Pop Culture Catalysts: Popular Media for Social Change

Pop Culture Catalysts: Popular Media and Social Change explores how popular culture reflects social and political change and can instigate social change. Popular culture is the most prevalent and powerful form of cultural production in our lives; yet, it remains on the fringes of academic inquiry, where little understanding exists about the value of popular culture in research, teaching, and knowledge mobilization. This Research Cluster will therefore serve as an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary hub for the evaluation of popular media and its impacts, seeking to identify the role of popular culture in illuminating and catalyzing social and political change.