The medicalization of popular culture: Epistemical, ethical and aesthetical structures of biomedical knowledge as cultural artefact

Abstract

By revisiting some of the main concepts surrounding the rationale of our work, this introduction further explores the topic implicit in our book’s title. In other words, this introduction develops the argument that, given its authoritative voice, biomedical knowledge not only has been influential with cultural producers but that it also plays a major role in creating expectation and meaning for the general public. Video games, TV series, novels and even art: all those products can, in a way, be affected by biomedical and scientific knowledge. As such, the consumption of those artefacts, coupled with the anticipation created by it, may serve as a proxy for how people comprehend and understand this particular area of scientific production. Here we also emphasise that the influence of biomedicine on culture is not a one-way process. Given that specialists and researchers are also consumers, the opposite is also true: cultural products, then, may also inform biomedical knowledge. Finally, at the end of this introduction, we discuss our chapter’s threefold division. Since this book intends to introduce our topic to a wider audience, we present it from a multidisciplinary point of view whilst providing our reader with particular examples in the form of focused case studies and larger historical and social perspectives.