Class and Contemporary British Culture (PDF)

Anita Biressi is Reader in Media Cultures at the University of Roehampton, UK. Her research interests include news and tabloid journalism, reality television, class and popular culture, gender and political representation. She is the author of Crime, Fear and the Law (2001) and co-author of Reality TV: Realism and Revelation (2005).



Heather Nunn is Professor of Culture and Politics at the University of Roehampton, UK. Her research interests include political communication, formations of gender and class, documentary and images of childhood. She is the author of Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy (2002) and co-author of Reality TV: Realism and Revelation (2005).

"Biressi and Nunn's brilliant analysis of the binding centrality of class in Britain is historically rich, intellectually astute, finely detailed and deeply knowledgeable. This book offers a vital, compelling analysis of why dissecting the cultural is necessary for understanding the social and, as such, it is essential reading for anyone studying the complex reinforcement of class relations in contemporary life." - Sally Munt, University of Sussex, UK 
 
"This richly evidenced, tightly argued and deeply self-reflexive book, while national in its initial focus, addresses a question of international importance: what happens to class in societies supposedly organised around market freedoms, but ever more unequal in their operations? Anita Biressi and Heather Nunn's answer, demonstrated in a series of brilliant analyses, is that class gets reshaped as a field of harsh cultural differentiation, hard-wired into a supposedly open and plural popular culture. If you care about the fate of society in neoliberal democracies such as Britain, you really must read this book. A wholly admirable piece of work." - Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK, and author of Why Voice Matters
 
"Class and Contemporary British Culture makes for imperative reading. It's a superb book, one I'd highly recommend to anyone remotely interested in (what's horribly wrong with) contemporary Britain." - David Marx Book Reviews
 
"This book examines a range of issues relating to British culture and class with chapters focusing on social mobility, the underclass, education, celebrity culture, the upper classes, immigration and austerity. The chapter on the 'revolting underclass' is one of the most concise, well written and researched overviews of the 'underclass' available in scholarly literature." - LSE Review 

"Class and Contemporary British Culture serves as an important indicator not just of how deeply engrained harmful class perceptions