COMS 360 Mass Communication Mass Media and Cultural Studies 2/18/2016Professor Jeppesen1

popular culture in 1964 the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was founded in Birmingham, England generally seen as the beginning of cultural studies, the study of contemporary popular culture, including: activities of leisure time and entertainment intersections of high art and mass culture relation between power and knowledge potential of cultural practices to anticipate and work toward social change 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

popular culture popular culture is generally speaking contemporary based on emergent forms of culture there is a sense of newness, trends, the latest thing 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

popular culture popular culture can either challenge or extrapolate from conventions or traditions can come from underground or rebel cultures can derive from changes in dominant culture 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

popular culture popular culture is often intended for or suited to the tastes, understanding or means of the general public rather than specialists or intellectuals study of popular culture investigates how identities, social values, and meaning are constructed and how this plays a role in constantly shifting global power relations examines the circuit of culture 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

cultural materialism comes from both anthropology and Marxism anthropologists define it as the relationship between social life and material conditions Marxists define it as the cultural production of meanings and values which use language and sign systems as a material form culture is a field of mutually constitutive relationships among individual subjects, collectivities and creative and intellectual activities at all levels of society 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

global perspective cultural studies has also developed in many other global locations simultaneously, including the US, Australia, Europe, South-East Asia, South America and Canada often linked to different fields of study or academic departments, including: English literature, sociology, anthropology, history, humanities, fine arts, media, or communication studies 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

global popular culture some new areas of study include: the body, the nation, the globalized city, public and private space, globalization and culture the emphasis moves away from England and the US as the centres of interest considers global circuits and practices of culture, including areas of study such as post-colonialism, diaspora studies, globalization of the film industry (e.g. Hollywood/Bollywood), global sex work, etc. 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

the circuit of culture from Stuart Hall, Representation. 2/18/20169Professor Jeppesen

representation culture produces and is produced by a collective set of shared meanings (representations) and values (ideologies) representation is the process by which we create and circulate meanings about the world we live in, through culture language and image-based systems are crucial to the process of meaning-making 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

representation & ideology according to Louis Althusser, ideology is a “system of representation--composed of ideas, concepts, myths, or images--in which people live their imaginary relations to the real conditions of existence” through representation, ideology constructs the individual as a social subject who accepts their role in society as ‘natural’ and inevitable ideologies can be either reinforced or challenged by cultural representations 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

representation & identity we have seen that, through representation, ideology constructs the individual as a social subject representations thus facilitate the construction of an identity for each social subject identity has many axes, including: race, gender, sex, sexual orientation, class, family, nationality, citizenship status, global location, leisure activities, subcultural group, etc. 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

representation - mimetic the mimetic view of representation holds that there is a knowable world out there, and when we produce images or words about it, then we have clearly and truthfully represented it representation thus is seen only to enter the field of culture once material objects or concepts have already been fully imbued with meaning 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

representation - construction cultural materialists and social construction theorists argue that representation is an important process in constructing social meanings that are then attached to things, concepts, etc. thus culture consists of not just objects that reflect a neutral set of things or ideas, but processes which determine what those things or ideas mean within our society 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen

next week Chapter 6. Communications Law and Policy Chapter 8. The Structure and Role of Ownership Take-home test distributed (due the following week). 2/18/2016 Professor Jeppesen