MediaSpace Wiki

Intercultural Spr2006 Sess06

Index Card Assignment Due Today

Think about a conflict between two cultures anywhere in the world. What is the conflict? Who is involved? What does each side believe about the other side that fuels the conflict?

Agenda

• Quick overview of British Cultural studies
• Collect index card assignments
• Group discussion of questions
• Overview of Ideological Theory
• Discussion of index cards

• Last time we were discussing culture as power
  • Those with power structure communication to maintain and support their power
  • Those who conform succeed
  • But power can be resisted
• Today we discuss approaches to such resistance
• One such approach is British Cultural Studies
  • Culture is politics; media support the politics of culture
  • Culture as the generation and circulation of meaning in industrial societies
    • explicitly presumes that meaning may be generated and circulated differently in nonindustrial societies
    • explicitly focuses on the political rather than the aesthetic or humanist
  • culture is
    • a way of living with an industrial society that encompasses all of the meanings of that social experience
  • Meaning ... Is linked to social structure
    • Capitalist societies are divided societies
      • a complex network of groups
        • based on class, gender, race, nation, age group, religion, occupation, education, politics, etc
      • each with divergent interests
      • each with a distinctive relationship with the "dominant classes"
• Note in this that culture is described in terms of social divisions and divergent interests
  • All cultures encompass such divisions
  • All cultures entail competition between divergent interests
  • All cultures serve the interests of some better than others
• Social power is getting one's interests served by the social structure as a whole
  • Here British cultural theory takes an ideological turn
    • class struggle is the contest for social power
    • Power, it claims, is a struggle for meaning
      • The goal of power is to naturalize meanings that preserve and enhance power
• The primary tool of social power is the naturalization of meaning
  • Naturalization is the process of making a particular set of social relations seem normal or natural
  • This naturalization of meaning is generally unintentional
    • It is simply a byproduct of expressing belief
      • given the reality of human "attribution"
        • If we are successful, we credit ourselves
        • If we are unsuccessful, we credit the situation
        • If someone else is successful, we credit the situation
        • If someone else is unsuccessful, we credit them
  • Groups that are not dominant do the same thing
    • Success reflects the rightness of the beliefs and actions of those in power
    • Group success within the context of dominance speaks to the rightness of its approach
    • Failure reflects specific lacks in those who fail
      • rather than "oppression" of the dominant class
    • All too often, we oppress ourselves by accepting naturalized meanings
  • Culture is, by definition, ideology

• Group discussion
  • What is the structure of power at Foxwoods? How does the tribe that owns the casino naturalize some meanings in preference to others? How do those meanings privilege American Indians? How do those meaning privilege middle class white America? Who is "oppressed" and how?
  • What was the structure of power for the author of learning to see? What does she naturalize/normalize? How does she become conscious of the gulf between her perceptions and reality? How does she bridge that gulf?
  • What questions did you bring that extend these themes. Discuss.

Index card assignment due Thursday

Think back on a moment when you encountered your cultural background (any part of your cultural background) in a memorable way. What culture did you encounter. What happened? What made the event memorable?