Cultural Citizenship and Popular Culture

Joke Hermes is a Dutch media and cultural studies researcher. She has published widely on popular culture, audience research and feminist analysis of gender and diversity. She is a professor of Media, Culture and Citizenship at Inholland University and teaches media studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Joke Hermes takes us on a fascinating intellectual journey, both sweeping in scope and attuned to intricate detail, to show that in the age of social media and rising polarisation, it is ever more important to listen seriously to the raw outpouring of emotion – hatred, rage, fear, but also fandom and appreciation – in audience talk about media and popular culture to understand their significance as contestations of identity, belonging and representation, that is, as the performance of ‘cultural citizenship’. – Ien AngWith one fell swoop, Joke Hermes has rocketed forward the state of discussion about cultural citizenship. Written with characteristic accessibility and depth, the superb book brims and sparkles with offerings about identity, power, audiences, affect, and the values of stories and of listening. – Jonathan Gray, University of Wisconsin-MadisonWhen democracies are threatened by screaming polarization, when engagement is obfuscated by capitalistic longing, when dreams for better worlds are becoming wake-up calls, Hermes’ book offers a request as modest as it is ambitious: we must listen. Listening to audiences’ everyday discussions is Hermes’ attempt to recognize our affective lives, to trace our connections with strangers, to steer away from moralizing, ultimately to update understandings of popular culture and cultural citizenship – an elegant, eloquent, and essential response to our times. – Yiu Fai Chow, Professor, Hong Kong Baptist UniversityThis book offers an insightful and in-depth account of the complicated relationship between the powers of popular culture, democracy, media, and constructions of citizenship. – Francesca SobandeJoke Hermes has something powerful to say about cultural citizenship as world building in action – lean forward and listen in to her outstanding book. – Annette Hill

• Introduction. DEMOCRACY I Part I. I hear you. Popular culture, audience research and appreciative inquiry. Key concepts. 1. IDENTITY: What cultural citizenship is and why studying it matters 2. POWER: Popular culture as an object of study With Jan Teurlings 3. AFFECT: Researching popular culture and cultural citizenship. Rewriting qualitative audience research Part II. Keeping myself from moralising. On the litmus test of gender definitions in fearing the effects of popular culture. Three case studies 4. CULPABILITY: Affective-discursive analysis. Understanding the hatred of television character Skyler White With Leonie Stoete (based on Hermes & Stoete 2019) 5. INNOCENCE: Parents talking about what popular culture might do to their children With Sarieke Hoeksma 6. CONFUSION: When the future (briefly) became female. Viewers discussing a woman being cast as Doctor Who With Sophie Eeken (based on Eeken & Hermes 2021) Part III. Listening with generosity. Another three case studies that take a broader intersectional approach and a conclusion. 7. PATRIARCHY: Good guys (or not). Feminism, auto-ethnography and the Mentalist 8. RESPONSIBILITY: Content analysis with the help of fan-viewers: sorting through the appeal of a decade of RuPaul's Drag Race With Michael Kardolus (based on Hermes & Kardolus 2022) 9. STORYTELLING: Meanwhile in the real world: popular culture and cultural citizenship politicize online on social media platforms Conclusion DEMOCRACY II: (Searching for) cultural citizenship as (attending to) worldbuilding in action.