Review of new textbook
A2 Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction

AS Communication and Culture textbook review

This latest textbook lives up to its name – it is an essential introduction to many of the key ideas and approaches within cultural studies which may be new, both to teachers of this latest specification and second year students. However, as with AS Communication and Culture: The Essential Introduction by the same authors, which came out last year, the style of the writing varies throughout the book from rambling and narrative to succinct, clear and accessible.

For example, the initial chapter of the book, Moving on, Moving Up: From AS to A2 is definitely NOT a chapter you would want your students to read as a transition from the first year to the second year, so don’t set it as a first homework! However, for a member of staff, particularly one new to the A2 year, it might be a helpful guide to this next step.

Similarly to the AS level textbook, the production quality of the book is lavish with beautiful colour photographs and illustrations and similar system of activity and information boxes.

Communication and Culture teachers come from a range of disciplines ranging from English, Sociology and Media. The chapter on theoretical approaches is a must for teachers new to the subject – there are extensive introductions to market liberalism, Marxism, feminism, queer theory, postmodernism and structuralism. Each introduction has helpful and contemporary examples, in the form of sumptuous photographs and activities for students, such as researching images of the Mona Lisa or The Austin Mini on the internet. You could use sections of this, sparingly, with students too.

The chapter on key concepts is short and snappy, covering such ideas as ideology and discourse, and is written in a clear and accessible manner, which students should find comprehensible if read with concentration, one section at a time.

The three sections on Cultural sites are variable in their helpfulness as direct reading for students. I found the Spaces and Places rather rambling and difficult to follow – it might be worth dipping into this chapter and picking out key passages to use with students.

In contrast the chapter on Fictions is extensive, very helpful and and has plenty of practical student activities which they will find easy to relate to – if you get your book straight away you’ll be able to use the Christmas story examples!

Objects of Desire is a shorter chapter than the previous two and covers a range of approaches to this area, from semiotics to consumerism. The semiotic approach is helpfully integrated into all the chapters on cultural sites in a way which will help students to make this an automatic response to cultural artefacts and practices.

I suspect the area which many teachers will be uncertain about will be cultural intersections – how to relate these different cultural sites in meaningful and interesting ways. The book is particularly helpful in this area. It gives lots of interesting and up-to-date examples which will help to get students thinking in a broader and more exploratory way than at AS level.

The final chapters of the book are devoted to looking at revision and the two exams – COMMS 3 and coursework unit COMMS 4. The chapter on COMMS 3, although ostensibly addressed at students, would be a definite candidate for teachers to mediate for their students. It is very detailed but quite complex and my former students would have been confused within minutes. Minimalism is the order of the day when explaining exams to students, I’ve found!

The chapter on coursework is better and would be of use to students but the coursework examples chapter, although very detailed, is not very helpful because of the way it is laid out.

So to sum up – worth buying or not? If you are teacher – definitely. This is an indispensable and beautifully illustrated introduction to the key ideas and areas in Cultural Studies. If you are a student and you are going on to study Media, Cultural Studies, Sociology or English at university, it’s worth buying your own copy – you will find yourself coming back to over and over again to remind yourself about the theoretical approaches and knotty key concepts such as discourse. For your class? Depends what you already have in the way of textbooks – it is certainly worth having a class set which you can dip into and use to support your classroom activities.