Jim McGuigan has done it again. The complex cultural machinery hiding behindthe apparently simple facts of life still fresh in our collective memory hasbeen pul... » 

Jim McGuigan has done it again. The complex cultural machinery hiding behindthe apparently simple facts of life still fresh in our collective memory hasbeen pulled out from its hiding exposed disassembled and put together againand showed in action of shaping up its products all that done to the benefitof us all simultaneously producers and product of the life we share. Anothergreat contribution to cultural studies and to our understanding of the worldnotorious for defyingescaping understanding. This is exactly what we needcultural analysis for Professor Zygmunt BaumanThis book represents a distinctive approach to cultural analysis using multidimensional methods for addressing issues of public interest.The approach which deploys Jim McGuigans original concept of the culturalpublic sphere is demonstrated in several case studies including celebrity death festivals and urban regeneration race and multicultural controversy popular television for instance Little Britain and The Apprentice social significance of the allpurpose mobile communication device in aprivatised and individualised way of life riskiness and uncertainty at both the levels of environmental politics andworking life in the creative and media industriesThese various case studies are analysed with regard to the dialectic ofproduction and consumption in cultural circulation and situated in relation tomajor issues of social change.The book stresses the impact of neoliberalism throughout the world since the1970s and the formation of a coolcapitalist culture that has colonisedeveryday life around much of the globe.In effect this is a radical intervention in the research agendas andconceptual development of cultural policy studies cultural sociology and moregenerally in the broad field known as cultural studies. It offerschallenging theoretical arguments that are substantiated with concrete evidenceof cultural and social processes. «