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8/3/2019 10. CuLtural Studies

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CULTURAL

STUDIESBy Stuart Hall


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HISTORY

Cultural Studies does not begin with ageneral theory of culture but rather viewscultural practices as the intersection ofmany possible effects.

It has since become strongly associatedwith Stuart Hall, who succeeded Hoggart asDirector.


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The movement of cultural studies that hasbeen a global phenomenon of greatimportance over the last decade.

Cultural studies scholarsemployed Marxist methods of analysis.

The rise of cultural studies itself was basedon the decline of the prominence offundamental class-versus-class politics.

HISTORY


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The group came to focus on the interplay of

representations and ideologies of class, gender,

race, ethnicity, and nationality in cultural texts,

including media culture.

They also focused on how various audiences

interpreted and used media culture in varied anddifferent ways and contexts, analyzing the factors

that made audiences respond in contrasting ways

...to media texts.

HISTORY


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Stuart Hall


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StuartHall

Birthday: February 3, 1932 at Kingston inJamaica

He is a cultural theorist and sociologist.

One of the founding figures of the school ofthought that is now known as BritishCultural Studies orThe Birmingham Schoolof Cultural Studies.


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StuartHall

He joined the Centre for ContemporaryCultural Studies at BirminghamUniversity in 1964.

He joined the Centre for ContemporaryCultural Studies at BirminghamUniversity in 1964.

1968 to 1979: He became director of theCenter.


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StuartHall

While at the Centre, Hall is credited withplaying a role in expanding the scope of cultural studies to deal with race andgender, and with helping to incorporate new

ideas derived from the work of Frenchtheorists.

A professor of Sociology at Open

University, Milton Keynes, England.

Hall retired from the Open University in1997 and is now a Professor Emeritus.


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Stuart Hall

While at the Centre, Hall is credited with playing arole in expanding the scope of cultural studies todeal with race and gender, and with helping toincorporate new ideas derived from the work ofFrench theorists.

A professor of Sociology at Open University,Milton Keynes, England.

Hall retired from the Open University in 1997 andis now a Professor Emeritus.


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The Media Rolein the Gulf War

Hegemonicencoding

Involvesmedias plan to regulate

andmold thediscourseso that somemessages are first encoded by themass

media thendecoded,internalize and

acted upon by the audience.


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Media regulate and mold the discourse so that

some messages are first encoded, internalized

and acted upon by the audience.

Actually describes the actual media practice

during the GulfWar in 1991

The effectiveness of major US televisionnetworks to disguise the war as a theater, erasing

of horrors of conflict and treatment of it s full of

drama, heroism and special events.


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Media regulate and mold the discourse so that

some messages are first encoded, internalized

and acted upon by the audience.

Actually describes the actual media practice

during the GulfWar in 1991.

The effectiveness of major US televisionnetworks to disguise the war as a theater, erasing

of horrors of conflict and treatment of it s full of

drama, heroism and special events.


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Showed inherent superiority of the US forcesand the laughable folly of Iraqi forces.

Morality is compromised as concern about the

war is ignored and focused instead on tacticalaesthetics.

Commoditization of war .

Creation of discourse that Americans should

support the war instead of opposing it.


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MAKINGMEANING


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Stuart Hall states that the primary

function of a discourse

is to make meaning, according to hisbook, Representation.

Humans dont come equipped with

ready-made meanings.


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Foucault concentrated on what people were

saying, what people were not saying,

and who got to say it.

He discovered that throughout history, not

everyone in society had equal voice

and power.


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In terms of mental illness, Foucault found

that the definition of what

makes up insanity and the ways on how todeal

with have changed

over time.

Arbitrary lines were drawn by people with

power between the normal and abnormal,

and these distinctions became discursiveformations.


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CorporateControl

of MassC

ommunication


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Media representations ofculture

reproducesocial inequalities and

keep the average personmore or lesspowerless to do anything but operate

within a corporatized,commodified

world.


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Corporatecontrol ofsuch

influential informationsourced

preventsmany stories from being

told.


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The ultimateissue forcultural

studiesisnot what informationis

presented, but whose information

it is.


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The Obstinate

Audience


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The Obstinate Audience

- The fact that themedia present a preferred

interpretation ofhumaneventsisno reason to

assume that the audience will correctly takein

the offeredideology.


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Hall holds out the possibility that thepowerless may be equally obstinate byresisting the dominant ideology andtranslating the message in a way morecongenial to their own interests.

He outlines three decoding options:


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Three decoding options:

Operating Inside the dominant code

The media produce the message; the massesconsume it. The audience readingcoincides with the proffered reading



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Applying a negotiable code

The audience assimilates the leadingideology in general but opposes itsapplication in specific case.



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Substituting on oppositional code

The audience sees through theestablishment bias in the mediapresentation and mounts an organizedeffort to demythologize the news.



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With all thechannels ofmasscommunicationin the

unwittingservice of thedominant ideology, Hall has trouble

believing that the powerlesscanchange thesystem.

Hall as a genuine respect for the ability of people to resist

thedominant code. Hedoesnt regard themasses asculturaldupes who areeasily manipulated by those who control the

media, but heis unable to predict when and where the

resistance will spring up.


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CRITIQUE

Do suchexplicit valuecommitmentsinevitably compromise

theintegrity of research?

Truthhas prospered by investigating what isseparately from

what we think ought to be. Hall seems to blurdistinction.

Is Halls analysis ofculturesuperior to the work of other

cultural studies orcritical theories? Without a standard truth,

thereseems to beno reliable way to evaluate theequality ofmedia criticism.


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Source:

http://jci.sagepub.com/content/10/2/61.full.pdf+html

http://pages.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/papers/CSETHIC.htm http://wings.buffalo.edu/english/faculty/schmid/syllabi/689-s99/

http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=414

http://jci.sagepub.com/content/10/2/61.full.pdf+html

http://jci.sagepub.com/content/10/2/61.extract

http://science.jrank.org/pages/8913/Cultural-Studies-Cultural-Studies-

Theory-Power.html#ixzz1ig5c6lme

http://science.jrank.org/pages/8913/Cultural-Studies-Cultural-Studies-

Theory-Power.html