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Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture

Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture

1 , , and Media

Douglas Kellner

adio, , , popular music, the and social networking, and other R forms and products of provide materials out of which we forge our very identities, including our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be male or female; our conception of class, ethnicity and race, , sexuality; and division of the world into categories of “us” and “them.” Media images help shape our view of the world and our deepest values: what we consider good or bad, positive or negative, moral or evil. Media stories provide the symbols, , and resources through which we constitute a common culture and through the appropriation of which we insert ourselves into this culture. Media spectacles demonstrate who has power and who is powerless, who is allowed to exercise force and violence and who is not. They dramatize and legitimate the power of the forces that be and show the powerless that they must stay in their places or be oppressed. We are immersed from cradle to grave in a media and consumer , and thus it is important to learn how to understand, interpret, and criticize its meanings and messages. The media are a profound and often misperceived source of cultural : They contribute to educating us how to behave and what to think, feel, believe, fear, and desire—and what not to. The media are forms of pedagogy that teach us how to be men and women. They show us how to dress, look, and consume; how to react to members of different social groups; how to be popular and successful and how to avoid failure; and how to conform to the dominant system of norms, values, practices, and . Consequently, the gaining of critical is an important resource for individu- als and citizens in learning how to cope with a seductive cultural environment. Learning how to read, criticize, and resist sociocultural manipulation can help one empower oneself in relation to dominant forms of media and culture. It can enhance individual sovereignty vis-à-vis media culture and give people more power over their cultural environment. In this chapter, I will discuss the potential contributions of a cultural studies perspective to media and literacy. From the 1980s to the present, cultural studies has emerged as a set of approaches to the study of culture, society, and . The project was

This piece is an original essay that was commissioned for this volume. It has been updated from an earlier version that appeared in the third edition.

 7 ©SAGE Publications 8  Part I A Cultural Studies Approach to Media: Theory inaugurated by the and system through which culture is pro- Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, duced and consumed and that the study of which developed a variety of critical meth- culture is thus intimately bound up with the ods for the , interpretation, and study of society, politics, and . criticism of cultural artifacts. Through a set Cultural studies shows how media culture of internal debates, and responding to social articulates the dominant values, political struggles and movements of the 1960s and , and social developments and 1970s, the Birmingham group came to focus novelties of the era. It conceives of U.S. on the interplay of representations and ide- culture and society as a contested terrain, ologies of class, , race, ethnicity, and with various groups and ideologies strug- nationality in cultural texts, including media gling for dominance (Kellner, 1995, 2010). culture. They were among the first to study Television, film, music, and other popular the effects on audiences of newspapers, cultural forms are thus often liberal or con- , television, film, , and other servative, or occasionally express more popular cultural forms. They also focused on radical or oppositional views—and can be how various audiences interpreted and used contradictory and ambiguous as well in media culture differently, analyzing the fac- their meanings and messages. tors that made different audiences respond Cultural studies is valuable because it in contrasting ways to various media texts, provides some tools that enable individuals and how they made use of media in their to read and interpret culture critically. It also personal and social lives in a multiplicity of subverts distinctions between “high” and ways.1 “low” culture by considering a wide contin- Through studies of youth , uum of cultural artifacts, from opera and British cultural studies demonstrated how novels to soap operas and TV wrestling, culture came to constitute distinct forms of while refusing to erect any specific elite cul- identity and group membership for young tural or canons. Earlier main- people. In the view of cultural studies, media stream academic approaches to culture culture provides the materials for construct- tended to be primarily literary and elitist, ing views of the world, behavior, and even dismissing media culture as banal, trashy, identities. Those who uncritically follow the and not worthy of serious attention. The dictates of media culture tend to “main- project of cultural studies, in contrast, avoids stream” themselves, conforming to the dom- cutting the field of culture into high and low, inant , values, and behavior. Yet or popular versus elite. Such distinctions are cultural studies is also interested in how difficult to maintain and generally serve as a subcultural groups and individuals resist front for normative aesthetic valuations and, dominant forms of culture and identity, cre- often, a political program (i.e., either dis- ating their own style and identities. Those missing mass culture for /art or who obey ruling dress and fashion codes, celebrating what is deemed “popular” while behavior, and political ideologies thus pro- scorning “elitist” high culture). duce their identities as members of specific Cultural studies allows us to examine social groupings within contemporary U.S. and critically scrutinize the whole range of culture, such as White, middle-class, conser- culture without prior toward vative American men, or lesbian African one or another sort of cultural text, institu- American women, for instance. Persons tion, or practice. It also opens the way who identify with subcultures, such as punk toward more differentiated political, rather culture or Latino subcultures, dress and act than aesthetic, valuations of cultural arti- differently than those in the and facts in which one attempts to distinguish thus create oppositional identities, defining critical and oppositional from conformist themselves against standard models. and conservative moments in a given cul- Cultural studies insists that culture tural artifact. For instance, studies of must be studied within the social relations Hollywood film show how key 1960s

©SAGE Publications Chapter 1 Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture  9 promoted the views of radicals and the process of political struggle and emancipa- and how film in the 1970s tion from oppression and domination. was a battleground between liberal and For cultural studies, the concept of conservative positions; late 1970s films, is of central importance, for however, tended toward conservative posi- dominant ideologies serve to reproduce tions that helped elect Ronald Reagan as social relations of domination and subor- president (see Kellner & Ryan, 1988). dination.2 Ideologies of class, for instance, During the Bush–Cheney era, there were celebrate upper-class life and denigrate many oppositional films, such as the work the . Ideologies of gender of Michael Moore, and liberal films that promote sexist representations of women, featured black heroes and anticipated the oppressive ideologies of sexuality pro- election of Barack Obama (Kellner, 2010). mote homophobia, and ideologies of race For instance, African American actor Will use racist representations of people of Smith was the top grossing U.S. actor dur- color and various minority groups. ing the Bush–Cheney era, Denzel Washington Ideologies make inequalities and subordi- won two Academy Awards and played a nation appear natural and just and thus wide range of characters, and Morgan induce consent to relations of domination. Freeman played a president, corporate Contemporary are structured by executive, crime figure, and even God, opposing groups who have different polit- attesting that U.S. publics were ready to see ical ideologies (liberal, conservative, radi- African Americans in major positions in all cal, etc.), and cultural studies specifies arenas of society. This is not to say that what, if any, ideologies are operative in a Hollywood “caused” Obama’s surprising given (which could victory in 2008 but that U.S. media culture involve, of course, the specification of anticipated a black president. ambiguities and ideological contradic- There is an intrinsically critical and tions). In the course of this study, I will political dimension to the project of cul- provide some examples of how different tural studies that distinguishes it from ideologies are operative in media cultural objectivist and apolitical academic texts and will accordingly provide exam- approaches to the study of culture and soci- ples of ideological analysis and critique. ety. British cultural studies, for example, Because of its focus on representations analyzed culture historically in the context of race, gender, sexuality, and class, and its of its societal origins and effects. It situated critique of ideologies that promote various culture within a theory of social production forms of oppression, cultural studies lends and reproduction, specifying the ways cul- itself to a multiculturalist program that tural forms served either to further social demonstrates how culture reproduces cer- domination or to enable people to resist tain forms of racism, sexism, and biases and struggle against domination. It ana- against members of subordinate classes, lyzed society as a hierarchical and antago- social groups, or alternative lifestyles. nistic set of social relations characterized by Multiculturalism affirms the worth of dif- the oppression of subordinate class, gender, ferent types of culture and cultural groups, race, ethnic, and national strata. Employing claiming, for instance, that Black; Latino; the Italian sociologist ’s Asian; Native American; lesbian, gay, (1971) model of and counterhe- bisexual, transgendered, and questioning gemony, it sought to analyze “hegemonic” (LGBTQ); and other oppressed and mar- or ruling, social, and cultural forces of ginalized voices have their own validity domination and to seek “counterhege- and importance. An insurgent multicultur- monic” forces of resistance and struggle. alism attempts to show how various peo- The project was aimed at social transfor- ple’s voices and experiences are silenced mation and attempted to specify forces and omitted from mainstream culture, and of domination and resistance to aid the struggles to aid in the articulation of

©SAGE Publications 10  Part I A Cultural Studies Approach to Media: Theory diverse views, experiences, and cultural type of cultural studies I find most useful forms from groups excluded from the for understanding contemporary U.S. society, mainstream. This makes it a target of con- culture, and politics. servative forces that wish to preserve the existing canons of White male, Eurocentric privilege, and thus attack multiculturalism Components of a Critical in cultural raging from the 1960s to Cultural Studies Approach the present over , the arts, and the limits of free expression. Cultural studies thus promotes a criti- As a theoretical apparatus, cultural studies cal multiculturalist politics and media contains a threefold project of analyzing pedagogy that aims to make people sensi- the production and of tive to how relations of power and domi- culture, cultural texts, and the audience nation are “encoded” in cultural texts, reception of those texts and their effects in such as those of television and film, or a concrete sociohistorical context. This how new technologies and media such as comprehensive approach avoids too nar- the Internet and social networking can be rowly focusing on one dimension of the used for oppositional pedagogical or project to the exclusion of others. To avoid political purposes (Kahn & Kellner, such limitations, I propose a multiperspec- 2008). A critical cultural studies approach tival approach that (a) discusses produc- also specifies how people can resist the tion and political economy, (b) engages in dominant encoded meanings and produce textual analysis, and (c) studies the recep- their own critical and alternative readings tion and use of cultural texts.3 and media artifacts, as well as new identi- ties and social relations. Cultural studies can show how media culture manipulates Production and and indoctrinates us and thus can Political Economy empower individuals to resist the domi- nant meanings in media cultural products and produce their own meanings. It can Since cultural production has been neglected also point to moments of resistance and in many modes of recent cultural studies, it criticism within media culture and thus is important to stress the importance of ana- help promote development of more criti- lyzing cultural texts within their system of cal consciousness. production and distribution, often referred A critical cultural studies approach— to as the political economy of culture.4 embodied in many of the articles collected Inserting texts into the system of culture in this reader—thus develops concepts and within which they are produced and distrib- analyses that will enable readers to ana- uted can help elucidate features and effects lytically dissect the artifacts of contempo- of the texts that textual analysis alone might rary media culture and gain power over miss or downplay. Rather than being an their cultural environment. By exposing antithetical approach to culture, political the entire field of culture and media tech- economy can actually contribute to textual nology to knowledgeable scrutiny, and critique. The system of produc- studies provides a broad, comprehensive tion often determines, in part, what sorts of framework to undertake studies of culture, artifacts will be produced, what structural politics, and society for the purposes of limits will determine what can and cannot be individual empowerment and social and said and shown, and what sorts of audience political struggle and transformation. In effects the text may generate. the following pages, I will therefore indi- Study of the codes of television, film, or cate some of the chief components of the popular music, for instance, is enhanced

©SAGE Publications Chapter 1 Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture  11 by studying the formulas and conventions taken over by major corporate conglomer- of production, which are shaped by eco- ates: ABC was taken over in 1985 by Capital nomic and technical, as well as aesthetic Cities, NBC was taken over by GE, and CBS and cultural, considerations. Dominant was taken over by the Tisch Financial cultural forms are structured by well- Group. Both ABC and NBC sought corpo- defined rules and conventions, and the rate mergers, and this motivation, along study of the production of culture can help with other benefits derived from elucidate the codes actually in play. Because Reaganism, might well have influenced of the demands of the format of radio or them to downplay criticisms of Reagan music television, for instance, most popu- and generally support his conservative lar songs are 3 to 5 minutes long, fitting programs, adventures, and simu- into the format of the distribution system, lated presidency. just as the length of content on YouTube Corporate conglomeratization has or Twitter has technical constraints. From intensified further, and today Time the early years of the Internet to the pres- Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch’s News ent, there have been legal and political Corporation, Viacom, and other global conflicts concerning file sharing of music, media conglomerates control ever more other forms of media culture, and infor- domains of the production and distribu- mation, situating media culture in a force tion of culture (McChesney, 2000, 2007). field of political conflict. Because of their In this global context, one cannot really control by giant corporations oriented analyze the role of the media in the Gulf primarily toward , film and televi- , for instance, without also analyzing sion production in the United States is the production and political economy of dominated by specific genres such as talk news and information, as well as the and game shows, soap operas, situation actual text of the Gulf War and its recep- comedies, action/adventure series, reality tion by its audience (see Kellner, 1992). TV series, and so on, which are familiar Likewise, the ownership by conservative and popular with audiences. This eco- corporations of dominant media corpo- nomic factor explains why there are cycles rations helps explain of certain genres and subgenres, sequel- support of the Bush–Cheney administra- mania in the film industry, crossovers of tion and its policies, such as the wars in popular films into television series, and a Afghanistan and Iraq (Kellner, 2003, certain homogeneity in products consti- 2005). tuted within systems of production marked Looking toward , female by relatively rigid generic codes, formulaic stars such as , Britney conventions, and well-defined ideological Spears, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga deploy boundaries. the tools of the glamour industry and Likewise, study of political economy media spectacle to become icons of fash- can help determine the limits and range of ion, beauty, style, and sexuality, as well as political and ideological and purveyors of music. And in appraising the effects. My study of television in the full social impact of , one United States, for instance, disclosed that needs to be aware of the immense profits the takeover of the television networks by generated by the sex industry and the major transnational corporations and potential for harm endemic to the produc- communications conglomerates in the tion process of, say, pornographic films 1980s was part of a “right turn” within and videos, and not just dwell on the texts U.S. society, whereby powerful corporate themselves and their effects on audiences. groups won control of the state and the Furthermore, in an era of , mainstream media (Kellner, 1990). For exam- one must be aware of the global networks ple, during the 1980s, all three networks were that produce and distribute culture in the

©SAGE Publications 12  Part I A Cultural Studies Approach to Media: Theory interests of profit and corporate hege- say, episodes of violence in a text to mony. The Internet and new media link the qualitative study that examines represen- globe and distribute more culture to more tations of women, Blacks, or other groups, people than at any time in , yet or applies various critical theories to giant media conglomerates and institu- unpack the meanings of the texts or expli- tions, such as the state, that can exert cate how texts function to produce mean- continue to be major forces of ing. Traditionally, the qualitative analysis (see McChesney 2013). of texts attended to the formal artistic Yet political economy alone does not hold properties of imaginative —such the key to cultural studies, and important as style, verbal imagery, characterization, as it is, it has limitations as a single structure, and point of view. approach. Some political economy analy- From the 1960s on, however, literary- ses reduce the meanings and effects of formalist textual analysis has been texts to rather circumscribed and reductive enhanced by methods derived from semi- ideological functions, arguing that media otics, a system for investigating the creation culture merely reflects the ideology of the of meaning not only in written languages ruling economic elite that controls the cul- but also in other, nonverbal codes, such as ture industries and is nothing more than a the visual and auditory languages of film vehicle for capitalist ideology. It is true and TV. that media culture overwhelmingly sup- analyzes how linguistic and ports capitalist values, but it is also a site nonlinguistic cultural “” form systems of intense struggle between different races, of meanings, as when giving someone a classes, , and social groups. It is rose is interpreted as a sign of love or get- also possible in the age of new media and ting an A on a college paper is a sign of social networking for consumers to mastery of the rules of the specific assign- become producers of their own media con- ment. Semiotic analysis can be connected tent and form, including oppositional with genre criticism (the study of conven- voices and resistance. Thus, to fully grasp tions governing long-established types of the nature and effects of media culture, cultural forms, such as soap operas) to one needs to develop methods to analyze reveal how the codes and forms of particu- the full range of its meanings and effects lar genres construct certain meanings. that are sensitive to the always mutating Situation comedies, for instance, classically terrain of media culture and technology. follow a conflict/resolution model that demonstrates how to solve certain social problems with correct actions and values, Textual Analysis and they thus provide morality tales of proper and improper behavior. Soap operas, by contrast, proliferate problems The products of media culture require mul- and provide messages concerning the tidimensional close textual readings to endurance and suffering needed to get analyze their various forms of discourses, through life’s endless miseries, while gener- ideological positions, narrative strategies, ating positive and negative models of social image construction, and effects. “Reading” behavior. And advertising shows how com- an artifact of media culture involves inter- modity solutions solve problems of popu- preting the forms and meanings of ele- larity, acceptance, success, and the like. ments in a music video or television ad as A semiotic and genre analysis of the one might read and interpret a book. There film Rambo (1982), for instance, would has been a wide range of types of textual show how it follows the conventions of criticism of media culture, from quantitative the Hollywood genre of the war film that that dissects the number of, dramatizes conflicts between the United

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States and its “enemies” (see Kellner, each dimension of ideological domination 1995). Semiotics describes how the images across representations of class, race, gen- of the villains are constructed according to der, and sexuality, and other forms of the codes of World War II movies and how domination and subordination and to the resolution of the conflict and happy show how specific serve inter- ending follow the tradition of Hollywood ests of domination and oppression, contest classical cinema, which portray the victory it, or are ambiguous (as with many exam- of good over evil. Semiotic analysis would ples of media culture). Each critical method also include study of the strictly cinematic focuses on certain features of a text from a and formal elements of a film such as specific perspective: The perspective spot- Rambo, dissecting the ways camera angles lights, or illuminates, some features of a present Rambo as a god or how slow- text while ignoring others. Marxist meth- motion images of him gliding through the ods tend to focus on class, for instance, jungle code him as a force of nature. while feminist approaches highlight gen- Formal analysis of a film also includes der, emphasizes race how lighting is used to code characters as and ethnicity, and gay and lesbian theories “good” or “evil,” or how any of the techni- explicate sexuality. Yet today, the concept cal features of film production can help of “” is often used, and generate meanings. many feminists, Marxists, critical race Similarly, a semiotic analysis of James scholars, and other forms of cultural stud- Cameron’s Avatar (2009) would reveal ies depict how gender, class, race, sexuality, how the images in the film present an anti- and other components intersect and co- militarist and pro-ecological agenda, construct each other in complex cultural although the narrative form celebrates a ways (see Crenshaw, 1991). White, male savior, replicating more con- Various critical methods have their own servative narratives. Avatar also demon- strengths and limitations, their optics and strates how artifacts can project a blind spots. Traditionally, Marxian ideol- of political and ideological mean- ogy have been strong on class ings, often ambiguous or contradictory. and historical contextualization and weak Discussions of Avatar have also generated on formal analysis, while some versions heated debates in the politics of represen- are highly “reductionist,” reducing textual tation, concerning how the film has repre- analysis to denunciation of ruling class sented gender, sexuality, race, the military, ideology. excels in gender analy- and the environment, as well as other sis and in some versions is formally sophis- themes and dimensions of the film (see ticated, drawing on such methods as Kellner, 2010). and semiotics, although The textual analysis of cultural studies some versions are reductive, and early thus combines formalist analysis with cri- feminism often limited itself to analysis of tique of how cultural meanings convey images of gender. Psychoanalysis in turn specific ideologies of gender, race, class, calls for the interpretation of unconscious sexuality, nation, and other ideological contents and meaning, which can articu- dimensions. Ideologies refer to ideas or late latent meanings in a text, as when images that construct the superiority of Alfred Hitchcock’s dream sequences one class or group over others (i.e., men project cinematic symbols that illuminate over women, Whites over people of color, his characters’ dilemmas or when the ruling elites over working-class people, image of the female character in Bonnie etc.) and thus reproduce and legitimate and Clyde (1967), framed against the bar different forms of social domination. of her bed, suggests her sexual frustration, Ideological textual analysis should deploy imprisonment in middle-class family life, a wide range of methods to fully explicate and need to revolt.

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Of course, each reading of a text is only of its major contributions, although there one possible reading from one critic’s are also some limitations and problems with subjective position, no matter how multi- the standard cultural studies approaches to perspectival, and may or may not be the the audience.5 reading preferred by audiences (which Ethnographic research studies people themselves will be significantly different and their groups and and is fre- according to class, race, gender, ethnicity, quently used in an attempt to determine ideology, and so on). Because there is a how media texts affect specific audiences split between textual encoding and audi- and shape their beliefs and behavior. ence decoding, there is always the possibil- Ethnographic cultural studies have indi- ity for a multiplicity of readings of any cated some of the various ways audiences text of media culture (Hall, 1980b). There use and appropriate texts, often to are limits to the openness or polysemic empower themselves. For example, teenag- nature of any text, of course, and textual ers use video games and music television analysis can explicate the parameters of to escape from the demands of a disciplin- possible readings and delineate perspec- ary society. Males use sports media events tives that aim at illuminating the text and as a terrain of fantasy identification, in its cultural and ideological effects. Such which they feel empowered as “their” analysis also provides the materials for team or star triumphs. Such sports events criticizing misreadings, or readings that also generate a form of community cur- are one-sided and incomplete. Yet to fur- rently being lost in the privatized media ther carry through a cultural studies analy- and consumer culture of our time. Indeed, sis, one must also examine how diverse fandoms of all sorts, from Star Trek fans audiences actually read media texts and (“Trekkies”/“Trekkers”) to devotees of attempt to determine what impact or various soap operas, reality shows, or cur- influence they have on audience thought rent highly popular TV series, also form and behavior. communities that enable them to relate to others who share their interests and hob- bies. Some fans, in fact, actively re-create Audience Reception their favorite cultural forms (see examples and Use of Media Culture in Jenkins, 1992; Lewis, 1992; and Gray, Sandvoss, & Harrington, 2007). Other studies have shown that audiences can All texts are subject to multiple readings subvert the intentions of the producers or depending on the perspectives and subject managers of the cultural industries that positions of the reader. Members of distinct supply them, as when astute young media genders, classes, races, nations, regions, users laugh at obvious attempts to hype sexual preferences, and political ideologies certain characters, shows, or products (see are going to read texts differently, and cul- de Certeau, 1984, for more examples of tural studies can illuminate why diverse audiences constructing meaning and audiences interpret texts in various, some- engaging in practices in critical and sub- times conflicting, ways. Media culture pro- versive ways). vides materials for individuals and The emphasis on active audience communities to create identities and mean- reception and appropriation, then, has ings, and cultural studies work on audi- helped cultural studies overcome the pre- ences detects a variety of potentially viously one-sided textualist orientations empowering uses of cultural forms. One of to culture and also has directed focus to the merits of cultural studies is that it has the actual political effects texts may focused on audience reception and fan have. By combining quantitative and appropriation, and this focus provides one qualitative research, audience reception

©SAGE Publications Chapter 1 Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture  15 and fandom studies—including some of with the interests of the the chapters in this reader—are provid- and the ideological intentions of a text, as ing important contributions to how peo- when audiences feel pleasure in the resto- ple interact with cultural texts. ration of male power, and order, and Yet I see several problems with recep- social stability at the end of a film such as tion studies as they have been constituted Die Hard, after the hero and representa- within cultural studies, particularly in the tives of authority eliminate the terrorists United States. Importantly, there is a dan- who had taken over a high-rise corporate ger that class will be downplayed as a sig- headquarters. An “oppositional” reading, nificant variable that structures audience in contrast, celebrates the resistance to this decoding and use of cultural texts. Cultural reading in audience appropriation of a studies in England were particularly sensi- text. For example, Fiske (1993) observed tive to class differences—as well as subcul- (and implicitly approved) resistance to tural differences—in the use and reception dominant readings when homeless indi- of cultural texts, but I have noted many viduals in a shelter cheered the violent dissertations, books, and articles in cul- destruction of and authority figures tural studies in the United States in which during repeated viewings of a videotape of attention to class has been downplayed or Die Hard. is missing altogether. This is not surprising, Fiske’s study illustrates a tendency in as a neglect of class as a constitutive fea- cultural studies to celebrate resistance per ture of culture and society is endemic in se without distinguishing between types the American academy in most disciplines. and forms of resistance (a similar problem There is also the reverse danger, how- resides with indiscriminate celebration of ever, of exaggerating the constitutive force audience pleasure in certain reception of class and downplaying, or ignoring, studies). For example, some would argue such other variables as gender and ethnic- that the violent resistance to social author- ity. Staiger (1992) noted that Fiske, build- ity valorized in this reading of Die Hard ing on Hartley, lists seven “subjectivity glamorizes brutal, masculinist behavior positions” that are important in cultural and the use of physical violence to solve reception—“self, gender, age-group, fam- social problems. It is true that theorists of ily, class, nation, ethnicity”—and proposes revolution, including Jean-Paul Sartre, adding sexuality. All these factors, and no , and , doubt more, interact in shaping how audi- among others, have argued that violence ences receive and use texts and must be can be either emancipatory, when directed taken into account in studying cultural at forces of oppression, or reactionary, reception, for audiences decode and use when directed at popular forces struggling texts according to the specific constituents against oppression. In contrast, many fem- of their class, race or ethnicity, gender, inists and those in the Gandhian tradition sexual preference, and so on. see all violence against others as a form of Furthermore, I would warn against a brutal, masculinist behavior, and many tendency to romanticize the “active audi- people see it as a problematic form of con- ence” by claiming that all audiences pro- flict resolution. Thus, audience pleasure in duce their own meanings and denying that violent resistance cannot be valorized per media culture may have powerful manipu- se as a progressive element of the appro- lative effects. There is a tendency within priation of cultural texts. Instead, difficult the cultural studies tradition of reception discriminations must be made as to research to dichotomize between domi- whether the resistance, oppositional read- nant and oppositional readings (Hall, ing, or pleasure in a given experience 1980b). “Dominant” readings are those in should be understood as progressive or which audiences appropriate texts in line reactionary, emancipatory or destructive.

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Thus, while emphasis on the audience some cases, produce their own versions, and reception was an excellent correction disseminated to audiences throughout the to the one-sidedness of purely textual Internet and via new digital technologies, analysis, I believe that in recent years, cul- media culture expands its reach and power tural studies has overemphasized reception while audiences can feel that they are part and textual analysis while underemphasiz- of their preferred cultural sites and phe- ing the production of culture and its nomena. Studies are proliferating in this political economy. This type of cultural field, examining how Facebook, YouTube, studies fetishizes audience reception stud- Twitter, and other new media are used by ies and neglects both production and tex- individuals and groups in diverse ways, tual analysis, thus producing populist from sharing pictures and media content to celebrations of the text and audience plea- social networking to political expression sure in its use of cultural artifacts. This and organizing and pedagogical purposes approach, taken to an extreme, would lose (Kellner & Kim, 2010). its critical perspective and put a positive gloss on audience experience of whatever is being studied. Such studies also might Toward a Cultural Studies lose sight of the manipulative and conser- That Is Critical, Multicultural, vative effects of certain types of media and Multiperspectival culture and thus serve the interests of the cultural industries as they are presently constituted. To avoid the one-sidedness of textual No doubt, media effects are complex analysis approaches or audience and recep- and controversial, and it is the merit of tion studies, I propose that cultural studies cultural studies to make the analysis of itself be multiperspectival, getting at cul- such effects an important part of its ture from the perspectives of political agenda. Previous studies of the audience economy, text analysis, and audience and reception of media privileged ethno- reception, as outlined above. Textual anal- graphic studies that selected slices of the ysis should use a multiplicity of perspec- vast media audiences, usually from the tives and critical methods, and audience sites where researchers themselves lived. reception studies should delineate the wide Such studies are invariably limited, and range of subject positions, or perspectives, broader effects research can indicate how through which audiences appropriate cul- the most popular artifacts of media culture ture. This requires a multicultural approach have a wide range of effects. that sees the importance of analyzing the One new way to research media effects dimensions of class, race and ethnicity, and is to use Google, or databases that collect gender and sexual preference within the media texts, to trace certain effects of texts of media culture, while also studying media artifacts through analysis of refer- their impact on how audiences read and ences to them in the journalistic media. interpret media culture. Likewise, a new terrain of Internet audi- In addition, a critical cultural studies ence research studies how fans act in chat approach attacks sexism, heterosexism, rooms or on fansites devoted to their racism, and bias against specific social favorite artifacts of media culture. New groups (i.e., gays, intellectuals, seniors, etc.) media such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and criticizes texts that promote any kind and other social networking sites produce of domination or oppression. As an exam- forums for more active audiences, as well ple of how considerations of production, as new sites for audience research. As audi- textual analysis, and audience readings can ences critically discuss or celebrate their fruitfully intersect in cultural studies, let us preferred artifacts of media culture and, in reflect on the Madonna phenomenon.

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Madonna came on the scene in the moment and marriages and ongoing world tours, of Reaganism and embodied the material- as well as to examine how contemporary istic and consumer-oriented ethos of the fans view Madonna in an age that 1980s (“Material Girl”). She also appeared embraces pop singers such as Beyoncé and in a time of dramatic image proliferation, Lady Gaga. associated with MTV, fashion fever, and Likewise, Michael Jackson’s initial pop- intense marketing of products. Madonna ularity derived from carefully managed was one of the first MTV music video media spectacles, first in the Jackson Five superstars who consciously crafted images and then in his own career. Jackson achieved to attract a mass audience. Her early music his superstar status, like Madonna, from his videos were aimed at teenage girls (the MTV-disseminated music videos and spec- Madonna wannabes), but she soon incor- tacular concert performances, in which porated Black, Hispanic, and minority promotion, image , and his audiences with her images of interracial publicity apparatus made him the King of sex and multicultural “family” in her con- Pop. While, like Madonna, his frequent certs. She also appealed to gay and lesbian tabloid and media presence helped promote audiences, as well as feminist and academic his career, media spectacle and tabloids also audiences, as her videos became more com- derailed it, as he was charged with child plex and political (e.g., “Like a Prayer,” abuse in well-publicized cases. After his “Express Yourself,” “Vogue,” etc.). death in 2009, however, Jackson had a Thus, Madonna’s popularity was in remarkable surge in popularity as his works large part a function of her marketing were disseminated through the media, strategies and her production of music including new media and social networking videos and images that appealed to diverse sites. audiences. To conceptualize the meanings and effects in her music, films, concerts, and stunts requires that Cultural Studies her artifacts be interpreted within the con- for the 21st Century text of their production and reception, which involves discussion of MTV, the music industry, concerts, marketing, and As discussed above, a cultural studies that is the production of images (see Kellner, critical and multicultural provides compre- 1995). Understanding Madonna’s popu- hensive approaches to culture that can be larity also requires focus on audiences, applied to a wide variety of media artifacts, not just as individuals but as members of from advertising and pornography to specific groups—such as teenage girls, Beyoncé and the Twilight series, from real- who were empowered by Madonna in ity TV and World of Warcraft to Barbie and their struggles for individual identity, or Avatar. Its comprehensive perspectives gays, who were also empowered by her encompass political economy, textual anal- incorporation of alternative images of ysis, and audience research and provide sexuality within popular mainstream cul- critical and political perspectives that tural artifacts. Yet appraising the politics enable individuals to dissect the meanings, and effects of Madonna also requires messages, and effects of dominant cultural analysis of how her work might merely forms. Cultural studies is thus part of a reproduce a consumer culture that defines critical media pedagogy that enables indi- identity in terms of images and consump- viduals to resist and tion. It would make an interesting project increase their freedom and individuality. It to examine how former Madonna fans can empower people to gain sovereignty view the superstar’s evolution and recent over their culture and struggle for alterna- incarnations, such as her many relationships tive cultures and political change. Thus,

©SAGE Publications 18  Part I A Cultural Studies Approach to Media: Theory cultural studies is not just another academic economics, alone and how much state fad but, rather, can be part of a struggle for or intervention is desirable to ensure a wider a better society and a better life. diversity of broadcast programming, for instance, or the prohibition of phenomena agreed to be harmful, such as cigarette advertising or pornog- Notes raphy (see Kellner, 1990; McChesney, 2007). 5. Influential cultural studies that have focused on audience reception include Ang 1. For more information on British cultural (1985, 1996), Brunsdon and Morley (1978), studies, see Agger (1992); Durham and Kellner Fiske (1989a, 1989b), Jenkins (1992), Lewis (2012); During (1992, 1998); Fiske (1986); (1992), Morley (1986), and Radway (1983). On Grossberg (1989); Grossberg, Nelson, and “fandom,” see Gray, Sandvoss, and Harrington Treichler (1992); Hall (1980b); Hammer and (2007). Kellner (2009); Johnson (1986–1987); O’Connor (1989); and Turner (1990). The also provided much material for a critical cultural References studies approach in its works on mass culture from the 1930s through the present; on the rela- tion between the Frankfurt school and British Agger, B. (1992). Cultural studies. London: Falmer. cultural studies, see Kellner (1997). Ang, I. (1985). Watching Dallas. New York: 2. On the concept of ideology, see the Centre Methuen. for Contemporary Cultural Studies (1980), Ang, I. (1996). Living room wars: Rethinking Kellner (1978, 1979), Kellner and Ryan (1988), media audiences for a postmodern world. and Thompson (1990). London: . 3. This model was adumbrated in Hall Brunsdon, C., & Morley, D. (1978). Everyday (1980a) and Johnson (1986–1987), and guided television: “Nationwide.” London: British much of the early Birmingham work. Around Film Institute. the mid-1980s, however, the Birmingham group Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. began to increasingly neglect the production and (1980). On ideology. London: Hutchinson. political economy of culture (some believe that Crenshaw, K. W. (1991). Mapping the margins: this was always a problem with their work), and Intersectionality, identity politics, and vio- the majority of their studies became more aca- lence against women of color. Stanford Law demic, cut off from political struggle. I am thus Review, 43(6), 1241–1299. trying to recapture the spirit of the early de Certeau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday Birmingham project, reconstructed for our con- life. Berkeley: University of California Press. temporary moment. For a fuller development of Durham, M. G., & Kellner, D. (Eds.). (2012). my conception of cultural studies, see Kellner Media and cultural studies: Key works (Rev. (1992, 1995, 2001, 2010). 2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell. 4. The term political economy calls attention During, S. (1992, 1998). Cultural studies. to the fact that the production and distribution London: Routledge. of culture take place within a specific economic Fiske, J. (1986). British cultural studies and televi- system, constituted by relations between the state sion. In R. C. Allen (Ed.), Channels of dis- and economy. For instance, in the United States, course (pp. 254–289). Chapel Hill: University a capitalist economy dictates that cultural pro- of North Carolina Press. duction is governed by of the market, but Fiske, J. (1989a). Reading the popular. Boston: the democratic imperatives of the system mean Unwin Hyman. that there is some regulation of culture by the Fiske, J. (1989b). Understanding . state. There are often tensions within a given Boston: Unwin Hyman. society concerning how many activities should be Fiske, J. (1993). Power plays, power works. governed by the imperatives of the market, or London: Verso.

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Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Kellner, D. (1997). and British notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (Q. Hoare cultural studies: The missed articulation. In & G. Nowell Smith, Eds.). New York: J. McGuigan (Ed.), Cultural International. (pp. 12–41). London: Sage. Gray, J., Sandvoss, C., & Harrington, C. L. Kellner, D. (2001). Grand Theft 2000. Lanham, (Eds.). (2007). Fandom: Identities and com- MD: Rowman & Littlefield. munities in a mediated world. New York: Kellner, D. (2003). From September 11 to terror New Press. war: The dangers of the Bush legacy. Grossberg, L. (1989). The formations of cultural Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. studies: An American in Birmingham. Kellner, D. (2005). Media spectacle and the crisis Strategies, 22, 114–149. of . Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Grossberg, L., Nelson, C., & Treichler, P. (1992). Kellner, D. (2010). Cinema wars: Hollywood Cultural studies. New York: Routledge. film and politics in the Bush/Cheney era. Hall, S. (1980a). Cultural studies and the Centre: Malden, MA: Blackwell. Some problematics and problems. In S. Kellner, D., & Kim, G. (2010). YouTube, critical Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis pedagogy, and media activism. Review of (Eds.), Culture, media, language: Working Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies, 32(1), papers in cultural studies, 1972–79 (pp. 3–36. 15–47). London: Hutchinson. Kellner, D., & Ryan, M. (1988). Camera politica: Hall, S. (1980b). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, The politics and ideology of contemporary D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Hollywood film. Bloomington: Indiana Culture, media, language: Working papers University Press. in cultural studies, 1972–79 (pp. 128–138). Lewis, L. A. (1992). Adoring audience: Fan London: Hutchinson. culture and popular media. New York: Hammer, R., & Kellner, D. (2009). Media/cul- Routledge. tural studies: Critical approaches. New McChesney, R. (2000). Rich media, poor democ- York: Peter Lang. racy: Communications politics in dubious Jenkins, H. (1992). Textual poachers. New times. New York: New Press. York: Routledge. McChesney, R. (2007). Communication revolu- Johnson, R. (1986–1987). What is cultural stud- tion: Critical junctures and the future of ies anyway? , 16, 38–80. media. New York: New Press. Kahn, R., & Kellner, D. (2008). Technopolitics, McChesney, R. (2013). Digital disconnect: How blogs, and emergent media ecologies: A criti- is turning the Internet against cal/reconstructive approach. In B. Hawk, D. democracy. New York: New Press. M. Rider, & O. Oviedo (Eds.), Small tech: Morley, D. (1986). Family television. London: The culture of digital tools (pp. 22–37). Comedia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. O’Connor, A. (1989, December). The problem of Kellner, D. (1978, November–December). American cultural studies. Critical Studies Ideology, , and . in Mass Communication, 6, 404–413. Socialist Review, 42, 37–65. Radway, J. (1983). Reading the romance. Kellner, D. (1979, May–June). TV, ideology, and Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina emancipatory popular culture. Socialist Press. Review, 45, 13–53. Staiger, J. (1992). Film, reception, and cultural Kellner, D. (1990). Television and the crisis of studies. Centennial Review, 26(1), democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview. 89–104. Kellner, D. (1992). The Persian Gulf TV war. Thompson, J. (1990). Ideology and modern cul- Boulder, CO: Westview. ture. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press and Kellner, D. (1995). Media culture: Cultural stud- Stanford University Press. ies, identity, and politics between the mod- Turner, G. (1990). British cultural studies: An ern and the postmodern. London: Routledge. introduction. New York: Unwin Hyman.

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