ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the instances where the popular has triggered the real, specifically when certain pop culture artefacts have provoked state actors into geopolitical action, thus resulting in ramifications for international relations. It begins with an overview of the role played by 'Hollywood' in international relations and world politics, before moving on to analyse several instances where popular culture provoked international controversies, from the worldwide release of big-budget films to 'fake' documentaries and news via social media. The chapter provides several possible explanations for why popular geopolitics has emerged as both as a practice and a field of scholarly analysis. It attempts to point out just a few of the myriad ways in which (geopolitical) power and (popular) culture are intertwining, and more specifically how popular culture is 'interactive with other representations of political life'. The chapter aims to complicate the very idea of popular geopolitics, splintering its current conceptual coherence into two separate forms: phronesis and praxis.
