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Corporations engage young people and musicians in brand-building activities. These activities unfold in media-dense social spaces. Social networking sites, the user-generated content of web 2.0, live music events, digital cameras and cell phones are all used in constructing valuable brands. This book addresses the integration of popular music culture, corporate branding, and young people's mediated cultural practices. These intersections provide a rich site for examining how young people build brands within spaces and practices that they perceive as meaningful. The book is based on extensive ethnographic empirical research, drawing on participant observation, textual analysis and interviews with young people, musicians, marketers and other participants in the cultural industries. Contemporary theories of marketing and branding are brought together with critical and cultural accounts of mediated social life. The book explores the distinctive concerns and debates of these different perspectives and the lively interface between them.
About the author
The Author: Nicholas Carah is a Lecturer in Communication at the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland, Australia. He was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Queensland in 2008. His research examines the interrelationship between corporate brands, popular culture, and interactive media.
Summary
Addresses the integration of popular music culture, corporate branding, and young people's mediated cultural practices. This book is based on extensive ethnographic empirical research, drawing on participant observation, textual analysis and interviews with young people, musicians, marketers and other participants in the cultural industries.
Report
«Students are going to love this book. Employing ethnographic approaches and critical questioning, 'Pop Brands' considers how corporations like Coca-Cola, Jack Daniels, Adidas and Virgin partner with young people, helping music fans to feel empowered even as those fans actively engage in producing the culture of branding that threatens the very authenticity and freedom young people would most like to seek out and celebrate.» (Lynn Schofield Clark, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, and Director, Estlow International Center for Journalism & New Media, Department of Media, Film, & Journalism Studies, University of Denver)
«Nicholas Carah's 'Pop Brands' is an exemplar of recent work bringing cultural studies sensibilities and methods to our understanding of cultural industries and commercialism. By combining a variety of methods including ethnographies of branded music events and interviews with fans and music professionals, Carah very smartly engages the complexities of popular music production, promotion and fandom in an age of integrated marketing and global-scale corporate branding.» (Matt McAllister, Penn State University)
