It doesn’t take much to realise that John Hartley admires the work of Richard Hoggart, the famous English literary critic and founder of the field of Cultural Studies. The titles of several of his books are tributes to Hoggart, including this one. As Hartley explains on the first page, The Uses of Literacy (1957) set the agenda for educational and disciplinary reform in schools and universities. Hoggart’s strong views on the abuse of literacy, especially in the entertainment media, found much public support. This interest in literacy lay in what ordinary people did with it as part of everyday culture rather than as an instrumental skill for business, civic or religious purposes.
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