BRITISH
CULTURAL STUDIES
The
idea of culture is a problematic concept. It is different for different people.
In brief, we could take it as a ‘whole way of life’. Cultural Studies is
considered to be an interdisciplinary field in which certain concerns and
methods have come together. The benefit of this coming togetherness or
convergence is that it has contributed to our further understanding of the
phenomena and relationships which were not accessible until that time, through
the existing disciplines.
Cultural
Studies is opined to take its initiative step with the publication of Richard
Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy (1958)
and Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society
and The Long Revolution (1961).When
placed within a tradition of English literary criticism, Hoggart and Williams
could be identified with F. R. Leavis. They are basically appreciated for their
concentration on the form of literary texts and their social or moral
significance. They were able to mobilize their methods of textual criticism in
order to ‘read’ cultural forms other than literature. For example, popular song
or popular fiction.
One
of the limitations they suffered was the lack of a method that could analyze the
things in which the cultural forms and practices produced their social, not merely
their aesthetic, meanings and pleasures. It did undergo a fundamental
reorientation to reconnect the texts with the society, the culture and the
individuals.
The
European influence on British Cultural Studies came largely from structuralism.
Though structuralism possessed lots of forms, its common characteristics
include an interest in the systems, the sets of relationships and the formal
structures which facilitate the production of meaning. The factor within
British Cultural Studies was a theory of language and not a theory of culture. So,
we could say that language holds in a very high place for understanding other
cultural systems too.
According
to Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory of language, the relation between a word and
its meaning is arbitrary in nature, and not inherent or natural. When Saussure insists
on the point that the relation between a word and its meaning is constructed
and not given, he is taking our attention to the social and cultural dimensions
of language. Language as well as the meaning it generates is not natural, but
cultural. Culture where meaning mothered and experienced becomes a field out of
which social realities are constructed, experienced and interpreted.
In
the current day works of Cultural Studies, histories of popular movements are
included, particularly in the Britain of the nineteenth century. It also
focuses on subcultures and the gaps in official histories, Lacanian studies of
subjectivities, ‘ethnographic’ studies of subcultures within contemporary urban
societies, the analysis of special media and particular textual forms, studies
of media economy, a combination of textual analysis and ethnographic audience
studies.
The
work of Raymond Williams, Richard Hoggart, Stuart Hall and in particular the
Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Studies (CCCS) has taken interest in
including popular culture- from the mass media to sport to dance crazes- on an
audience and intellectual agenda. Not only the role of Williams and other
British researchers is important, the work of the European structuralists( Levi
Strauss, Saussure, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault) and certain inflections of
European Marxism(Althusser, Gramsci) are also central to the formation of British
cultural studies.
Roland
Barthes had developed the cultural codes of narratives. The Neo- Marxist school
of Cultural Studies was introduced by Raymond Williams’ Culture and Society. In Cultural Studies, the marginalized products
in the society are considered for the purpose of study. In order to study
cultural phenomenon in industrial society, it combines sociology, literary
theory, film studies and cultural anthropology.
Raymond
Williams, Stuart Hall and Catherine Belsey are three prominent figures in the
field of British Cultural Studies.
In
Encoding and Decoding, Stuart Hall
speaks of the circuit of communication. It shows how media messages are
produced, circulated and consumed. He
views people as producers and consumers of messages. He also tells how power
relations are established through Tele- Visual communication. Based on his
idea, the sender is not the sole owner of the message. Also, the message is not
transparent; it conceals some power with it. He also adds that audiences are
not passive residues.
The
real meaning lies not with the producer and receiver, but somewhere in between
them. Each of the phases in the model is called as ‘moments’. These moments
include production, circulation, consumption and reproduction. The last moment,
reproduction, was found by Stuart Hall. Each of the moments are distinct in
nature and have individual entity. All are autonomous. They produce their own
modalities and have their own conditions of existence. None of them can
guarantee the other stage. Every one of them has distinctive or unique
existence, but which are all inter- related. He says that there is a ‘lack of
fit’ between encoding, the moment of the production of the message and decoding,
the moment of its reception.
Televisual
communication is a combination of fact and aural/ visual sign. According to
him, there are three different hypothetical positions from which decoding or
readings of a televisual discourse may be build: (1) dominant- hegemonic
position, (2) negotiated code, and (3) oppositional code. In the dominant-
hegemonic code, the act of encoding can direct or limit the decoding. In this,
whatsoever was encoded by the sender is decoded by the receiver as such. There
is no element of questioning. In the negotiated code, encoded as well as the
decoded meaning appear almost similar. The viewer understands and complies with
it to an extent. In the oppositional code, an opposite meaning to which the
sender meant will be decoded by the receiver. Advertisement of deodorants could
be taken as an example for the oppositional code. The primary aim of the
advertising agent would be to spread the idea that this particular product can
attract the attention of many. But the feminist reading of the same would mean
that it is actually the objectification of the female body. In this code, the
viewer recognizes and opposes the dominant. All three of these positions do not
happen in isolation.
Hall
breaks the notion of audience as passive consumers. He talks of subjectivity in
televisual things which others claim as something that gives objective ideas.
Traditionally, media messages are taken as static and of unchanging meaning.
But Hall is of the opinion that message sent is seldom the message that is
received. He considers a message as systematically distorted. Umpteen numbers
of meanings could be derived from a single message. He says that meaning is not
fixed and determined by the centre, and also is not transparent in nature.
Hall
says that messages are constructed and are active interpretive social events.
So is the receiver. Meaning is discursive, which means that it is produced to a
discourse and collective experiences play a key role in constructing a meaning.
From Cultural Studies to Cultural
Criticism of Catherine Belsey speaks of the
institutionalization and reception of the discipline of Cultural Studies. It
has grown to such an extent that it has reached the level of endangering
itself. She is actually looking at the revival of cultural studies. The thing
which was once considered as the strength of cultural studies has now become
the weakness. By this, she meant that the impulse popularity has turned out to
be populism. Populism is something that impresses the mass and contrast to the
interest of the elite. It always went with public general interest.
According
to Belsey, most of the current cultural studies researches are momentary, that
has no connection with the history. She then speaks of Williams and Hoggart who
spoke of the problems of English studies, of high culture; of value judgment
etc. she also criticizes Arnold and Eliot for preserving high culture. She
later on speaks of New Criticism and New Historicism, which made an impact on
cultural studies.
Belsey
says that the edge of theory is lost in cultural studies, because of which many
practitioners has ignored theories. She means to say that there is nothing
unchangeable, everything has to change and is supposed to change- a change
within itself. Also, there is a play of meaning which is not referential along
with the presentation of an alternative in itself.
She
says that high theory is actually needed because theory uses language to speak
of complexities. Learning itself has a premise that needs to be changed.
History should actually connect itself to the present. Cultural Studies is a
field of study of meanings. It can concentrate on present and history. Popular
is already within the frame.
In
Marxism and Literature, Raymond
Williams is trying to revive the Marxist theory to suit the modern or newer kind
of society. In a way, he is challenging the conventional theory of Marxism. According
to Marxist belief, real or human life is happening in the base and culture is
present in the superstructure. Based on this idea, culture cannot be considered
as a whole way of life. Williams also speaks of the limitations of Marxism. He says
that though Marxism rejected rationalism, it did practice scientific
rationalism. Also, Marxism puts culture in superstructure. The traditional
notion was that the base actually shapes or creates the superstructure and
superstructure actually maintains and legitimizes the base. Williams is of the
opinion that base is not a static one; it is a dynamic process in fact. There are
deep contradictions, exchanges and mediations between these two, but no direct
or apparent similarity exists between the two. He is actually urging for a
revival in Marxism, that it should think away from the model and should think
production as part of the culture.
Hoggart
is yet another important figure. His work The
Uses of Literacy could be considered as a schizophrenic work. In the first
half portion of the book, there are elements of call for the traditional
industrial working- class communities, which are untouched by the commercial
culture and educational institutions. In the rest of the half, he provides a
practical- critical attack on modern mass culture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
·
During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader.
Second. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.
·
Turner, Graeme. British
Cultural Studies: An Introduction. Third. London: Routledge, 2003.
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