Introduction: popular culture and "the turn to Gramsci", Tony Bennett. Themes and issues: the politics of the "popular" and popular culture, Tony Bennett; popular culture and the state, Stuart Hall; complicity pleasures, Colin Mercer. Popular culture - historical and social relations: the tale of Samuel and Jemima - gender and working class culture in early 19th century England, Catherine Hall; "good luck war workers!" class, politics and entertainment in wartime broadcasting, David Cardiff, Paddy Scannell; the dialectic of national identity -the Glasgow Empire Exhibition of 1938, Colin McArthur; hegemony, ideology, pleasure - Blackpool,Tony Bennett. Form and ideology in popular culture: in the groove, or blowing your mind? the pleasures of musical repetition, Richard Middleton; that's entertainment - the resilience of popular forms, Colin Mercer; fictions and ideologies -the case of situation comedy, Janet Woollacott; "this is not the boy scouts" - television police series and definitions of law and order, Alan Clarke.