This programme will focus on key debates on popular culture and cultural consumption in relation to the media. Issues of pleasure, politics, meaning and value will be raised in connection with a range of cultural forms. Situated historically in the twentieth century, the programme analyses the development of mass culture as a socio-economic form, and as a term emerging in relation to other media forms, such as Hollywood movies, television programmes, music, art, print and new media. A range of theoretical perspectives will inform the analysis. The consumption of popular culture is addressed through recent ethnographic and qualitative work on audiences.