ABSTRACT
I have tried in this book to point to the political potential of popular culture, for I believe that such culture is always, at its heart, political. It is produced and enjoyed under conditions of social subordination and is centrally implicated in the play of power in society. But in investigating its politics we must not confine our definition of politics to direct social action, for that is only the tip of the iceberg, resting upon a less visible, but very real, politicized consciousness-the consciousness of, and in, popular culture.
