Jak rozumět populární kultuře – Bílek Petr A. (2018)

The first volume of the POPs edition presents the translation of the book that started it all – one could say. When it was first published in 1989, it became (alongside its more practically oriented 'sister', the book How to Read What is Popular) one of the cornerstones of the field of cultural studies. Popular and mass culture gradually came into the focus of academic interest. In the 1970s and 1980s, the circle of Western academics systematically engaging with popular culture began to expand, and this interest ceased to seem excessive. However, low culture was still interpreted in the spirit of its interesting debasement, in terms of what makes it different from elite culture. Only John Fiske's book Understanding Popular Culture (born 1939) provided an academically grounded, semiotically based interpretation of popular culture in its complexity. The work respects the traditional notion of creative act, but also understands it as a market commodity; it perceives the viewer as a playful fan, who, however, is not denied the role of co-creator of meanings. Fiske does not interpret popular culture emancipatorily; he does not try to smuggle it into the center of academic interest simply because there is something interesting about it. He thoughtfully shows how complex the network is...