Evolution of Cultural Studies
M. Zaher Dowran[1]
The Critical Theory in mass communication theories is based on Marxist theory. The preliminary studies were conducted in Frankfort School, which was found in 1923 to develop Marxist studies in Germany (Corradetti, 2013). The studies were concerned with mass culture, popular culture as well as several determinations that mass culture modify, isolate and manipulate people. Tow most famous figures associated with the school were Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.
The studies of the Frankfurt School can not be described and understood separately from its historical origins. All members of the Frankfurt School, who were Jewish, migrated from Germany to the US and Europe following World War II with some members suffering death in the way.
In the wake of World War II, Jews face massacre. The members of Frankfurt School seek to find an answer to the question of how such a virulent, inhuman and barbarism action could be done in Europe after the enlightenment and modernism era. In their studies, they asserted that mass culture and propaganda had influenced minds and will of the people and thwarted or unprecedented the effects of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and Modernism.
Marx developed his theory in the latter part of the 19th century during one of the most volatile periods in social changes in Europe. He identified industrialization and urbanization as problems but argued that these changes were not bad. Instead, he blamed ruthless capitalists for creating social problems because they maximized personal profits by exploiting workers (Rai & Panna, 2015). Karl Marx strongly believed that a socialist revolution should crush the whole system of government and break it down so that it could replace it with a new order.
Critical Theory, which is based on a Marxist approach, could be divided into two parts:
1. Political Economic Theory
2. Cultural Studies Theory
Scientists of the Frankfurt School retain Marxism by various methods and dimensions. They evaluated and criticized concepts and phenomena basically and logically relying on the approach of Marxism. In their studies, they searched answers to question of why the proletarians could not make equality revolution as Marx had forecasted.
The British cultural studies theory has attempted to trace historic elite domination over culture to criticize the social consequences of this domination, and to demonstrate how it continued to be exercised over specific minority groups or subcultures (Rai & Panna, 2015).
Richard Hogarth founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1964 at the University of Birmingham's School of English (Abu Fatimeh, 2016). Unlike the Frankfurt School and Political Economic Theory, the cultural studies were the main focal point in there. Stuart Hall and Richard Johnson, the centre's later directors, had a major impact on the direction of scientific activity toward cultural explanations.
Stuart Hall as one of the leading figures in cultural studies of communication field had a great role in fostering the field. Before Hall, William Hogarth and Raymond Williams had an effective role in cultural studies.
Frankfurt School had a distant approach to cultural products and contents like music, cinema and art, arguing that popular culture numbed people and destroyed their capabilities of thought. It had claimed that the content of television programmes like music and news were modified and based on a capitalist system.
Cultural studies criticized this approach. Cultural studies underline the presence of a resistance potential from the popular culture and guide Frankfurt School's distance approach to a more positive and peaceful way. Unlike the Frankfurt School which claims that popular culture has numbed people cultural studies conduct different perusal from popular culture.
The Frankfurt School of Criticism and the Birmingham Cultural Studies, with a critical approach, have played a significant role in the political, cultural, social, and scientific developments of the twentieth century. The two schools share a common European origin, similar epistemological foundations, Marxist roots, culturalism, and a critical approach to the modern world.
The Frankfurt School's theoretical ideas are not based solely on empirical studies or accurate evaluation of evidence, but they see theorizing as a mental-linguistic process that requires the social existence of researchers. But in the study of subcultures in modern society, the School of Cultural Studies turns to qualitative research that is conducted through in-depth or focal interviews (Abu Fatimeh, 2016).
Cultural Studies do not ignore the political and economic theory as it considers it an important element. It reads the content of the media messages. Cultural studies are less concerned about the long-term consequences of media for social order but are more concerned about looking at how media affect individuals' live (Rai & Panna, 2015).
In an article entitled "Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse" Stuart Hall states that each of the audience decodes the messages in their favour and way of thinking. According to their political and economic circumstances, their identity and their beliefs people decode the content of the media messages. Hall further urges that there are three main positions that the audience might take when they decode the media messages. Such as dominant-hegemonic or preferred, negotiated and oppositional (Hall, 1973). The first type of decoding is the dominated response. In this type of response, the audience or receiver fully accepts and reproduces the code to the producer or sender.
The second type of decoding is the negotiated response. A negotiated reading occurs when despite recognizing the authenticity of hegemonic definitions the viewer contests them through particular or "situated" logics.
The third type of decoding is the oppositional response. An oppositional reading, according to Hall, occurs when the viewer understands both the literal and implicative meanings of discourse but decodes the message in an entirely heterogeneous way. It is here, he argues, that the "politics of signification" meets the "struggle in the discourse," indicating the failure of practices of encoding to achieve a hegemonic reading of the text (Hall, 1973).
So the cultural studies, do not consider mass culture as numbed commodity. With cultural studies, many cases and topics that were out of sight of university academics or that were not very pleasant to address were addressed. For instance, addressing issues of individual identity and problems.
Need for Cultural Studies: It provides tools which enable one to read and interpret one’s culture critically. It subverts the distinction between high and low culture. It asserts the value of popular culture, empowers minority and values their culture, stressing on cultural pluralism and egalitarianism (Rai & Panna, 2015). I want to highlight the importance of cultural studies with an example from war-torn Afghanistan, along with various factors that have made Afghanistan one the most devastated and poorest countries in the world is "identity tensions". Roots of domestic conflicts have always been the differences in languages and nationalities. But it had never reflected in academic articles. Perhaps addressing these issues from a more scientific point of views in universities has not been pleasant. Ethnic and linguistic minorities in Afghanistan are marginalized. They have been deprived of many civil rights to defend their natural rights. The highest ranks of the country are divided not in terms of meritocracy but in terms of ethnicity and language. Considering the country's sluggish situation, there is a serious need for cultural studies. Addressing cultural and identity issues and the challenges facing different identities in the country should become a common issue.
A prominent figure of cultural studies Stuart Hall has benefited from Marxist Gramsci, Althusser and Foucault's concepts. Both Althusser, through his exposition of ideology, and Gramsci through his accounting of hegemony shared a deep commitment to understanding how capitalism is reproduced. Both argued that the reproduction of capitalism does not reside solely within the realms of repressive governments and workplaces.
Althusser considers the Ideology as representing the imaginary relationship between individuals and real conditions of their existence (Althusser, 2001). So, in the way he formulated two sets of apparatuses or institutional systems of domination:
- Repressive State Apparatuses or RSAs and the other
- Ideological State Apparatuses or ISAs.
Gramsci: looks at ideology as mediating between individuals and their social world. Where that ideology operates unconsciously constituting individuals into subjects. Put simply, Gramsci argued that ideology always presses a material existence that is promoted by the media by the state community organizations and family units. He believes that hegemony and authority will not last just by imposing violence.
Michel Foucault: gives a new way of thinking about power. Foucault has suggested that most power indeed the most important kind of power in our modern society does not repressive at all. It works in a far subtler, less visible way. This power is what he called normalizing power (Foucault, 1972). Normalizing power is a power that determines what we see as normal. It constructs our view of the world and ourselves.
If we again refer to cultural studies, one of the most important features of cultural studies is intertextuality. Generally analyzing media products and discourses through content analyses, semiology, and audience reception and use of media culture. Cultural Studies gives us an insight that living in popular culture and consuming it is not numbing and manipulating people. Unlike the Frankfurt School, it provides us with an opening that there is a potential for resilience and liberalization in popular culture with outstretch possibility.
References
Abu Fatimeh, M. (2016, Junuary 5). A study of the distinction between the two schools of Frankfurt and Cultural Studies.
Adams, B., & Sydie, R. (2003). Marxism Analyse of Family and Gender. In Sociological Theory (pp. 136-139).
Althusser, L. (2001). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus. In M. Gigi Durham, & D. M. Kellner, Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works (pp. 79-89). Blackwill Publishing Ltd.
Corradetti, C. (2013, February). The Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256045695_The_Frankfurt_School_and_Critical_Theory
Foucault, M. (1972). Truth and Power. In Power/Knowledge (pp. 109-134). The Harvester Press, Limited.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. University of Birmingham.
Rai, R., & Panna, K. (2015). Intruduction to Cultural Studies.
Rezai, M. (2008, 11 19). Aftab. Retrieved from https://www.aftabir.com/lifestyle/view/123600/نگاهی-کلی-به-تاریخچه-ظهور-مطالعات-فرهنگی
[1] Mohammad Zaher Dowran is currently pursuing master's degree in Journalism Department of Communication Faculty of Ankara University, Turkey. (zaherdowran@gmail.com), 17 June 2020.