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Popular culture and power

 Last week we read about widespread fragmentation of cultural interests, activities, and audiences (what some would call the postmodern condition). Knowing audiences have only grown more fragmented since Hall's time of writing, how would we define "popular" culture today? What metrics are available to us (in terms of entertainment, measurements of audiences are being increasingly hard to ascertain)? If "popular culture" can be defined as a terrain of struggle, are the publics engaged in these struggles getting smaller and smaller?


On a related note,  Hall argues that "popular" culture is defined in opposition to "dominant" culture. In a situation such as cultural debates over CRT, is there a "dominant" culture? Is classroom history a "popular" culture terrain? Are conservatives railing against supposed CRT "dominant" or is there room for growth in this theorization?



Apologies that this ended up being five questions, not two.


-Shannon

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