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While the study of pornography is by no means a new field, recent shifts within the production, distribution and consumption of sexually explicit material have revitalized academic interest in porn. These shifts can be attributed to the rise of digital media technologies (notably the Internet) and an increasing investment in "the celebrity," commodity fetishism and "post-feminist" discourses of "raunch culture." As a result, while not forgetting the hardcore, this new field of "porn studies" increasingly focusses not on pornographic "texts" but on the integration of porn into mainstream Western culture.
Hall and Bishop's recent edited collection, Pop Porn, is emblematic of this shift in attention and is an investigation of pornography "from within." Drawing together authors from a diverse range of disciplines (including cultural studies, information studies, psychoanalysis and performance studies) the collection is wide-ranging, touching on the themes of censorship, fashion, grooming, celebrity, class, religion and television - to name just a few. The variety of topics provides for a range of different critical perspectives and opinions to be heard. Yet amidst this diversity, one central argument is maintained - that being the belief that pornography...