Ideological Criticism, Cultural Studies (Discussion)

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Basic principles

  1. Group 4: Explain the original concept of ideology and how Marx connected it to social classes.
  2. Group 1: Explain Antonio Gramsci's (pronounced "GRAM-chee") concept of hegemony. Provide an example of hegemony in action.
  3. Group 2: Explain what the television apparatus is and Stuart Hall's theory of media encoding.
  4. Group 3: Explain Stuart Hall's theory of media decoding.
  5. All Groups: Explain John Fiske's idea of discourse. Using The Beverly Hillbillies episode we viewed for specifics: How would you describe the "hillbilly" discourse and how it conflicts with the "Beverly Hills" discourse?

Decoding (or reading) a text

Group 4

  1. Perform a dominant-hegemonic decoding of My So-Called Life. What would be the result of your reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)?
  2. How could your reading be restated using Morley's notion of discourses encountering one another?

Group 2

  1. Perform a oppositional decoding of My So-Called Life. What would be the result of your reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)?
  2. How could your reading be restated using Morley's notion of discourses encountering one another?

Group 1

  1. Perform a negotiated decoding of My So-Called Life. What would be the result of your reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)?
  2. How could your reading be restated using Morley's notion of discourses encountering one another?

Group 3

  1. What do you feel is the preferred reading of this episode? What is the preferred reading in terms of representations of gender and sexuality, ethnicity, and youth (vs. middle age)? ("Hall and others often presume that the preferred reading encoded on the text by the television apparatus will be from the dominant position," but in this case it probably is not.)

John Caldwell and production studies

To understand how the society and culture of the television industry, Caldwell looks both at "texts" associated with the industry and at the interaction of actual television-producing humans. Explain what he means by each of the following "critical industrial practices" and provide at least two examples of such practices and the meanings associated with them:

  • All groups: Define production culture. How is what Caldwell is advocating different from earlier television ethnographers like the CCCS group?
  • Group 4: Deep texts
  • Group 1: Emic interpretations
  • Group 2: Critical industrial geographies
  • Group 3: Liminal industrial rituals

Bibliography

  1. Butler, Jeremy G. Television: Critical Methods and Applications. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2007.
  2. Robert C. Allen, Channels of Discourse, Reassembled, second edition (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

External links