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Week 11: Cultural Studies - Coggle Diagram
Week 11: Cultural Studies
Encoding/Decoding
Decoding
How the audiences interprets a message
Negotiable reading
Applying a negotiable code
Example: McDonalds food is delicious, but I only have a hamburger now and then.
Oppositional reading
Substituting an oppositional code
Example: McDonald's food id delicious, but I don't eat is because it's bad for me.
Preferred reading
Operating inside the dominant code
Example: McDonald's food is delicious, lets eat a BigMac.
Encoding
production/construction of media content (meaning is attached in the message)
How media content is produced and interpreted. Hall sees sommunication as a negotiation between sender, text and reciever.
Stuart Hall
Main ideas:
These gaps continue to exist, because the media contribute (consciously, but also unconsciously) to inequality.
Cultural studies want to show us, or make us realize, that the media confirms the status quo (= the already-accepted interpretation of reality)
Society is characterized by cleavages (gaps) between the haves and have-nots
Hall believes the mass media maintain the dominance of those already in position of power
Preference for qualitative methods.
Model of cultural studies:
People adopt the dominant ideology
Consequently, the cleavages continue to exist
Media reflect and construct our culture (the media present the dominant ideology as the most obvious one)
Hall's goals with cultural studies
The purpose of the theory and research is to
empower
people who live on the margins in society (the have-nots).
He uses term "hegemony" ( = the subtle sway of society's haves over its have nots, e.g. with high level of education and those with low level of education) Media hegemony is not a conscious plot.
He was
suspicious
of any cultural analysis that ignores power relations
Media present a variety of ideas, but tend to confirm the status quo in society.
He wanted to "
unmask
the power imbalances that the media mask"
Examples of cleavages in society:
Male vs. Female
High vs. low education
Rich vs. poor
How to read Donald Duck?
Imbalances between cultures (primitive people are undeveloped, and there is a search for gold in developing countries)
No occopation (reward have nothing to do with productive labour)
Self-made man (everybody had the same opportunities - Donald gets fired for his own ignorance while Scrooge McDuck is rich because he is clever)
Unequal relationship between men and women (Daisy Duck on the side line with no love, and the fear of sexuality)
No parents
No focus on the past of the futur (acceptation of status quo)
Nephwes are adults, Donald is the child (children should loose their childhood)
Literature Questions:
Stuart Hall argues: "the media encode the dominant ideology of our culture." Explain in your own words what he means, and discuss the social consequences of this (mention two consequences). Illustrate your argument with a clear and concrete example.