This book should be of interest to students and teachers of popular culture, society and communications.

Explores the role of consumer culture in the contemporary economy, showing how our private leisure activities are constructions of a powerful and manipulative consumer market.

Consumption occupied a privileged place in the fabric of British society during the 1980s. From the lifestyle theories of market analysts to the spectacular changes in the high street, the world of goods became a critical factor in determining identity. The text explores popular and commercial culture of the period, showing how the marketplace dramatized a series of pressing questions about sexual politics and the meaning of masculinity. The habits and behaviours of young men lay at the heart of the so-called consumer revolution of the decade. The rise of a distinctive breed of entrepreneurs...

Examines the construction of images of masculinity and the effect they have on identity, sexuality and sexual politics. Influences from black and white culture are explored as well as the ironies of class, colour and sexuality.

An investigation of the impact and interpretation of television news coverage, based on an experiment conducted by the author. He describes how members of different social groups interpreted the events of a strike according to their own individual backgrounds and social experiences.

The 1980s saw an explosion in the use of the domestic video cassette recorder (VCR), arguably the most significant new form of home entertainment technology since television.
In Video Playtime Ann Gray investigates what women themselves felt about the VCR, both in terms of the ways these entertainment facilities were used within their households, and what kinds of programmes and films they themselves particularly enjoyed.
Ann Gray draws heavily on verbatim quotes from discussions to provide a rich description of different types of household micro-cultures and to give readers...

The 1980s saw an explosion in the use of the domestic video cassette recorder (VCR), arguably the most significant new form of home entertainment technology since television.
In Video Playtime Ann Gray investigates what women themselves felt about the VCR, both in terms of the ways these entertainment facilities were used within their households, and what kinds of programmes and films they themselves particularly enjoyed.
Ann Gray draws heavily on verbatim quotes from discussions to provide a rich description of different types of household micro-cultures and to give readers...

This is a book about the music of the Caribbean - from calypso and ska through to Reggae and Caribbean club culture.

The Dynasty Years documents and analyses in detail the Dynasty phenomenon, an event in 1980s television which heralded a profound transformation of European television. From the operatic camp of Krystle and Alexis' fight in the lily-pond or the Moldavian wedding massacre to the unprecedented gay sub-plot, Dynasty represented, in the words of co-producer Esther Shapiro, the ultimate dollhouse fantasy for middle-aged women. Using evidence from audience survey results, newspaper and magazine clippings and letters to broadcasters and drawing on semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminism and critical...

In Migrancy, Culture, Identity, Iain Chambers unravels how our sense of place and identity is realised as we move through myriad languages, worlds and histories. The author explores the uncharted impact of cultural diversity on today's world, from the realistic eye of social commentary to the scientific approach of the cultural anthropologist or the critical distance of the historian; from the computer screen to the Walkman and World Music.