This article starts from the observation that popular culture resides in a contradictory space. On the one hand it seems to be thriving, in that the range of media objects that were previously studied under the rubric of popular culture has certainly expanded. Yet, cultural studies scholars rarely study these media objects as popular culture. Instead, concerns about immaterial labor, about the manipulation of voting behavior and public opinion, about filter bubbles and societal polarization, and about populist authoritarianism, determine the dominant frames with which the contemporary media environment is approached. This article aims to trace how this change has come to pass over the last 50 years. It argues that changes in the media environment are important, but also that cultural studies as an institutionalizing interdisciplinary project has changed. It identifies “the moment of popular culture” as a relatively short-lived but epoch-defining moment in cultural studies. This moment was subsequently displaced by a set of related yet different theoretical problematics that gradually moved the study of popular culture away from the popular. These displacements are: the hollowing out of the notion of the popular, as signaled early on by Meaghan Morris’ article “The Banality of Cultural Studies” in 1988; the institutionalization of cultural studies; the rise of the governmentality approach and a growing engagement with affect theory.
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Literature on the relationship between sustainability and human resource management (HRM) is just emerging. This chapter examines the role of the HRM function in advancing the sustainability agenda in the hotel industry. Drawing on 18 interviews with human resource managers (specialists), managers and employees drawn from 12 large and medium hotels in the Netherlands, this chapter reveals that HR professionals perform five different roles - of a coach, facilitator, architect, leader and custodian of sustainability conscience. These roles are based on Ulrich and Beatty’s (2001) model of HRM. It further shows that the propensity of human resource professionals to perform such roles is influenced by two major organisational contextual factors such as: a.) the sophistication of the HRM function and its relative position within the hotel’s decision-making structures; and b.) the stage of development of the hotel’s sustainability agenda. The chapter then concludes by highlighting implications for theory and practice.
Background. Quality of life is an important health outcome for older persons. It predicts the adverse outcomes of institutionalization and premature death. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine the influence of both disability in activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) on physical and mental dimensions of quality of life. Methods. A total of 377 Dutch people aged 75 years and older completed a web-based questionnaire. This questionnaire contained the Groningen Activity Restriction Scale (GARS) for measuring ADL and IADL and the Short-Form Health Survey (SF-12) for measuring quality of life. The SF-12 distinguishes two dimensions of quality of life, a physical and mental dimension.
