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Phase IV. Media content and the power of interpretation (Structuralism (4…
Phase IV. Media content and the power of interpretation
Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies and its key author Stuart Hall
Antonio Gramsci
Structuralism
4 characteristics
Every system has a structure
Structural laws deal with co-existence rather than change
Structure determine the meaning of element in a whole
Structure are the real things that lie under the surface of appearance
Louis Althusser.
according to him, ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. He makes a distinction between Repressive State Apparatuses and Ideological State Apparatuses.
Ferdinand de Saussure
he makes a distinction between langue et paroles.
Langue
: system of rules and convention that exists before individual use of a language.
Parole
: speech/concrete utterances. According to him, every word is a signifier. A sign consist in the unity of a signifier and a signified.
Claude Levi-Strauss
: he is the main structuralist author. He studied the way structuralism can determine who is going to marry who. His analysis show that people have universal shared mental characteristics. We all have a need to classify, to categorize reality.
Roland Barthes
: He reserves the notion of myth for the specific form that ideology can take. Myths can be read in 3 different ways.
Culturalism
: it was a new way of thinking about culture that emerged in Britain in the works of Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams in the fifties and sixties.
Richard Hoggart
he criticized mass produced pulp literature and culture. Nevertheless, he did value popular culture.
Raymond Williams
. He also experienced social mobility. For him, there is a distinct working class way of life, with he values.
Stuart Hall
He continued the investigation but provided his study with a more critical spin.
Cultural and audience studies
Stuart Hall
Morley
Ien Ang