First, we broke into groups to discuss the articles from Media and Cultural Studies (Durham/Kellner). Each group then reported to the class the main points from each article.
· (i) Operation Margarine; (ii) Myth Today (Roland Barthes)
o If you overanalyze an object, you take it out of its mythical state and take away its history.
o Amending the object’s faults protects it from other criticism – acknowledge faults, but emphasize benefits
· The Medium is the Message (Marshall McLuhan)
o The light bulb signified a new part to culture in the sense that people could now work all day and all night rather than just during daylight hours.
o The television evolved from radios – able to get information quicker and can now view the information.
o Internet – information is now at our fingertips
o How you get a message is the medium – what you are accustomed to
· The Commodity as Spectacle (Guy Debord)
o A spectacle becomes a commodity through production and how the dominant class influences production
o Everything man produces is a spectacle
· Introduction: Instructions on How to Become a General in the Disneyland Club (Ariel Dorfman and Armand Mattelart)
o Disney is the “master of the spectacle”
o Adults create a commodity from a spectacle by producing children’s literature that is then consumed and perpetuated by children when they become adults. As each generation passes, the spectacle becomes more embedded in culture.
o Disney is understood by other cultures
· Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory (Raymond Williams)
o A superstructure is an organizational system for ideas and culture
o The base is the real social existence of man
o The base is the people and the superstructure organizes ideas and culture that emerge from their social interaction
o The base is a process not a state. The superstructure is tailored to fit the base as it changes based on social interactions.
o Hegemony is when a cultural process becomes so embedded in society that it becomes a normal part of everyday life.
o 2 types of cultures apart from the dominant: residual and emergent
§ residual cultures are “left over” practices and values from a previous culture that has been superseded
§ Emergent cultures are new meanings and values that are created separate from the dominant culture
o Because culture is constantly changing, what were once emergent or residual cultures can become the dominant culture over time
o There are always people outside of what is chosen as the dominant culture
o Conflict between object and practice, i.e. art – can be a work of art or a creative process
· (i) From Culture to Hegemony; (ii) Subculture: The Unnatural Break (Dick Hebdige)
o Culture is an ambiguous idea
o Culture becomes a natural, normal, everyday event ingrained in daily life – hegemony
o Subcultures exist separate from the dominant culture, but still exist
o Subcultures can become the dominant culture over time so subcultures must constantly change if they do not want to become the dominant culture
· Encoding/Decoding (Stuart Hall)
o Certain messages are encoded by the producers of objects
o Viewers decode these messages based on influences (culture, vocabulary, history, time)
o Once the message is decoded, reactions follow – can be the encoded messages or a reaction that is opposed (various opposing messages can result)
· On the Politics of Empirical Audience Research (Ien Ang)
o There are always going to be multiple messages because there are multiple audiences – never going to get down to just one message
o Layers of messages exist
o Empirical audience research takes a methodological approach
After reviewing the articles, we went over cultural studies as a “field.”
· Cultural studies
o The study of everyday life
o Focus on relations of power – hegemonic vs. counter-hegemonic
o Deals with semiotics, free play, expressive arts, language embedded in material sources or social practices
o Focus on conflict and subversion – where things don’t make sense
o More localized and strategic
o Involves continual self-critique – methods implicated in the structure
o Avoids master narratives
o Multiplicity of approaches – no purity
o Do away with strict boundaries – there are different ways of doing things
· What is media/mediation
o Create compromise
o Process of communication (different forms)
o Take something and interpret it – embed things in it
o Examples: spectacle of a group gathered talking, books, computer, clothing furniture
o Everything is media because everything communicates a message
Next we went over the different paradigms in cultural studies:
· Formalism
o Studies the formal properties of a work
o There are a limited number of works to study – only certain ones should be studied, no margins
· Structuralism
o Came from the Birmingham School in Britain
o Tries to uncover a deeper structure beneath texts
o Looks at parallels with other cultural work and themes – more comparative
· Post-Structuralism
o Takes fault with Structuralism
o Texts are viewed as infinitely interpretable in theory, but not in practice
· Feminism and African-American Criticism
o Opened up cultural studies to looking at things in different ways
· Marxist, Psychoanalytic and Historicist approaches challenged/supplemented formalism during its dominance
After taking a break, we came back together to look at the readings from History from Things: Essays on Material Culture (Lubar/Kingery) as a group. Sarah and Katie led the discussion.
· Gardens and Society in Eighteenth-Century England (Thomas Williamson)
o Discussed the idea that before cultural studies, conventional methods studied objects in a “vacuum” and did not consider other people or features. Made texts dominant.
o Author used other sources (i.e. maps, plans) to show that the traditional view of the park as an element that suddenly appeared on the scene in the 18th century was false. He traced it to the deer park of medieval times.
· Common Landscapes as Historic Documents (Pierce Lewis)
o This article was appealing to most people in the class because everyone could relate to the process he was proposing and envision it.
o Discussed whether or not the average student pays attention to a landscape. Decided that we, as a group, are different from the average student in this respect because of our interests. Decided that most students do not pay attention to landscape.
· The Sign of the Object (John Dixon Hunt)
o There are a variety of approaches to studying objects – all of the participants in the conference study objects, but not all agree on a certain method of doing so.
o This does not make the field less respectable – actually makes it stronger
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