Doing cultural studies: the story of the Sony Walkman /

Description

ln recent years 'culture' has become a central concern across a wide range of disciplines. This book introduces the main substantive and theoretical strands of this 'turn to culture' through the medium of a particular case study: that of the Sony Walkman. Using the example of the Walkman, this book indicates how and why cultural practices and institutions have come to play such an important role in our lives, and introduces some of the central ideas, concepts and methods of analysis involved in conducting cultural studies. The authors identify five major cultural processes - Representation, ldentity, Production, Consumption and Regulation - which together constitute a sort of 'cultural circuit' that can be used to structure the study of any cultural text or artefact. lt is this cultural circuit which is used here to analyse the Walkman as a cultural object. This unique book offers not only an introduction to key issues and debates in contemporary cultural studies but also a practical illustration of how cultural studies can be used to make sense of our everyday lives.