Popular Music Studies In Culture

Popular music is not only the medium for reflecting current social mentality and public trend, but also the most characteristic version of public culture. Therefore it is widely noticed by cultural researchers. In the study of popular music abroad, people's attention has been paid to the consideration of culture. But as far as the domestic situation is concerned, the positive result of this aspect has not been got. The reason for this lies in the insufficiency of the introduction to the relevant theories and achievements and of their digest as well.This essay summarizes the important theories such as ideology, gender, race, identity and subculture and the development of the researching methods, whose application situation in the research of popular music are explored and analyzed, which are induced from two points, one cultural research, the other popular music research. Consequently, their whole recognition will be deepened in the view of culture. Meanwhile, the aim will be got to make a foundation of wide development of this side at home.This essay is composed of six chapters.The first chapter is mainly about the independence of the concept, history and theory of cultural research. In other words, mainly about their backgrounds. It introduces the concept of culture and popular culture, the form of two researches and current situation of popular music research.During the second to sixth chapter, the discussion is largely focused on two directions from five points, which are ideology, gender, race, identity and subculture. The first direction is introducing how five points occurred and changed in the cultural research; the second one is about how five points had effects on popular music research, so its cultural significance and social value can be found.You can get a conclusion from the last chapter. That is popular music is a culture more than an amusement. We just only started to do some research works on this at home. In order to enhance the development of the subject, we should understand and digest the theoretical methods fully, putting popular music under the limit of culture. As a result, we can recognize and comprehend the deeper theories reflected by popular music wholly.