Idea Transcript
THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG HKU SPACE Community College Associate Degree Programmes 2016-17 Course Document Course Title: Rethinking Popular Culture Course Code:
C
C
C
U
4
0
1
5
Aims and Objective Popular culture is all around us. It is the everyday world that we inhabit, and has overwhelming impact on shaping our lives. Every day we not only consume, but also participate in the production of popular culture. Yet we often consider these activities trifling and seldom think about how they play an intimate role in constructing and shaping our own sense of self, our ways of seeing and our social relationships with others. This course is a critical introduction to popular culture, and aims to guide students to move from a consumer’s perspective on popular culture to an analytic, critical perspective. With insights drawn from cultural studies and critical discourse analysis, we shall explore the forms, meanings and significance of popular culture as well as how the present popular culture evolves out of and is a creative response to those of the past. We shall look at a diverse range of local and global popular cultural genres and activities such as television, film, popular music, magazines, comics and the internet, and think about what it means to be a part of popular culture, to make it, consume it and use it. Students are encouraged to integrate knowledge across disciplinary boundaries by bringing in tools and perspectives from their own areas of study to the study of popular culture. Intended Learning Outcomes of the Course On completion of the course, students should be able to ILO1. ILO2. ILO3.
ILO4.
explain the meanings of popular culture; identify and explain with specific examples arguments which are related to the criticisms and potentials of popular culture from both local and global contexts; identify and discuss the ways in which popular culture plays a role in constructing social values, beliefs and ideas (e.g., race, class, gender, sexuality, physical dis/ability, nationality, etc.) in both local and global cultural contexts; apply knowledge and understanding of the analytical tools learnt to conduct critical analysis of popular cultural texts in everyday life.
Syllabus Indicative content: Major topics: 1. Meanings of popular culture 2. Production and usage of popular culture 3. Construction and negotiations of cultural identities, such as: · Stereotypes, marginalization and otherization of social groups · Construction of youth identities and self-representation · Emergence of HK “Yen”
4. Social networking and social relationships 5. New media and social movements 6. Globalization and transnational consumption of popular cultural genres Possible Forms (to be revised according to the cultural forms that are popular during the period): 1. Television and/or transnational TV dramas 2. Popular music, music videos and/or Karaoke 3. Film and/or online films 4. Comics, Anime and/or Magazine 5. Internet: Digital-media news, Youtube, facebook, cyber-language and emoticons, selfies, phone apps, instagram, parody, etc. 6. Theme park Assessment Type of Assessment (Weighting)
Description Participation (10%) Individual Paper (30%)
Continuous Assessment (100%) Online Responses (30%) Group Presentation (30%) Pre-requisite(s) Nil Required and Recommended Reading Required reading: 1.
Storey, J. (2003). Cultural studies and the study of popular culture (2nd ed.). Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press. 2. Kress, G. R., & van Leeuwen, T. (2006). Reading images: The grammar of visual design (2nd ed.). London; New York: Routledge. [e-book version available through HKU library website] 3. Fairclough, N., Mulderrig, J., & Wodak, R. (2011). Critical discourse analysis. In T. A. van Dijk (Ed.), Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction (2nd ed.). London: SAGE. Recommended reading: 1. Barker, C. (2008). Cultural studies: Theory and practice. London: SAGE. 2. Chow, Y.F., & de Kloet, J. (2013). Sonic Multiplicities: Hong Kong and the Global Circulation of Sound and Image. Chicago: intellect. 3. Fiske, J. (2010). Reading the popular. Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis. 4. Storey, J. (2009). Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction (5th Ed.). Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. 5. Ma, E. K. W. (1999). Culture, Politics, and Television in Hong Kong. London: Routledge. 6. Lin, A. M. Y. (2007). Independent hip hop artists in Hong Kong: Youth sub-cultural resistance and alternative modes of cultural production. Journal of Communication Arts, 25 (4), 47-62. 7. Lin, A. M. Y., & Tong, A. (2009). Constructing cultural self and other in the internet discussion of a Korean historical drama: A discourse analysis of weblog messages of Hong Kong viewers of Dad Jang Geum. Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 19(2), 289-312. 8. Strauss, W., Howe, N., & Markiewicz, P. (2006). Millennials and the pop culture: strategies for a new generation of consumers in music, movies, television, the internet, and video games. Great Fall, VA: LifeCourse.
9. Wittkower, D. E. (2010). Facebook and Philosophy. Chicago and Illinois: Open Court. 10. 吳俊雄、張志偉 (編) (2001)。閱讀香港普及文化，1970-2000。香港 : 牛津大學出版社。 11. 吳俊雄、張志偉、曾仲堅 (編) (2012)。普普香港：閱讀香港普及文化，2000-2010。香港 : 香 港教育圖書公司。
04.07.2016