Summary

Instead of looking at fans of popular culture as dupes or passive consumers, Grossberg proposes examining why popular culture matters to its fans, how it affects them, and how fans can read, resist, and recuperate the meanings of the work for their own purposes.

Questions

  1. How does a critical view of popular culture, versus high culture, mirror the regard for women’s romances as described by Modleski?
  2. Why does Grossberg disagree with using the term “fan” of popular culture as a synonym for consumer of mass culture?
  3. How do fans exercise different “sensibilities” towards a popular text?
  4. How does a fan’s affect for a popular text determine how much it matters?
  5. How does contemporary consumer culture transform the consumer to the fan?
  6. How does fandom enable democratic political struggles?