In recent years cultural studies perspectives have proliferated through a range of traditional academic disciplines and have been a fertile source of new ideas beyond the sphere of the academy; at the same time, cultural studies has been subject to critical scrutiny. Cultural Studies in Question is a major new text that offers a critical reappraisal of the contemporary practice of cultural studies. Focusing on the contribution of cultural studies to understanding media, communication, and popular cultures in contemporary societies, the authors offer a major reassessment of the domain of cultural studies. Elements examined include: + different strands of cultural studies, their sources, and whether there is a coherent project in cultural studies today + tensions and debates within cultural studies, and between cultural studies and alternative or related approaches to contemporary media and society + the movement by cultural studies revisionists toward more empirical and sociological modes of analysis Drawing on an outstanding group of internationally acclaimed scholars representing a broad cross-section of perspectives in media theory and communication studies, Cultural Studies in Question will provide a benchmark for substantive reflection on the state of the field of media and cultural analysis for academics and researchers and will stimulate reflection, understanding, and insight among students of media, communications, journalism, popular culture, and cultural studies.

Cultural Studies, Communication and Change: Eastern Europe to the Urals

Cultural Studies, Communication and Change: Eastern Europe to the Urals

Cultural studies, communication and change: Eastern Europe to the urals
JohnD.H.Downing

I propose an initial exploration of two closely related themes in this chapter. First, the capacity of the cultural studies’ literature to illuminate the economic, political and cultural transitions in Russia, Poland and Hungary1 that for those nations reached points of no return in 1991 and 1989 respectively, but which self-evidently pre-dated those years and have rolled on since. The second is the other side of the same coin, namely the potential implications of those transitions for our evaluation of cultural studies’ approaches.2

Let me begin by setting out some of my assumptions and priorities. I take communication research as inherently an integrative exercise, and thus one ...

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