For courses in popular culture, media and society, and sociology of the media. Pop culture surrounds us. Its products are the movies we watch, the music we listen to, and the books we read; they are on our televisions, phones, and computers. We are its fickle friend, loving to hate it and hating to love it. Danesi's text shows us how popular culture validates our common experiences and affects our daily lives. The fourth edition of Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives features a fully updated text with new material on celebrity in the digital age. Marcel Danesi delves into the social structures that have led to the emergence and spread of pop culture, showing how it validates our common experiences and offering a variety of perspectives on its many modes of delivery into our everyday lives. The text expands the illustration program and adds teaching ancillaries on an accompanying website. Features of the Fourth Edition: -The most accessible popular culture textbook on the market -Helpfully organized by technology and medium -Provides new material tracing pop culture from medieval performances and texts, to the role of opera and carnivals and circuses to our present media rich culture -Adds new sections on nature of popularity and a new section on nano-celebrities -Features 50 illustrations -All new ancillary site with power points for instructor use