Swiftmania, Trumpism, retromania, futoromania, wastefulness, thriftiness, gangsta rap, cuteness, pop and populism: pop (music) cultures as seismographs of societal realities, conflicts as well as communisations and consensus. As is well known, they transcend and fall below the boundaries of taste, but also of what is legal, tolerable and moral, constantly testing attitudes, behaviour, images, sounds and figures between ecstasy/indifference and withdrawal/abstinence. Whether on, off or behind the stage (real, digital, un/social-media, journalistic, political), people are constantly moving between inclusion and exclusion, between avant-garde, ruptures and floating along, mass, between individuation and peer groups, between mainstreams and minorities, between stars and audiences.

The transdisciplinary "C:POP" event was dedicated to these dynamic pop (music) cultural fields between contempt and attentiveness from various academic and non-academic perspectives, such as journalism, politics, the music industry, sustainability and the arts. Can traces of an ethics of pop cultures comparable to Jens Balzer's ethics of appropriation be found or concepts developed here? The event was linked to four seminars from Protestant Theology, Romance Studies and Popular Music and Media.