Pop Culture Freaks ― Identity, Mass Media, and Society

Utilizing each chapter to present core topical and timely examples, Pop Culture Freaks highlights the tension between inclusion and individuality that lies beneath mass media and commercial culture, using this tension as a point of entry to an otherwise expansive topic. He systematically considers several dimensions of identity—race, class, gender, sexuality, disability—to provide a broad overview of the field that encompasses classical and contemporary theory, original data, topical and timely examples, and a strong pedagogical focus on methods.

Pop Culture Freaks encourages students to develop further research questions and projects from the material. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are brought to bear in Kidd's examination of the labor force for cultural production, the representations of identity in cultural objects, and the surprising differences in how various audiences consume and use mass culture in their everyday lives. This new, revised edition includes update examples and date to reflect a constantly changing pop culture landscape.

Dustin Kidd is a pop culture expert and associate professor of sociology at Temple University. His research examines film, television, fiction, social media, comics, video games, music, and the arts, focusing on both inequalities and the ways marginalized groups use media to challenge those inequalities. He is the author of the books Social Media Freaks, Pop Culture Freaks, and Legislating Creativity. He holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and an MA in English from the University of Virginia.