On John Fiske's Popular Culture Theory

This thesis expounds John Fiske's theory of popular culture in detail. It is divided into four parts.The introduction mainly introduces the paper's purpose, significance, current situation of research and research approaches. The significance and value of Fiske's theory embodies the following two aspects:First of all, he is one of the most influential representatives of transformation from cultural research to its process; secondly, Fiske's theory is the major intellectual resources for contemporary popular cultural research in China.The first chapter, which analyzes John Fiske's theory of popular culture from five aspects, is the main part. Fiske defines popular culture as "the process of creative activities and practices by making use of existing resources". For his part he holds that cultural products can circulate in two parallel economies. Based on this special point of view, Fiske notices the initiative and creativity of the popular in culture. The text of popular culture in Fiske's concept should be producerly. And relevance is the major standard for the public recognition ability. Therefore, the politics of popular culture are not radical but progressive. Micropolitics keep resistance in daily life, and retain the fertile soil for the seeds of macropolitics.In the second chapter, the author chiefly introduces sources, academic contributions, limitations and references of Fiske's theory. And his theory has surpassed Frankfurt School's perspective of critical theory of pessimism and elitism. Thus it supplies a new perspective for the domestic research of popular culture.The third chapter is the conclusion. The greatest characteristic of Fiske's theory is participation, practicality, aesthetics of daily life and timeliness of making do. In the subject construction sense, Fiske's popular culture theory possesses the value of methodology instead of the value of concrete conclusion.