Fugitive Cultures: Race, Violence, and Youth

Rating:
Summary: a passionate defense of youth--and academe
Review: In Fugitive Cultures: Race, Violence and Youth, Henry A. Giroux subjects media representations of youth to penetrating critique, placing himself squarely on the side of youth. He perceives youth as doubly disadvantaged: demonized in popular culture, and caught between "American dreams" of a better life and the reality of a declining economy (12). Authority and legitimation have been taken away from the institutions of family, school and workplace, and accorded to the electronic media discourses.

Giroux faults the schools and the discipline of education for refusing "to deal with the teacherly influence and pleasures of popular culture" (14). He advocates cultural studies as a platform for the study of "youth problems," since it "has never reduced education to the study of schooling." This last-mentioned quality is one of great promise, I believe, for the study of marginalized sub-cultures (as in my prospective research): it is impossible within the hegemony of formal institutions to obtain a somewhat comprehensive view of the modalities in which self-identification takes place for members of subcultures.

Rating:
Summary: please buy this book
Review: this book changed my outlook on popular culture and the media. This may be the best book that i have ever brought. it is amazing and i plan on passing it along to all of my friends. It provides a raw look at culture and the power of media, and provides and outline and explaination of why american society is in its current state

Rating:
Summary: Explaining why the kids are not alright.
Review: This book looks at the negative images - violent, irresponsible, etc.- which the media use to portray youth while ignoring the social conditions that produce real hardship for many young people.Giroux shows that youth are increasingly becoming the scapegoat for problems caused by an unjust and repressive society.Also discussed is the insidious Disneyfication of America and the use of talk radio by right wing demagogs.It is a hard hitting expose of some very disturbing trends in the modern media.