COMM 300 - Mass Communication Theories

New Technologies Consultant: Mary Flores

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* Media and Culture

Cultural Studies - Stuart Hall

Outline by Mary Flores
Chapter 28: Cultural Studies - Stuart Hall

Mass media: Defined by cultural critics as the means by which people who have gain support of people who don't have

Results in maintenance of status quo (the norm or the default values)
Have what?
  • Power to set or reset default values
  • Power from money and position
Reformist agenda: Goal of a reformist is to reform... culture? society? values? ways of thinking?
  • 1. Raise public awareness: Like media literacy
  • 2. Analyze symbolic means by which capitalism is made attractive: What does it mean to have
  • 3. Expose myth of American communication study's neutral stance
Studies funded by people/organizations that have an interest in the outcome are tainted

Stuart Hall: British Cultural Studies at University of Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS)

Thought that the biggest problem with traditional media scholarship ignores power relationships that exist (see neutral stance above)

Media are Ideological

Media function to maintain the dominant relationship of those already in positions of power to those who don't have power
Criticism of "noncritical research" = work is presented as pure science
  • Problem is that media is ideological
  • Ex: Marketing research values capitalism because those who pay for the research have a vested interest
  • Like the argument between scientific perspective vs. humanist perspective of theory making
Thinks that communication and media should be in the same academic discipline
  • Why he calls what he does "cultural studies"
  • Uses the term "articulate" two ways
    • 1. Speaking out about oppression
    • 2. Linking communication of the ideas that maintain oppression with the media

Hall's ideas are rooted in the power imbalances in society

Cultural studies "deconstruct" the structure of media research and raise our consciousness of the role media plays in maintaining the status quo

Marxism Without Guarantees

Classical Marxism reduces everything to an issue of money and economics
Economics is the base upon which the superstructure resides
Hall changed the focus through incorporating ideas of overdetermination from Althusser
Rather than economic determination

Hegemony: Subtle Sway of the Haves Over the Have-nots

Idea from Gramsci
Hall uses this word to describe the cultural role of the media
Process by which the class in power wins willing consent of the subordinates to the system that ensures their subordination
Ex: The export of western culture to third world countries
  • Not force: Subtle definitions of reality through contact with media
  • Not total: Relative balance
  • Not a plot: Anti-conspiracy theory
    Hall thinks that journalists are unconscious of the spin they put on the news
  • Not the production of consent but the reflection of consensus: Hegemony is not only reflected in the media; the media reinforce it

Encoding the Dominant Ideology

Ideologies are mental frameworks: Frames are where we, as viewers, "hang" our ideas

Provide:

Idea of denotation and connotation

Hall thinks that the powerless can't change the system (pessimism of the intellect) BUT media's structuring of reality can be exposed (optimism of the will)

Hall sees the struggle to capture language as the ideological fight - Think about this in terms of who has the power to define...

The Obstinate Audience

People resist assimilation = audience members are not blank slates

Decoding options:

Problem of researching the effects of media on culture

Critique: How Do We Know That He's Right?

Hall's most significant contribution: Reminder that it's futile to talk about meaning without considering power at the same time

Hall criticized for:

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~comm300/mary/mass/OutlineCh28.html