Cultural Studies - Book Report/Review Example

The book at hand is basically a text book on cultural studies. The book was instantly popular with the academics at its publication because of the enormous amount of material and the various issues of contemporary interest discussed comprehensively. The book gives contrasting points of view their fair share of discussion and goes on to explore the multiple meanings of 'culture' itself to ideology, language, subjectivity, sex, space, race, media, the urban, youth and resistance as well as the challenges posed by postmodernism and post colonialism.

The third edition is an updated version of the previous editions and offers new chapters like those on electronic media and 'digital culture'; culture jamming, new feminism and 'raunch culture' and globalisation. The readership is primarily based upon students of cultural, sociological and media studies, but the book makes interesting reading for those people who want to understand how the ethnicities have benefited or even suffered by their portrayal of culture which is depicted electronically and even through the print media.

Barker is sceptical about the institutional legitimation of cultural studies; nevertheless he embraces and appreciates the fact that a centre for contemporary cultural studies has been a "decisive organisational stance". For Barker "cultural studies" is like it has always been; "a multi post disciplinary field which blurs the boundaries between itself and others". He makes a careful distinction between "the study of culture and institutionally located cultural studies"(Barker,2003)The author, Chris Barker is currently teaching at the Faculty of Arts in the University of Wollongong.

His work mainly pertains to the globalization of television with a particular interest in the questions of cultural identity, cultural theory and the tradition of cultural studies, cultural construction of subjectivity and the identity. (Barker,1999)His work includes ethnographic research and discourse analysis of the generation of identity and of masculinity in particular. His work also focuses on character of emotion as both a biological and cultural movement with particular reference to men and gender relations.

(Barker 2003)For Chris, cultural interests, pursuits and identities are extremely important for us and something more than "individuals and groups bearing a felt responsibility for and wanting a hand in the making of the self as something more than a passive or unconscious acceptance of a historically/socially prescribed identity".(Barker 2003)In his book he demonstrates how 'culture' "has become an important and much used theoretical and substantive category of connection and relation". In this pursuit he focuses and systematically deals with 'World Disorder', 'Sex and Subjectivity', 'Space', 'Cultural Policy', as well as 'Identity', 'Youth Culture', 'Television', 'Ethnicity and Race' .

(Barker 2003)In his treatment of cultural studies as a field of study, Barker admits that, "Cultural studies" (the book) does not speak with one voice, it cannot be spoken with one voice, and I do not have one voice with which to represent it."(Barker,2003)He believes that the title of his book is" over