Summary
Samenvatting Cultural Media Studies
- Course
- Institution
- Book
Dit is een volledige samenvatting van het boek en de lessen, behalve H9 aangezien dit niet werd behandeld in de les.
[Show more]
Connected book
Book Title:
Author(s):
- Edition:
- ISBN:
- Edition:
More summaries for
-
Cultural Theory and Popular Culture "The battle of Cultures"
-
EXAMENVRAGEN Cultural Media Studies (100% SLAAGKANS)
-
OPEN VRAGEN Cultural Media Studies
3 reviews
By: steffivanaelst • 1 month ago
By: louisevandewalle • 1 year ago
By: amberlinemartens13 • 2 year ago
Seller
Followmariederick1
Reviews received
Content preview
CULTURALMEDIA
STUDIES
ACADEMIEJAAR 2021/2022
Prof. Liesbeth Vandevijver
NEL LIEBRAND | MARIE DE RICK
, CULTURA MEDIA STUDIES – INTRODUCTION
CENTRAL TOPICS
Christoffer wylie is a whistle blower who locked/brought attention to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
à Trough Facebook sought your specific interest and then target you with advertisement that could in a very
small way could influence your choice on the selection
The role of popular (media) culture in society
Popular culture
• Linked to power
• Is ideological in nature
• Represents norms and values: here vs china
• Relates to our identities
• Relates to struggles in society (social, political, economic, or technological)
o Technology: what is the importance of this technology on for example Netflix
In this course
• The role of popular media as central to how people make sense of the world
• How media are intertwined with power, ideology but also agency
• It will provide you with knowledge of important theoretical schools to think more deeply about the
relationship between media, culture, and society
• It ill provides a history of the development of media’s relationship to culture
• You will be introduced to cases and examples that are directly speaking to the real-life world
the idea that you need to bring on your own cases Is also part of the examen!
Example dia: whitewashing à the original movie was from 1995 (Japanese movie). In 2017 Hollywood gave you
Scarlett Johanson. Take a white actor and put in a role for an actor that is not white. Some of the issues we’ve
seen but in this course, we will see more context and cases.
Example dia: overlap with Content en textual analysis à Jack is a very good example of queer reading. It is
textual analysis of this movie, they put on the glassed of queer studies that it is Jack who’s searching for his
sexuality in these movies
1
, H1: WHAT IS POPULAR CULTURE?
Popular culture has been defined and analyzed in different ways historically, theoretically, and
methodological.
We’re going to outline some of the general features of the debate that the study of popular culture has
generated, to map out the general conceptual landscape of popular culture.
Part of the difficulty stems from the implied otherness that is always absent/present when we use the term
'popular culture'. As we shall see in the chapters that follow, popular culture is always defined, implicitly
or explicitly, in contrast to other conceptual categories: folk culture, mass culture, high culture, dominant
culture, working-class culture. A full definition must always take this into account.
We shall also see, whichever conceptual category is deployed as popular culture's absent other, it will
always powerfully affect the connotations brought into play when we use the term 'popular culture'.
à Therefore, to study popular culture we must first confront the difficulty posed by the term itself. For it
will almost certainly be the case that the kind of analysis we do and the theoretical frame we employ to do
this analysis will be largely shaped by the definition of popular culture we use
INTRODUCTION OF THE LESSON
Can you think about what popular culture means to you? Think about examples, memories about consuming
popular culture, what memories do memories about consuming popular culture evoke
• Enjoyed by a lot of people but often short living
• Not necessarily mainstream, recognized by a lot of people and used in mainstream media (pop movie)
• Long time investment in popular culture à it has a definition by media, sustained by people, it is about
an investment and temporality
Prof: when she thinks about popular culture, what you see on the picture
is what comes to her mind (Hogwarts uniforms). It is not just the
reference to the movies, but it is also a personal investment (belonging
to communities). Like the Belgian Comicon’s, they dress up and invested
in something since they were a kid.
Popular culture is always defined in relation to what is not, implied otherness
• An empty conceptual category
• Progress in humanity is not progress in science, this is also fo culture. There is always a abscense,
something that is missing. How would you define this by saying baying popular culture is not high
2
, cultutre, … there is always an idea that there is a little ghost that is not around. You could say it is an
empty concept, but it is not. There is a lot of conflicting thinking about what popular culture is
The study of popular culture in media and communication studies.
• The communication studies and media studies think about popular culture as something that has a
history or that thinking about popular culture itself also has a history.
• You could laso say That within media studies and within communication studies, it is always about
thinking about the relationships and popular culture within concepts of power and concepts of ideology.
• And finally, the last thing that media and communication sciences think about is the fact that popular
culture gives meaning to everyday life and also its structures everyday life. So they take that concept of
everyday life and they intertwine popular culture within it as being its defining object of studying
• So film, tv, gaming, newspapers à various study topics
CULTURE
To define popular culture, we first need to define the
term ‘culture’.
There are three defining ways of looking at culture. Why
is specifically culture? It is, as Williams says it's a really
difficult concept to define. Mainly because it's extremely
broad, so the three concepts of the three definitions that are in the book. Or what you might say the most
convenient ones of looking at culture. But there is one thing I'm going to say it a couple of times this is not a final
answer to what culture is. People will always define it differentlyn the reason that these definition do (important)
is because the school use these definitions
Raymond Williams: culture = one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.
Williams suggests three broad definitions:
1. Culture can be used to refer to 'a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic
development
• E.g., cultural development of Western Europe and referring only to intellectual, spiritual,
and aesthetic factors (great poets, artists, …)
• this is extremely broad! So hard to use
• Great men history! History by anker points great achievement mainly by great white men.
History is it was a linear line
3
, 2. The word culture might suggest ‘a particular way of life’ (people, period, or a group)/
• E.g., cultural development of Western Europe and we would have in mind not just
intellectual and aesthetic factors, but the development of, for example, literacy, holidays,
sport, and religious festivals.
• More concrete
• It takes into account practices as well
• This definition helps us to understand in culture why in gods name we celebrate Halloween
3. Products and practices of intellectual and artistic activities. In other words, culture here means the
texts and practices whose principal function is to signify to produce or to be the occasion to
produce meaning
• E.g., writers, painters, film directors à theatre, opera, dance, soap
• Here we will start to look at text, and try to understand why there is meaning, how
meaning is being constructed and how this text could produce meaning
• This is a small part: looking at the product themselves à the signify practices
To speak of popular culture usually means to mobilize the second and third meanings of the word 'culture'
• The second meaning culture as a particular way of life -- would allow us to speak of such practices
as the seaside holiday, the celebration of Christmas, and youth subcultures, as examples of
culture. These are usually referred to as lived cultures or practices.
• The third meaning - culture as signifying practices - would allow us to speak of soap opera, pop
music, and comics as examples of culture. These are usually referred to as texts
IDEOLOGY
4
, The importance of ideology is because a lot of these cultural theorists are actually saying that it is quite
interchangeable. The concept of culture and the concept of
ideology. It is also extremely important when looking at
cultural studies and specifically cultural media studies, as the
internal he says it's the most important conceptual concept
within cultural studies, which he actually calls ideological
studies. So it is not just an idea of looking at popular looking at
culture, but because these words are so often interchanged is
really interesting to see what the definitions are ideology.
Ideology is a crucial concept in the study of popular culture:
• Graeme turner: ‘the most important conceptual category in cultural studies’
• James Caret: 'British cultural studies could be described just as easily and perhaps more accurately
as ideological studies'
Ideology has many competing meanings. An understanding of this concept is often complicated by the fact
that in much cultural analysis the concept is used interchangeably with culture itself, and especially popular
culture. The fact that ideology has been used to refer to the same conceptual terrain as culture and popular
culture makes it an important term in any understanding of the nature of popular culture.
FIRST DEFINITION – A SYSTEMATIC BODY OF IDEAS ARTICULATED BY A PARTICULAR GROUP
OF PEPLE
Ideology can refer to a systematic body of ideas articulated by a particular group of people.
• E.g., we could speak of 'professional ideology' to refer to the ideas that inform the practices of
professional groups. We could also speak of the 'ideology of the Labour Party. Here we would be
referring to the collection of political, economic, and social ideas that inform the aspirations and
activities of the party.
• Example ikea. There is a business ideology of IKEA. If you look at their. Way of defining the corporate
business. Have a whole ideology of what their business should be. But of course, ideology can also be
used within this definition as anything that has to do with the political or social or economical views of
a political party
SECOND DEFINITION: MASKING, DISTORTION OR CONCEALMENT
5
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller mariederick1. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $9.11. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
72042 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now