Cultural studies Flashcards
Text in culture and its main features
a text is anything that produces meaning
main features:
includes the production of meaning through images, sounds, objects
texts are polysemic - they contain the possibility of a number of different meanings that have to be realized by actual readers who give life to words and images.
What is discourse in cultural studies? What are its main features?
discourse - regulated ways of speaking about the subject through which objects and practices acquire meanig
main features:
Cultural Norms and Values
Language Variation
Symbolism and Metaphor
Intertextuality
Power Dynamics
Identity Construction
Socialization and Social Cohesion
Resistance and Change
What are the three broad defenitions of culture proposed by Raymond Williams?
- ‘a general process of intelectual, spiritual and aesthetic development’
- ‘a particular way of life wether of a people, a period or a group.’
- ‘the works and practices of itellectual and especially artistic activity.’
What are the general characteristics of culture?
Leared and acquired
Constantly changing
Constracts a whole yet various
Showed by a group of people
Cultivated
Popular culture definitions
- simply culture that is widely favoured or well liked by many people
- the culture that is left over after we decide what is high culture; texts and practices that fail to qualify as a high culture; popular culture as inferior culture
- popular culture as mass culture, its hopelessely commertial structure.
What are the major ways of understanding popular culture?
Consuming media and entertainment
Participating in fashion and trends
Using recognised linguistic
Tarantino’s postmoderism
- a parody of reality
- excessive graphic, comic book style violence
- abuse of drugs
- provocative use of gender and sexuality
- provocative use of racism
- frequent references the past(noatalgia)
- films splet into non- chronographical sections
- intertextuality
The Frankfurt school
a philosophycal and sociologycal movement preocupied with new cultural phenomena in theit economical & social context
founded in 1923
What are culture industries?
Culture industries produce cultural products on a large scale for mass consumption
Culture industries are driven by profit motives, with cultural products created and marketed primarily for economic gain.
Cultural products produced by culture industries often follow established formulas, conventions, and trends to maximize their commercial appeal.
Culture industries have significant influence over public opinion, attitudes, and values through the dissemination of cultural content via mass media channels.
Three claims of Theodore Adorno against popular music
Standardization and Repetition
Mass Production and Mass Consumption
Manipulation and Control
Five most common themes in popular music
- coming out of age - growing up and becoming who one is ment to be
- statemets of disconnect
- frendship
- love & heartbreak
- death
Pseudo - individualization in popular songs
- no chorus - each verse begins or ends with a refain
- no bridge
- guitar solo/riff; keyboard section; sax solo etc
- male/female voice, duet, various styles of singing.
- jazz style, rock, pop etc.
Subcultural resistance - the crisis of cultural dominance
Youth subcultures express opposition to the dominant and parent cultures
They resist incorporation into mainstrem cultures by trying to remain secret
Resistance expressed through style/symbolic rituals.
Style defiition
Continiues subculture’s distinguishig characteristics
Style purposes
- to distinguish participants from ‘normal’ society.
- to create a distinct subcultural identity
Enumerate the main elemets of style in subcultural studies
Image – appearace composed of costume, accessories
Visible manifistation behaviour
Argot – a special behaviour and how it is delivered(jargon, sleng, secret language, spesific pronounciation)
Particular music and related rituals and festivals.
What is Bricolage
a combination and remarcing transformation of various cultural objects
What is Homology
the symbolic fit between the values and lifestyles of a group, its subjective experience and the forms it uses to express or reinforce its total concerns
Significant features of postmodern popular culture
- Fragmentation and Pluralism
- Pastiche and Parody
- Metafiction and Metatextuality
- Consumerism and Commodification
Subculture defiition according to Ross Heanfler
a relatively diffuse social network having a shared identity, distinctive meanings around certain ideas, practices and objects and a sense of marginalisation form or resistance to a percieved ‘conventional’ society.
Advertising defenition
a form of communication used to persuade people to buy
Marketing defenition
a coordinated strategy to induce desire within consumers for a particular brand by margaining the relationship between the consumer and the brand as well as creating value for the consumers.
Famous person testemonial
a strategy linking a product with the support of a well-known person
Plain-folks appeal
a strategy associating a product with simplicity and the common person
Snob-appeal approach
an attempt to convince consumers that using a product will enable them to maintain or elevate their social status
Bandwagon effect
based on exaggerated claims that everyone is using a particular product to encourage consumers to not be left behind
Hidden-fear appeal
a strategy playing on a sense of insecurity, trying to persuade consumers that anly a specific product can offer the relief/solution
Enumerate three main components of critical culture studies.
Power Dynamics
Ideologies
Representations
What is transmedia storytelling?
Transmedia storytelling is a technique of telling a story using multiple formats that use current digital technologies and sharing it across different platforms.
Enumerate new trends in Internet advertising
Personalization and Targeting
Native Advertising
Video Advertising
Influencer Marketing
Programmatic Advertising
What are the main new trends in contents of VOD/OTT streaming content?
- moetyzing nostalgia: popular old shows from the past; remakingold shows for a new audiece; reunion shows.
- capitalizing on big franchises with a big fanbase: sequel; precuel; spin-off; remake
Enumerte the main advantages of contemporary streaming content.
- eormous content variety
- niche content for niche viewers
- live streaming events
- possible binge-watching
- no advertising
- high quality content/no storage problems
- increasing stream quality seeds
Enumerate the major economical/social processes led to the emergence of popular culture in the latter 19th century
Industrialization
Expansion of Mass Media
Technological advancement
Enumerte the main disadvantages of contemporary streaming content.
- addiction to binge-watching
- social isolation
- decision fatigue
- distraction from intellectual, educational, or physical activities
- problems in family life
