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A quick reply to keep us going. I'd take 'popular culture' to refer to activities and artefacts
produced primarily for entertainment (or in some cases usefulness - e.g.pottery), and which are relatively undemanding in respect of the intellectual (as opposed to sensory and emotional) capacites required. They can therefore be engaged in and appreciated by most people, not just the sophisticated or highly educated.
Although the materials of popular culture may not offer all that much by way of enlightenment, insight, etc. in themselves, they may be highly significant in and for their socio-cultural context, and they may of course be studied historically, sociologically, psychologically, etc. The development of the Blues, for example, can hardly be understood without reference to the Great Depression of the '30s in America, life on cotton plantations in the southern states, etc.; and I think it would be impossible to understand the life of young people in Britain and the U.S. in and around the 1960s without reference to the influence of rock music and those who made it. And it's not just music - many kinds of folk-art, craft , etc.could be revealing.
It's probably along these lines that popular culture might best be studied, and that students may have most to gain from it. In teaching one should be selective, with an in-depth examination of particular examples in context. I wish you the best of luck with it - let me know what you decide to do.
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It's so tempting, when faced with an almost unlimited body of material, to try to cram in as much as possible. Film! Television! Blogs! Music! There is so much to choose from. I agree with you though, it will be more useful to concentrate closely on a smaller array of topics and texts and to try to delve deeper into their socio-cultural contexts, as well as the contexts of our consumption/reception of them. One of the things that I think I find most fun and interesting about studying this kind of material is that it provokes interesting (and important) questions about scholarship. Why is the popular often associated with the less important, the less valuable? How ought we study these texts? How do we use a resource like the internet to fortify our research without forgetting the importance of scholarly texts and of physically going into the library? I'm so excited about this class. The trick will be to try to translate my enthusiasm into a coherent and interesting course for my students!
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