Cultural Studies: Adorno And Stuart Hall

In Slim’s Table, Mitchell Dunier claims that the men in Valois resist the stereotype of what it means to be a working class black man in Chicago through their dissociation with ghetto-specific masculinity. This has to do with “strong overt concerns with sexual exploits, toughness and ability to command respect, personal appearance with an emphasis on male clothing fashions, liquor consumption and verbal ability” (Dunier. p. 46). The first example of their resistance to ghetto-specific masculinity is through their respect for women. In chapter two, Jackson’s pride is hurt because he is associated with the men in his complex who whistle at girls who walk by.

The assigned reading challenged my understanding of Class and the Media by showing me just how much the media influences the way that we view class. Specifically, the media shows the upper class to be hard-working and benevolent, the middle class as unified, and the lower class as lazy, and unimportant. Within this reading, they relate Class and the Media to both communication studies and women’s studies. Specifically, in the article “Media magic: Making class invisible”, by Margaret L. Andersen and Patricia Hill Collins, they state that the mass media is the most influential in molding public consciousness. This can be directly related to communication studies through the fact that communication studies look into disseminating information, reporting news, storytelling, analyzing media culture, etc.

Media has played a pronounced role in distributing information over time on various issues that are affecting citizens worldwide. The various types of media include television, radio and newspapers which reach a large number of people with various biases and preferences within a short period of time. Deviant behavior has become rampant in society today as many young and old people are deviating from the usual due to the common structural differences in society that range from economic, health, faith and social cults. To curb the deviant behavior observed in society, the media educates the people on the impacts of their behavior. At the same time, it informs the person who is not aware of the happenings in the community.

After developing a strong analysis of the concepts developed by Marx, Engle’s, Horkheimer’s and Adorno, it can be shown that ideology, Hegemony, commodification, and the culture thesis can be interrelated to each other and the theme of communication and power. According to Marx and Engle’s the notion of ideology can be demonstrated through, ideology as false consciousness and dominant ideology. Marx and Engle’s theory of ideologies is built upon how, how ideas, and power intersect with economic power(CITE LEC). The base of knowledge that their theory is built upon can be related to the re occurring theme of communication and power.

Adorno and Horkheimer drew from Marx with regards to capitalism. According to Lorimer and Scannell (1994), “Following Marx, they saw the application of capitalist methods to cultural production as exploitative of the mass of the production” (p. 165). Adorno and Horkheimer believed that mass culture due to capitalism makes it homogenous. The audience then becomes homogenous and unified. Baofu (2009) further explains the culture industry as, “Popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized cultural goods to manipulate the masses into passivity; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture make people docile and content, no matter how difficult their economic circumstances.”

Mass Culture and Style in The Matrix Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, in “The Culture Industry as Mass Deception,” conclude that mass culture in the United States is identical and unoriginal “under monopoly capitalism” (Adorno, Horkheimer 1242). The Matrix (1999), directed by the Wachowski siblings, is about a group of enlightened outsiders who wage a war against the machines in control of human beings, who are subdued and experiencing a false reality through a simulation called the Matrix. In this paper, I will describe how the film, while seemingly original in its concept of questioning reality and rejecting conformity, ultimately succumbs to the cliches and stylizations of mass culture/media, failing to break from the formula Adorno and

Popular Culture I Öğr. Gör. Gülbin Kıranoğlu The Capitalist and Patriarchal Elements in the Products of Popular Culture Betül Kılıç 110111077

2.1 Representation and identity A Cultural theorist, also a leading figure of the development of media and cultural studies, Stuart Hall’s cultural representation theory is very representative and has a significant impact in the field of cultural studies. His book “Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices” published in 1997 is a study of the crucial links between language, culture and how shared meanings are constructed and represented within the language. Hall believes culture plays the primary role in how we construct meaning and representation was closely related to culture. Representation is the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture through the use of language, such as

Therefore, in the perspective of understanding materialist art history by the discussion focused on the labor of the production line, different forms of arts then no longer refer to the product labeled and produced by the so-called ‘artistic genius’, but a product of complex relationship between social, economic and political sphere. (Klingender, 1943) To be more specific, the relationship between materialist art history and Marxist art history is demonstrated with the practice of artwork in relation to society, economy or politics, with detailed and specific analysis in the context of social cultures and the idea of class in the capitalist society. (D’Alleva, 2005) In a particular cultural environment, we can realize the outgrowth of the interactions between patrons and artists in a more complicated way.

As individuals turn out to be more aware about what is really going on, and taking about it through developing media sources and presenting themselves to a wide range of sources of mass media, the individual can discover reality and frame his or her own particular taught assessment, and American culture holds this as an essential factor in the general population 's regular daily existences. We feel as though we are not really controlled by the media, but rather individuals responsible for our nation, and rising media has made this

The media promotes conformity in the way youth culture is portrayed. The fact that media like films and TV shows characterize youth as conformity, it reinforces values and ideological hegemony to the audience, thus constructing their knowledge and view of youths. In

Despite both being from the same school of thought, the Frankfurt School, Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno found themselves debating the value of art in a world on the brink of war. The basis of Benjamin’s and Adorno’s argument was not a critique of the art itself, but rather ever-growing trend of the reproduction of art. For Benjamin, as described in, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, the reproduction of art and the novelty of film, which stemmed from technological marvels, was a natural progression and a detractor to the growing fascist presence. However, for Adorno, as discussed in “The Fetish Character of Music and the Regression in Listening”, the simplification of art, specifically music, to a mass producible

People are immersed in popular culture during most of our waking hours. It is on radio, television, and our computers when we access the Internet, in newspapers, on streets and highways in the form of advertisements and billboards, in movie theaters, at music concerts and sports events, in supermarkets and shopping malls, and at religious festivals and celebrations (Tatum,

Media are platforms of mass communication that can be categorized as either new of traditional media, with new media being forms of communication that make use of technologies such as the Internet, and traditional media being more conventional forms of media such as newspapers. Media, primarily new media, is getting more popular and influential, especially in today’s day and age since we are exposed to it a lot more than in the past and also since media is more easily accessible now. The media can shape our behaviours, perceptions and opinions, and it is important to know how people are influenced and impacted by it. The media can influence someone’s perception of social reality, or perceptions of beauty or even influence people’s behaviours and habits and therefore, the media does shape who we are. One way that the media can shape who we are is by influencing our perception of social reality.

From the end of World War II, following major cultural and social changes brought by mass media innovations, the meaning of popular culture began to overlap with those of mass culture, media culture, image culture, consumer culture, and culture for mass