British cultural studies

British cultural studies

Cultural studies are mainly something about the popular culture and the theoretical and political analysis of it. Meaghan Morris puts it an unprecedented international boom. Cultural studies especially deals the intellectual thoughts about the political, racial, sexual the all area that touch a popular culture. Early in the history of cultural studies in Britain “Richard Hoggart stressed that cultural studies had no stable disciplinary base”, this discipline begin with the publication of Richard Hoggart’s the use of literary and Raymond William’s culture and society. Paul Willis has said that the culture that in the subject of British cultural studies is not artifice and manners, the common things of the daily life like the eating, watching, and dressing are also a matter for the cultural studies. The works of Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall and the Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies had established the notion of popular culture. Levi Strauss, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault and Althussar are associated with the formation of cultural studies. Structuralism has influenced the British cultural studies. In the post world war period cultural studies become prominent in Briton and in that culture the class system disappeared because of the revival of the industrial production and the establishment of the welfare state are form Briton enter into a new one and modern culture with also the influence of the Americanization. The establishment of the visual arts, architecture, graphic design and pope art in the contemporary arts in London also lead to the development of this discipline and it happened in the form of a movement by the independent group 1950s it also enlarge the area of cultural studies to all peoples rather than the elite class. The fact that British cultural studies is basically oppose the popular culture. The purchase of the mass culture from the popular novel, women’s magazine, the cinema, television and the popular songs are the main source for cultural studies at that period. In the time of war the war the concern of war generally depends on the forms of representation especially from the mass media here we can see the view from the different perspective and also the cultural studies focus on the critical journals of F.R.Levis, Deny Thompson and L.C.Knight , but they mainly find its deficiencies and its lack of moral seriousness or aesthetic value. The present modern British culture compare with its earlier albeit mythical, folk culture, and find that the present is very bad.

            In the 1950s and 1960s the scholarship students rebuild the popular culture, and British cultural studies also has a link with the adult education and the rethinking of the history also helped it Hall and Waannel’s the power arts and Denys Thompson‘s discrimination and popular culture are some books that come at that period, but Thompson’s collection deal with confusion of the mixing of elite method of analysis and the democratic humanistic interest of the everyday life. The Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies is a key institution in the history of cultural studies of Briton and also worldwide aspect. Dick Hebdiges, Dorothy Hobson, Stuart Laing and Stuart Hall are also associated with this centre. The CCCS was established at the University of Briton in 1964. Hoggart was its director. Hoggart’s main focus on the project of the cultural studies was based on the mass media and through the ideology of the media he analysed the culture of Briton and the media defined as the major cultural and ideological force. The replacement of Stuart Hall as the director change the way of study of media and ideology with the analysis of signifying systems in the text and this textual analysis give the way to a historical study. The methodological practice of cultural studies is by the reading of cultural products and social practice as text, with the media products and popular cultural forms British cultural studies enlarge its territory. The practitioners like Hoggart, Williams, and Hall and Whannel are made their well part in extension and development of this study and a new way with semiotics also included to this discipline. Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding in television discourse is a turning point in that era of cultural studies. He gives a new theory for the cultural production and reception rather different from the American way of communication model. British cultural studies mainly focus on the issues of identity. In the encoding and decoding of television discourse Stuart Hall says that the message that come from the sender to receiver has not accepted in the same meaning that produced from the sender it has its own existence. Hall insist that in any kind of communication there is nothing called natural the society is made up of different aspects of interest and because the way it accept is different. He put forward three hypothetical positions that are dominant hegemonic position, negotiated position, oppositional position through the introduction of these three positions  he explored the theory that how the receiver accept the message according to his critical ability. He sees these positions as discrete, the text have different meaning his idea also give the idea about the polysemic nature of the message. In this way of cultural studies the audience is also an important factor. David Morley’s the nationwide audience, the family television are important books it characterise the close relation between the audience members individual interpretation of the television message and how it differ according to their social position.

            Cultural studies mainly focus on the identity issues, and because of this reason it is descriptive and aim at the identity and the relation to political and cultural environment. According to James Carey, “British cultural studies could be described just as easily and perhaps more accurately as ideological studies for they assimilate, in a variety of complex ways, culture to identity”. It is true that when cultural study separate from the economic aspect it will succeed. History and sociology are two integral associated disciplines of cultural studies. The CCCS has great affinity towards ethnography. Richard Johnson suggest” that cultural studies are a process, an alchemy for producing useful knowledge about the broad domain of human culture “ William’s culture and society and the long revolution , Hoggart’s the use of literary E.P.Thomson’s the making of the English working class are important works in the building of British cultural studies. British cultural studies have its own mode of research. Cultural studies challenge the narrow thinking of humanities and social sciences it enrich our knowledge and enable the crossing of disciplinary borders. Cultural studies mainly have a social function. The practice of cultural study will change our way of looking at the world. The British cultural study provides a methodological way for the cultural study especially through the television discourse and also through the mass media.

Bibliography

Lawrence Grossberg, C. N. (Ed.). (1992). Cultural Studies.

Turner, G. British cultural studies (3rd ed.).