CULTURAL STUDIES

The term culture often varies depending on the context which is being brought forward in an interaction. “Culture is the ensemble of social processes by which meaning are produced, circulated and exchanged” (Thwaites et al., 1994, p. 1).

Henslin (1998) in his book titled Essentials of Sociology: A down-to-earth approach stated that, “All human groups possess culture – language, beliefs, values, norms and material objects passed from one generation to the next.  Material culture consists of objects (art, buildings, clothing, tools). Nonmaterial (or symbolic) culture is a group’s way of thinking and patterns of behaviour. Ideal culture is the values and norms that a group holds out for itself. Real culture is their actual behaviour, which often falls short of their cultural ideals” (p. 53).

Whereas Griffin (2009) sees cultural studies as, “A neo-Marxist critique that sets forth the position that mass media manufacture consent for dominant ideologies” (p.334). In short, the study looks into the matter of the way of life of certain group, community or society and how meaning of some things may differ between these group, community or society.

Before going further, it is crucial that we understand the term visual culture. As stated by Mirzoeff (1999) in his book titled An Introduction to Visual Culture, “Visual culture is concerned with visual events in which information, meaning, or pleasure is sought by the consumer in an interface with visual technology...any form of apparatus designed either to be looked at or to enhance natural vision, from oil painting to television and the internet” (p.3). He further added to the statement that postmodernity is created by the visual crisis of culture instead of textuality.

Edgar & Sedgwick (2008) sees visual culture as a representation of a ‘pictorial turn’ in cultural studies which theorists focus on the visual image and back away from text (verbal or literary).  How I view this is that as we are living in a post modern world, we are presented with various visual media types and our consumption of these media is somehow influential and affecting our lifestyle.

For example:

‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’ is a reality television series which focus on the life of the Kardashian and Jenner family. The Kardashians sisters and their brother Rob are known for being the children of the late Robert Kardashian, an attorney who won the defense against the O.J Simpsons murder trial. Other than that they are also famous for being socialites, models, their clothing line businesses and television personalities based on their multiple reality programs.

There are a few key terms which are needed to be taken into account in learning cultural studies: representations, discourse, ideologies and politics. In the lecture notes, Chris has mentioned that representation involves interpretation and always takes place in a discourse. The above statement is the representation of the image – ‘the Kardashian’.

Whereas discourse is defined by Foucault as the ‘frameworks of interpretation’ which is used in order to make sense (Griffin, 2009, p. 337). Thwaites et al (1994) defined discourse as “a set of textual arrangements which organises and co-ordinates the actions, positions and identities of the people who produce it” (p. 135). The discourse for the example above is ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians’.

Ideology is the process of representing material social relationships, and of attempting to reconcile them in discourse (Thwaites et al, 1994, p. 155). The ideologies that the Kardashians represents are wealth, high end fashion brands, beautiful (facial and curves), first class, lifestyles of the rich and famous, family hood.

Whereas politics as told during lecture is defined as involving all those processes whereby power relationships are implemented, maintained, challenge or altered in any sphere of activity whatsoever. The politics of the Kardashians are politics of consumerism, politics of femininity, politics of fashion and politics of class.

References:

Edgar, A., & Sedgwick, P. (2008). Cultural theory: the key concepts.                       (2^nd ed). London; New York: Routledge

Griffin, E. (2009). A first look at communication theory. (7^th ed).New York:                             The McGraw-Hill Companies.

Henslin, J. M. (1998). Essentials of sociology: a down-to-earth approach.              (2^nd ed). USA: A Viacom Company

Mirzoeff, N. (1999). An introduction to visual culture. Retrieved from                  http://books.google.com.bn/bookshl=en&lr=&id=hhajBE0mUfwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=visual+culture&ots=itaAhWzgla&sig=8EtlXLeNAeuWMFYbyiZbl3ONsvg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=visual%20culture&f=false

Thwaites, T., Davis, L., & Mules, W. (1994). Tools for cultural studies:                  an introduction. South Melbourne: Macmillan