Cultural Studies/Birmingham School

1. Cultural Studies/Birmingham School

-often concerned with articulation and intervention (making sense of the broader context of a social phenomenon, and attempting to alter it if it reveals an unjust power structure)

-also often centre around studies of ethnicity, gender, socialization

-the popular conception of the term began with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham, under the direction of Stuart Hall

-began with the phenomenon of lower classes voting for Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government, which went against their own best interest. Their aim was to articulate the contextual reasons behind this and to intervene critically

• Cultural studies aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and their relation to power. For example, a study of a subculture (such as white working class youth in London) would consider the social practices of the youth as they relate to the dominant classes.
• It has the objective of understanding culture in all its complex forms and of analyzing the social and political context in which culture manifests itself.
• It is both the object of study and the location of political criticism and action. For example, not only would a cultural studies scholar study an object, but she/he would connect this study to a larger, progressive political project.
• It attempts to expose and reconcile the division of knowledge, to overcome the split between tacit cultural knowledge and objective (universal) forms of knowledge.
• It has a commitment to an ethical evaluation of modern society and to a radical line of political action.

2. Hebdige

• Studied subcultures and “the meaning of style”

• Clothing, style, trends as being representative of larger context

• Ie: punk clothes in late 70s (safety pins, mohawks, etc)

• He stated that it represented a protest against the dominant ideals, protest against lack of jobs, opportunities

-Do you think that subculture style can be explained as a response to cultural repression or disenchantment? Goth, skateboarder – what do they say?

3. Critiques

• Jargon-laden; distances it from culture it’s commenting on: “fashionable nonsense”

• Sokal’s Hoax

• No real structure or methodology: arbitrary

4. Gramsci

-renowned for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a capitalist society.

- Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the 'common sense' values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.

-Values of dominant class become values of all; working class assimilates these ideals, even if not in best interest

-manufacture of consent

5. Hall

-People as agents when consuming a text: actively negotiating meaning: reception theory

-Encoding and Decoding: Purposeful, but not direct; Decoding as active, dynamic

-Politics of Representation (ads, self)

6. Culture Jamming

-representation of the ideals of cultural studies in action: questioning dominant power structures, attempting to actively reshape

-Kalle Lasn – Culture Jam. Buy Nothing Day: do you think that these forms of resistance are effective? Why or why not?

Semiotics and Structuralism

De Saussure

-language as formal system of elements: linguistic sign, signifier, signified, referent

-language as a complete system of signs

SIGN = signifier (the actual word, phonic component)/signified (the object component, the object related to the word, what appears in our mind when it appears –mental concept) Referent is actual object in world

NOTE – signifier has ABRITRARY relationship to signified.

Barthes

-semiology: the study of the above notion of signs, and how language shapes the way we perceive things – extended definitions of de s (ie: sign not just limited to language, could be ad or cultural phenomenon or object)

-used to apply to music, eating, clothes, dance, and even wrestling.

-very interested in second order signs – or basically the cultural “myths” that get attached to words; thinks that our culture/society/customs are made up of “mythologies”, or systems of signs

-ie: rose. First order: picture of a rose (sign) – signifier (word rose), signified (an object, a rose, that we’ve experienced)

-second order: word rose (sign) – signifier (the mental/physical object of a rose), signified (romantic love)

-relates to the difference between denontation and connotation

-really relates to the ideals in advertising – to use connotation and cultural signifiers to get you to buy their product –ie: using beautiful girls to sell makeup

“semiotics for beginners” link is very valuable (ie: when reviewing for exam)

Frankfurt School Notes

Terms to be Familiar With

-Fascism

-authoritarian government where individual interests considered inferior to state’s

-character of heightened nationalism (usually united through ethnicity or religion), military use

-examples: fascist Italy under Mussolini; Nazi Germany under Hitler

-maxim of “strength through unity”

-defined by Mussolini as “right winged, collectivist ideology”

-take the F test

-Enlightenment

-18^th century; evolution in Philosophy that extolled rationality and natural sciences: “the age of reason”

-led to incredible influx in knowledge of rational world (ie: Isaac Newton)

-strong emphasis on linearity, rationality, freedom through knowledge

-Marxism

-emphasis on material conditions of people’s lives (ie: where they live, what they consume, culturally, etc) and how these material conditions affect their consciousness

-emphasis on class structure: denotes differing types of production and contribution to society, people become identified as such (defined by their material production and consumption); thought that major revolutions in history marked by struggle between classes

-sympathetic to lower class, the “proletariat”; constantly kept down and subordinated through their working conditions and job; requires emancipation and enlightenment in order to realize best interest of humanity

-thought socialism/communism was ideal state for this to occur

-socialism would be the socioeconomic system that arises after the proletarian revolution where the means of production are owned collectively. This society would then progress into communism (classless, stateless society based on shared production and wealth – anti-capitalist)

-Ideology

-broadly, means comprehensive vision, way of looking at things (ie: paradigm), but in critical sense refers to a set of ideas (subtley) proposed by the dominant class of society to all members of society

-largely implicit (vs. explicit): all politics have ideological tendencies (certain points of view, attempt to convince others implicitly to accept ideology through acceptance of explicit proposals)

-Hegemony

-dominance of one group over another not through force, but rather through consent of the subordinated groups, usually through ideological means

-ie: convincing people that’s what’s best for them (ie: war on terror – people consent to have privacy violated because have been convinced that it’s the best thing)

Frankfurt School

-Institute for Social Research: FS began here with Horkheimer as director in Frankfurt,
Germany

-group of thinkers (such as Adorno, Benjamin, Marcuse, etc) studied here under Horkheimer

-moved to NYC in 1933 due to growing influence of Nazis (many of members Jewish, or had theories that went against Nazi ideology); all were quite against authoritarian, fascist regimes (they were instead more of a Marxist orientation, and were critical of capitalism and top down control)

-often sought to explain why Fascism and later Nazism was able to happen

-in light of failure of lower class uprisings, sought to apply Marx’s critique of capitalism in new ways

-common concern in ability of capitalism to destroy the preconditions of critical, revolutionary political consciousness

-evolution of critical theory, with recognition of ideology as foundation of social structure, also critical of making universal claims or universal truths; thought that such claims only server to further elite’s self interest

-human subject swallowed up by emphasis on rationality, reduction to binaries, no room to think outside these boundaries, leaves no room for lower class revolution (based on enlightenment) as envisioned by Marx

Horkheimer and Adorno

-two key figures in Frankfurt School

-was a tremendous unease among many intellectuals as to the results of mass culture and mass production on the character of individuals within a nation

-attacked positivism in the social sciences and in philosophy. He was particularly harsh on approaches that claimed to be scientific and quantitative,

-both state that advanced capitalism has eradicated any chance at revolution and consequent evolution into socialism

Dialectic of Enlightenment

-evolution of scientific culture, reduction of everything to fact, consequent inability to assess relationships, anything irrational (emotion, sexuality)

-everything reduced to a binary (right or wrong, true or false) and leaves no room for alternative claims (status quo becomes only option)

-D of E thinks that anything that cannot be quantified is not worth paying attention to; not acknowledged as existing. Ie: subjectivity and collective action both abstract concepts and purely relational, no fixed value – so pushed out of consideration

-H and A feel that this sort of emphasis on pure rationality (making anything sound logical) was what lead to Fascism and Nazism

-in order to break through this, must dissolve boundaries, turn to art and more subjective fields (to have emancipation from hegemony and capitalism)

The Culture Industry (Adorno)

-that mass culture (particularly films, other entertainment media) give us the illusion of choice, but all really coming from the same place touting the same ideas in order to propagate the same thoughts

-goal of capitalism/corporations is to keep us happy and distracted, illusion of choice without leading us to question the structure

- Popular culture was identified as a reason why people become passive; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture made people docile and content, no matter how terrible their economic circumstances.

-Adorno conceptualised this phenomenon as pseudo-individualization and the always-the-same.

-this docility and enjoyment of the “low arts” endangered status of high, or actually creative and artistic arts. (ie: Mona Lisa vs. Saw films)

- Culture industries cultivate false needs; that is, needs created and satisfied by capitalism. True needs, in contrast, are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness.

Benjamin and Dispute with H & A

-Benjamin was also a member of the Frankfurt School and had similar ideals to H and A

-however, disagreed that mass culture was necessarily bad thing

-he saw the broad spectrum of public being opened up to forms of art and artistic enjoyment and entertainment, thought it could be empowering, discouraged strict distinction between high and low culture

Discussion about Culture Industry

Do you think that culture is mass produced in today’s society? What about in the music or film industry? Do you agree or disagree with Horkheimer and Adorno?

What do you make of the distinction between high and low/popular art? Do you think that a painting in the Louvre has more artistic value than a Madonna album? Why or why not?

Very cool video on Web 2.0

Oct. 22 Tutorial Notes

War of the Worlds

-make sure understand context: pre-war, after war and depression, took news flashes to be true. Contagious Panic: people crowding to the “scene” (previously deserted), having to be controlled by police and eventually becoming the “imaginary” scene of panic
-“some six million heard the Columbia Broadcasting System broadcast; 1.7 million believed it to be true, and 1.2 million were 'genuinely frightened'"

Lazarsfeld

-themes of today: empirical sociology, mid-20^th century media/communication studies, audiences (passive vs. active)
-huge impact on American sociology, mid-20^th century; emphasized empirical, quantifiable studies (conducted first scientific survey study of radio listeners)

Two-Step Flow

-came about because hypodermic needle model did not seem to reflect mass media communication (this model holds that an intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver – Nazi Germany, WOW)
-instead, Lasarzfeld and Katz thought that audiences were more active, agentic
-two step flow: mass media disseminates message, which is then actively construed/adopted/rejected by “opinion leaders” within community; rest of people then get their views/opinions about subject through opinion leaders
-opinion leaders: anything from computer technicians to magazine journalists to a friend who knows a lot about new technology (example of buying new iPod)

Diffusion of Adoption

-as per the two step flow, it turns out that people don’t form their opinions/most influenced directly through broadcast medium, but rather through opinion leaders and progressively through a sequence of adopters (early, secondary, tertiary, etc)
-criticisms: too simple; other things affect same/more; way technology is used differs from group to group (ie: advent of computers, hackers/hardware – early adopters to widespread use of PCs and Internet – tertiary use, differs greatly)

Uses and Gratifications

-Blumler and Katz: 1974
-basic idea: people use media to get specific gratifications (not helpless victims/passive audience to medium, but agentic, use media to fulfill various needs)
-Four areas of gratification:

1. Diversion – media text that provides escapism, covers one’s senses (ie: video games)

2. Personal Relationships – with the characters in a media text (though dangerous if put too much trust in them, ie: news reporter, take everything at face value)

3. Personal Identity – creation of identity from aspects of people they find attractive in media texts (ie: Jennifer Aniston haircut ). Can go a long way in shaping norms, fashions. (“skinny” obsession)

4. Surveillance – audience gains understanding of larger world around them (ie: news)

Slide Notes from Oct. 15

Crowds

• main idea (Freud): people act differently in crowds than they would individually

• contagion theory vs. convergence theory

Propaganda

•Messages (often emotive) aimed at influencing behaviour/opinions of large number

•Propagand (latin) – “that which ought to be spread”

•Negative connotation after WWI

Propaganda - Characteristics

•From obvious imagery to subtle debate

•Often emotive rather than rational

•Bias/Skewed (though not nec. untrue)

•Indoctrination – no critical reflection

•Repetition and Drowning out Alternatives

•Like PR, idea of promoting certain ideas to masses, but often though of as involving some level of deception, underhandedness

Sleeper Effect

•Carl Hovland

•“hidden” effects of message, even if from discredible source

•Forget the source, but not the message

•Shown to be unreliable as theory

Groupthink

•Circular reinforcement of group ideals

•Rationalized conformity

•High stress/Direct leadership often causes

•Challenger example

Exposure Effect

•Desire/Preference because of repeated/prolonged exposure

•Choose what you recognize over what you do not (even tenuously)

Spiral of Silence

•Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann

•Less likely to voice opinion one thinks is minority view

•Causes reinforcement of prevalent opinion

Propaganda - Where to Draw the Line?

Propaganda is the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.

(Jowett and O'Donnell, as qtd. on Wikipedia)

Conventional Interpretation of Propaganda:


But what about this?


Finally - have a look at this video montage: