Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth

Pete Bennett is Senior Lecturer in Postcompulsory Education at University of Wolverhampton, UK.Julian McDougall is Head of the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice and Associate Professor in Media and Education at Bournemouth University, UK.

• Part I: The Way We Live Now: Austerity Myths in Everyday Life 1. Trying to discern the impact of austerity in lived experienceGargi Bhattachary2. The allotment in the restaurant: the paradox of foody austerity and changing food valuesAbigail Wincott3. Snatches of Songs: Lyrical Reflections upon Alienation and Austerity, From Thatcher to Cameron’s CoalitionAllister Mactaggart 4. "Jolly Fucker": The Face of FarageJulian McDougallPart II: Popular Culture: Myths from the Front 5. "Actually we should be growing up": Neoliberalism & Austerity in NEONAnne Graefer 6. Living in the Shadow of Manhattan: The White Knight Rises Pete Bennett7. (Negatively) Benefits Street: The Return of Naked IdeologyJulian McDougall Part III: Out on the Streets: Myths and Acts of Resistance 8. From Hooverville to Bloomsbergville: Protest Camps and Cultural Imaginaries of Austerity in the United StatesAnna Feigenbaum and Fabian Frenzel9. On ready-made revolutions in the Arab world: how armchair journalism and citizen empowerment 2.0 fit into the rhetoric of contemporary neoliberal discourseDonatella Della Ratta10. Cinema America Occupato: Reclaiming the Cultural Commons With Slow MediaAntonio Lopez and Peter SarramPart IV: Popular Culture: Mythical Symmetries 11. Death and Dead End Jobs: Independent American Horror and the Great RecessionCraig Ian Mann12. Poor Relations: Youth and Poverty in post-Millennial British CinemaDr Stella Hockenhull13. Video games and representations of crime: the morality of criminality in an "age of austerity." Wayne O’BrienAfterwordHelen Davies and Claire O’Callaghan