analysis.This major text offers a critical reappraisal of the contemporary practice of cultural studies. It focuses in particular on the contribution of cultural studies to the understanding of media, communications and popular cultures in contemporary societies. The contributors, an outstanding group of internationally acclaimed scholars, examine topics such as: the different strands of cultural studies and how they are developed; whether cultural studies is a coherent discipline; tensions and debates within cultural studies; alternative or related approaches to contemporary media and society; and the movement by cultural studies revisionists towards more empirical and sociological modes of analysis.`Cultural Studies in Question is a much needed confrontation with the most challenging questions engaging cultural studies and communication today. It is at once sympathetic to the goals and political purposes of cultural studies, yet frustrated with excessive idealization, textualism, and distance from concrete practice or public policy. This collection, carefully assembled by Marjorie Ferguson and Peter Golding, is criticism at its best, aimed not at destroying but improving, not at negation but shared progress through intellectual struggle. Squarely in the tradition olÓg