Flashcard 1-50
Q: What does Raymond Williams mean by saying “culture is ordinary”?
A: Culture includes everyday practices and shared meanings. It’s not just art or highbrow things – it’s all around us in how we live, speak, and interact daily.
Q: How does cultural studies view popular culture compared to high culture?
A: Cultural studies treats popular culture as equally worthy of analysis because it reflects the values and power dynamics of everyday life.
Q: What is Americanization in cultural terms?
A: The global spread of American cultural products (like Hollywood movies, fast food), influencing local traditions.
What does decolonizing culture involve?
A: Reclaiming and celebrating local and indigenous cultures that were suppressed by colonial influence.
Q: How did industrialization change leisure and popular culture?
A: It transformed leisure into commercial entertainment (like music halls and cinema), shifting from community events to ticketed experiences.
Q: How did industrialization change leisure and popular culture?
A: It transformed leisure into commercial entertainment (like music halls and cinema), shifting from community events to ticketed experiences.
Q: What is mass culture?
A: Culture produced for mass consumption, often standardized and aimed at large audiences.
Q: What is a sign in semiotics?
A: A sign is made of a signifier (form) and a signified (concept). Together, they produce meaning.
What is a myth according to Barthes?
A: A cultural message that appears natural but reinforces dominant ideologies, like success being tied to luxury cars.
Q: What is representation in cultural studies?
A: It’s how meaning is constructed and communicated through media and culture; it shapes reality, not just reflects it.
Q: What is the culture industry according to Adorno and Horkheimer?
A: A system where culture is mass-produced for profit, leading to standardized, repetitive entertainment that promotes conformity.
What is pseudo-individualization?
A: The illusion of choice in standardized products; things feel unique but follow the same formula.
What is hegemony?
A: When the dominant group’s worldview becomes “common sense” and accepted as natural by everyone.
Q: How did consumer society change personal identity?
A: Identity became linked to what people buy, turning consumption into a way of expressing status and individuality.
Q: What is conspicuous consumption?
A: Buying expensive items to display wealth and gain social prestige.
What is ethical consumption?
A: Choosing products that align with moral or political values, like buying fair-trade or boycotting unethical brands.
What is hegemonic masculinity?
A: The dominant cultural ideal of manhood (strong, stoic, powerful), which marginalizes other expressions of masculinity.
What is postfeminism?
A: A media narrative claiming feminism is outdated, emphasizing individual choice while ignoring ongoing gender inequality.
What is intersectionality in feminism?
A: Recognizing that gender intersects with race, class, sexuality, and ability, creating different experiences for different women.
Q: What is the myth of race?
A: Race is a social construct, not a biological fact, but it has real consequences due to historical and cultural systems of power.
Q: What is hybridity in postcolonial theory?
A: The blending of colonizer and local cultures, producing mixed or new cultural identities.
Q: What is a subculture
A: A group within society with distinct styles and values, offering identity and resistance to mainstream norms.
Q: What is a counterculture?
A: A group that actively rejects and challenges mainstream cultural values (e.g., 1960s hippies).
Q: What is co-optation in culture?
A: When mainstream culture absorbs elements of subcultures, often diluting their original meaning.
Q: What is the Panopticon and how does it relate to culture?
A: A metaphor for surveillance where people self-regulate behavior because they feel watched; relates to modern surveillance and conformity.
Q: How does globalization affect culture?
A: It spreads cultural products worldwide, leading to both cultural homogenization and hybrid cultural forms.
Q: What is participatory culture?
A: A digital culture where users create, remix, and share content rather than just consume it passively.
Q: What is the long tail of media?
A: The idea that digital platforms allow niche content to thrive alongside blockbusters; we now consume across many micro-cultures.
What is surveillance capitalism?
A: The business model of collecting users’ personal data to target ads and predict consumer behavior.
Q: What is culture jamming?
A: A form of protest that subverts mainstream media or advertising to expose its manipulative techniques.
Q: What is identity in cultural studies?
A: A dynamic, socially constructed sense of self shaped by cultural, social, and political forces.
Q: What is the difference between high culture and folk culture?
A: High culture is associated with elite tastes (opera, classical music), while folk culture comes from grassroots traditions and is often community-based.
How does semiotics explain the way meaning is made?
? A: Semiotics sees meaning as constructed through signs, where the relationship between signifier and signified is socially agreed upon.
Q: What is connotation?
A: The secondary, cultural meaning of a sign that goes beyond its literal definition.
Q: What is denotation?
A: The literal or primary meaning of a sign.
Q: What role do myths play in culture?
A: Myths naturalize social norms and make ideological meanings appear common sense.
What is discourse according to Foucault?
A: A system of knowledge and language that shapes how we think about and understand the world.
Q: How does power operate in discourse?
A: Power is exercised through discourse by shaping what can be said and thought, and by controlling knowledge.
What is commodification in cultural terms?
A: Turning cultural experiences or symbols into marketable goods.
Q: What is the main critique of the culture industry?
A: It promotes conformity and dulls critical thinking through formulaic, pleasure-driven content.
Q: What is audience agency?
A: The idea that audiences can interpret, resist, or repurpose cultural texts in ways not intended by producers.
Q: How does taste function in consumer culture?
A: Taste is a form of social distinction and is shaped by class, education, and upbringing.
Q: What is Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital?
A: Non-economic assets like education and taste that provide social mobility.
Q: What is planned obsolescence?
A: Designing products to become outdated quickly so consumers keep buying new versions.
Q: What are false needs?
A: Wants created by consumer society that serve capitalist interests rather than actual well-being.
Q: What is affective labor?
A: Work that involves managing emotions, often seen in service industries or online content creation.
Q: How is femininity portrayed in postfeminist media?
A: As empowered and sexy, often through consumer choices that still align with traditional beauty standards.
Q: What is the male gaze?
A: A way of seeing that frames women as objects of heterosexual male desire.
Q: How does queer theory view identity?
A: As fluid, non-binary, and constructed through social performance rather than fixed categories.
Q: What is heteronormativity?
A: The cultural assumption that heterosexuality is the default or normal sexual orientation.
Q: What is the significance of drag in cultural studies?
A: Drag challenges gender norms by exposing how gender is performed.
Q: What is the difference between race and ethnicity?
A: Race is often based on perceived biological traits, while ethnicity relates to cultural identity and heritage.
Q: What is cultural appropriation?
A: When elements of a marginalized culture are used by members of a dominant culture, often without understanding or respect.
What is creolization
A: The blending of different cultural elements to form new, hybrid cultural expressions.
Q: What is diasporic identity?
A: An identity formed by people living outside their ancestral homeland, often combining multiple cultural influences.
Q: What is imagined community?
A: A sense of connection among people who see themselves as part of a nation, even if they never meet.
Q: What is banal nationalism?
A: Everyday expressions of national identity, like flags, sports, or national anthems.
Q: How do subcultures use style?
A: As a symbolic form of resistance and identity formation.
Q: What is the mainstreaming of subcultures?
A: When subcultural elements are absorbed into popular culture, often losing their original meaning.
Q: What is cultural resistance?
A: Acts of challenging dominant cultural norms or institutions, often through alternative cultural practices.
How can subcultures be politically significant?
A: They can provide a voice for marginalized groups and resist dominant ideologies through symbolic practices.
Q: What is oppositional reading?
A: When audiences reject the intended meaning of a cultural text and interpret it in a resistant way.
Q: What does polysemy mean in media studies?
A: The idea that texts can have multiple meanings and interpretations.
Q: What is encoding/decoding theory (Stuart Hall)?
A: A model explaining how media producers encode meaning into texts, and audiences decode them based on their own context.
Q: What are the three reading positions in Hall’s model?
A: Dominant, negotiated, and oppositional readings.
Q: What is the difference between dominant and negotiated reading?
A: Dominant reading accepts the preferred meaning; negotiated reading partly accepts but also questions it.
Q: What is bricolage in subcultures?
A: Reusing or reassembling everyday objects to create new meanings, often in style or fashion.
Q: What is a moral panic?
A: A widespread fear that some cultural phenomenon threatens societal values.
Q: What is youth culture?
A: The cultural practices and styles that are specific to young people, often characterized by resistance and experimentation.
71 Q: What is fast fashion?
A: Rapid production of cheap clothing that follows trends and encourages constant consumer turnover.
Q: What is slow culture?
A cultural movement promoting quality, sustainability, and mindfulness over speed and mass production.
Q: What does digital labor refer to?
A: Unpaid or underpaid work done online, such as content creation, data entry, or user engagement.
Q: What is fandom?
A: A community of fans who actively engage with and contribute to a cultural text.
Q: What is fan fiction?
A: Stories written by fans that expand or reimagine existing narratives, often challenging canonical plots.
Q: What is platform capitalism?
A: An economic system where digital platforms extract value from user data and labor.
Q: What is a filter bubble?
A: A situation where algorithms show users only content that aligns with their existing beliefs, limiting exposure to different views.
Q: What is cancel culture?
A: The practice of publicly calling out and boycotting individuals or groups for problematic behavior or speech.
Q: What is meme culture?
A: A form of digital communication using humor and images to express and spread ideas.
Q: How are TikTok and short-form video changing pop culture?
A: By promoting fast, user-generated content and reshaping attention spans and creative formats.
Q: What is virality?
A: The rapid spread of content online through sharing, often reaching massive audiences quickly.
Q: What is an influencer?
A: A person with a large online following who can affect consumer behavior or cultural trends.
Q: What is micro-celebrity?
A: Fame achieved through digital self-presentation and audience-building on social media.
Q: What is disinformation?
A: False or misleading information spread deliberately to deceive.
Q: What is media convergence?
A: The merging of different media platforms and technologies into integrated digital forms.
Q: What is transmedia storytelling?
A: Telling a story across multiple platforms where each medium contributes uniquely to the narrative.
Q: What is binge-watching and its cultural impact?
A: Watching multiple episodes in one sitting, changing viewing habits and expectations of media.
Q: What is digital detox?
A: A break from screens and online media to reduce stress and reclaim focus.
Q: What is algorithmic bias?
A: When algorithms reflect and reinforce existing social prejudices in their outputs.
What is the gig economy?
A: A labor market based on short-term contracts or freelance work, often managed through digital platforms.
Q: What is digital surveillance?
A: The monitoring of digital activities, often by governments or corporations, using technologies like tracking cookies and facial recognition.
Q: What is performativity in gender theory?
A: The concept that gender is not something we are but something we do repeatedly through actions and expressions.
Q: What is identity politics?
A: Political positions based on the interests and perspectives of social groups with which people identify.
Q: What is pastiche?
A: A cultural work made by imitating styles or elements from different sources, often without clear originality.
Q: What is hyperreality?
A: A condition in which what is real and what is simulation become indistinguishable, often associated with media saturation.
Q: What is Baudrillard’s view on media?
A: Media creates simulacra—copies without originals—that replace reality with representations.
Q: What is cyberculture?
A: The culture that has emerged from the use of computer networks for communication, entertainment, and business.
Q: What is technoculture?
A: The relationship between technology and culture, focusing on how tech shapes cultural experiences.
Q: What is the digital divide?
A: The gap between individuals who have access to modern technology and those who do not.
Q: What is the attention economy?
A: An economy where human attention is treated as a scarce commodity, competed for by media and advertising.
What is cultural globalization?
A: The worldwide spread and integration of cultural beliefs, practices, and products.
Q: What is symbolic annihilation?
A: The underrepresentation or misrepresentation of certain groups in media, effectively erasing them from cultural narratives.
Q: What is postcolonial theory concerned with?
A: Examining the cultural legacy of colonialism and the ways formerly colonized societies reclaim identity and power.
Q: What is structuralism?
A: A theoretical approach that analyzes culture as a system of signs governed by underlying structures.
Q: What is post-structuralism?
A: A reaction against structuralism that emphasizes fluidity, contradiction, and instability in meaning.
Q: What is ideology in cultural studies?
A: A set of beliefs or values that appear natural but support the interests of dominant groups.
Q: What is interpellation (Althusser)?
A: The process by which individuals are ‘hailed’ into social roles through ideological systems.
Q: What is the difference between resistance and subversion?
A: Resistance is open opposition; subversion is the more subtle undermining of dominant norms.
Q: What is the spectacle (Debord)?
A: A social condition where life is mediated through images and appearances rather than lived experiences.
Q: What is reification?
A: Treating abstract concepts or social relationships as if they were concrete and unchangeable.
Q: What is cultural hegemony (Gramsci)?
A: The domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class’s worldview, which becomes accepted as common sense.
Q: What is articulation in cultural studies?
A: The process of connecting different ideas or practices together in a meaningful way.
What is cultural relativism?
A: The idea that beliefs and practices should be understood in relation to their cultural context.
What is ethnocentrism?
A: Judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture.
Q: What is orientalism (Edward Said)?
A: The Western depiction of Eastern cultures as exotic, backward, and inferior to justify colonial domination.
Q: What is neoliberalism in cultural terms?
A: An economic and political model emphasizing individualism, deregulation, and market logic in all areas of life.
Q: What is user-generated content?
A: Media content created and shared by users rather than professionals, common on social media platforms.
Q: What is a culture jamming example?
A: Altering a McDonald’s ad to say “McDiabetes” as a critique of fast food health impacts.
Q: What is Afrofuturism?
A: A cultural movement combining science fiction, history, and fantasy to explore the Black experience and imagine alternative futures.
Q: What is neoliberalism in cultural terms?
A: An economic and political model emphasizing individualism, deregulation, and market logic in all areas of life.
Q: What is Afrofuturism?
A: A cultural movement combining science fiction, history, and fantasy to explore the Black experience and imagine alternative futures.
Q: What is the culture of fear?
A: A society where fear is amplified by media and political rhetoric, often to justify control or exclusion.
Q: What is a prosumer?
A: A person who both produces and consumes content, especially in digital contexts.
Q: What is the commodification of identity?
A: When personal identity traits (e.g., race, gender, sexuality) are marketed and sold as lifestyle brands.
Q: What is a cultural trope?
A: A recurring theme or device in cultural texts that conveys familiar ideas or messages.
Q: What is digital colonialism?
A: The control of data and digital infrastructure in the Global South by powerful tech companies from the Global North.
Q: What is platformization?
A: The increasing dominance of digital platforms in shaping culture, communication, and economic life.
Q: What is nostalgia in media?
A: The use of past styles or themes to evoke emotional longing, often seen in reboots and retro aesthetics.
Q: What is digital enclosure?
A: The privatization of digital spaces and content, limiting open access and user freedom.
Q: What is algorithmic culture?
A: A culture shaped by algorithmic recommendations and personalization, especially in media consumption.
Q: What is surveillance society?
A: A society where constant monitoring becomes normalized, both online and offline.
Q: What is cultural remediation?
A: The process of refashioning older media into new forms, like turning books into films or podcasts.
Q: What is the aesthetics of excess?
A: A visual or narrative style that emphasizes extravagance, maximalism, and overstimulation.
Q: What is identity tourism?
A: Adopting aspects of another culture or identity temporarily, often online, without facing real-world consequences.
Q: What is the affect theory?
A: A focus on emotion and bodily response in understanding cultural experience.
Q: What is intersectional invisibility?
A: When people with multiple marginalized identities are overlooked in both social and media representations.
Q: What is digital folklore?
A: Internet-born traditions like memes, viral challenges, and urban legends that form online community bonds.
Q: What is net neutrality?
A: The principle that internet service providers should treat all online data equally.
Q: What is participatory surveillance?
A: When people willingly monitor themselves and others, often through social media sharing.
Q: What is DIY culture?
A: A culture of self-production and creativity, often in opposition to mainstream commercial products.
Q: What is branded content?
A: Media created by or in partnership with brands to promote products while entertaining or informing.
Q: What is slacktivism?
A: Low-effort online activism that gives the feeling of impact without significant engagement (e.g., liking a cause post).
Q: What is post-truth culture?
A: A culture where emotional appeals and personal beliefs outweigh objective facts in shaping public opinion.
Q: What is media literacy?
A: The ability to critically analyze, evaluate, and create media in various forms.
What is echo chamber?
A: A situation where beliefs are reinforced by communication inside a closed system, blocking alternative viewpoints.
Q: What is a symbolic boundary?
A: A conceptual distinction that separates groups or identities within a culture.
Q: What is aspirational culture?
A: Culture that promotes lifestyle goals and ideal identities people are encouraged to strive for.
Q: What is the digital self?
A: The version of oneself constructed and presented online through profiles, posts, and interactions.
Q: What is technopanic?
A: Fear-driven public reaction to new technologies perceived as threats to social norms or safety.
Q: What is algorithmic governance?
A: The use of algorithms to make decisions or shape behavior in social, legal, or economic contexts.
