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Doing cultural studies : the story of the Sony Walkman /

What does the Walkman have to do with the 21st century? The long-awaited second edition of this classic textbook takes students on a journey between past and present, giving them the skills do to cultural analysis along the way. Through the notion of the 'circuit of culture', this book tea...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Du Gay, Paul (Author), Hall, Stuart, 1932-2014 (Author), Janes, Linda (Author), McKay, Hugh (Teacher) (Author), Negus, Keith (Author)
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles : SAGE Publications, 2013.
Edition:Second edition.
Series:Culture, media, and identities.
Subjects:
Sonī Kabushiki Kaisha.
Sound > Equipment and supplies > Social aspects.
Popular culture.
Table of Contents:
  • 1. MAKING SENSE OF THE WALKMAN
  • 1.1 Introduction
  • 1.2 What is 'Culture'? ; Back to the Future: Materiality and Culture
  • 1.3 Meanings and Practices
  • 1.4 Meaning by Association: Semantic Networks ; Back to the Future: Meanings and Associations
  • 1.5 Signifying Practices
  • 1.6 Contemporary Soundscapes ; Back to the Future: Produsage: The Changing Relationship Between Production and Consumption?
  • 1.7 Culture in the Age of Electronic Reproduction ; Back to the Future
  • Benjamin v/2.0 ; Back to the future: Mobile Privatization?
  • 1.8 Walk-men and Walk-women: Subjects and Identities ; Back to the Future: Advertizing and Branding
  • 1.9 Summary
  • 2. THE PRODUCTION OF THE SONY WALKMAN
  • 2.1 Introduction: The Many Origins of an Idea
  • 2.2 Cultures of Production, Contexts of Innovation
  • 2.3 Heroic Individuals ; Back to the Future: Technological Innovation, Heroic Individuals and Distributed Agency ; Sony, Japan and the United States ; Sony: Signifying 'Japan'? ; Happy Accidents at Work: Enter the Walkman
  • 2.4 Making the Walkman to Sell: Connecting Production and Consumption ; Assembling for the Young Consumer: The Mothers of the Invention ; Naming the Machine: Sony Grammar ; Marketing and Public Relations ; Back to the Future: Promotional Culture ; Monitoring Consumption and Market Research ; Back to the Future: Produsage Revisited.
  • 3. DESIGNING THE WALKMAN: ARTICULATING PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION
  • 3.1 Designers as Cultural Intermediaries
  • 3.2 The Organization of Design at Sony
  • 3.3 Lifestyling the Walkman ; Back to the Future: The Power of Software: Culture Made Malleable?
  • 3.4 The Walkman: How 'Japanese' Is It?
  • 4. SONY AS A GLOBAL FIRM
  • 4.1 Following the Walkman: Competition and Financial Crisis
  • 4.2 Sony Goes Global and Local ; Back to the Future: The Global-Local Nexus
  • 4.3 Combining Hardware and Software: The Culture Industry ; Back to the Future: Synergies and Cultural Industries
  • 5. CONSUMING THE WALKMAN
  • 5.1 Introduction
  • 5.2 Perspectives on Consumption ; Back to the Future: Perspectives on Consumption ; Back to the Future: Authenticity ; The Production of Consumption ; The Walkman and the Production of Consumption Critique ; Back to the Future: "Revolutionary" Technologies? ; Back to the Future: Optimism and Pessimism in Relation to Web 2.0 ; Back to the Future: No sense of Place? ; Consumption as Socio-cultural Differentiation ; Walkman Consumption and Social Differentiation ; Consumption as Appropriation and Resistance.