PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, films, books, video games, comics

Comics

Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...

, sports, theater, visual arts

Visual arts

The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...

, travel

Travel

Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...

, and the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

.

History

PopMatters was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had previously established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. PopMatters launched in the fall of 1999 as a sister site providing original essays, reviews and criticism of various media products. Over time, the site went from a weekly publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features, and columns. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million.

From 2006 onward, PopMatters produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. As of 2009, there are four different pop culture related columns each week.

PopMatters published four books in a series with Counterpoint/Soft Skull in 2008-2009 including "China Underground" by Zachary Mexico, "Apocalypse Jukebox: The End of the World in American Popular Music" by Edward Whitelock and David Janssen, "Rebels Wit Attitude: Subversive Rock Humorists" by Iain Ellis, and "The Solitary Vice: Against Reading" by Mikita Brottman

Mikita Brottman

Mikita Brottman is a British scholar, psychoanalyst, author and cultural critic known for her psychological readings of the dark and pathological elements of contemporary culture...

.

Staff

While PopMatters doesn't actually employ writers, it does publish content from contributors located around the globe, based in six continents and numerous countries. Its staff includes writers from various backgrounds, ranging from academics and professional journalists to career professionals and first time writers. Many of its writers are published authorities in various fields of study.


PopMatters also currently hosts an ever-growing number of blogs, including:

• "Moving Pixels," a look at video game arts by G. Christopher Williams;
• "Sound Affects," a music criticism blog edited by Sarah Zupko;
• "Marginal Utility," essays on consumer culture by Rob Horning;
• "Short Ends and Leader," a multi-faceted film blog by Bill Gibron;
• "Channel Surfing," a television blog edited by Sarah Zupko;
• "Graphic Novelties," all things involving comics and graphic fiction, edited by shathley Q;
• "Notes from the Road," live event coverage, edited by Thomas Hauner;
• "Re:Print," discussion of everything books, edited by Rodger Jacobs
  Rodger Jacobs
  Rodger Jacobs is an American journalist, writer, author, film producer, columnist, playwright, editor and screenwriter.Jacobs has been a journalist for publications such as Eye Magazine, Hustler and PopMatters...
  
  and Michael Buening.

External links

• PopCultures.com