Exam 1 Flashcards
(145 cards)
1
Q
Theory that examines the way popular culture reflects the social world
A
Reflection theory
2
Q
According to Stuart Hall’s communication theory, messages are created by media producers through a process of
A
encoding
3
Q
What are the three modes of decoding a communication message?
A
- dominant/hegemonic
- Negotiation
- Oppositional
4
Q
According to semiotics, what is the second order of signification?
A
Connotation
5
Q
Name 2 out of the major 5 media conglomerates which own and control popular culture today.
A
Comcast, Walt Disney, National Amusements, News corporation, time warner
6
Q
As part of the “cultural diamond” it refers to the totality of the community in which the cultural objects acts (America, Ventura, biker culture, high school, etc)
A
Social World
7
Q
A group of two or more people receiving/consuming the same message or cultural object
A
Interpretative Community
8
Q
The approach which analyzes America’s obsession with hamburgers as indication of bad taste and degraded cultural knowledge.
A
High culture approach
9
Q
When individuals or groups appropriate an existing sign and create new meaning from the signifier
A
resignification
10
Q
When the cultural industry is controlled by a small handful of corporations that are functionally no longer competing with each other
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Oligopoly
11
Q
What were the two major social forces behind the creation of popular culture by and for the masses during the mid-19th century?
A
industrialization and urbanization
12
Q
What consist of the cultural diamond
A
social world (top) receiver (right) cultural object (down) creator (left)
13
Q
What are the two main strategies for controlling and disciplining the popular pleasures of subordinate social groups?
A
repressive legislation, respectable appropriation
14
Q
____ is powerful because it takes very simple ideas seriously, earnestly, and energetically
A
vulgarity
15
Q
What are the three perspectives in Douglas Kellner’s multi-perspectival approach to media culture?
A
- political economy/production
- textual analysis
- audience reception/use of culture
16
Q
The approach that sees popular culture as a”compromised equilibrium” between dominant and subordinate social groups over the major influential ideas in society
A
hegemony
17
Q
which author/theorists argued that popular culture can only made by various social groups who are disempowered from the stratified social system
A
John Fiske
18
Q
Which famous circus entertainment company that is still in existence was once known for exploiting non-normative people in their traveling ‘freak show’
A
Barnum and Bailey
19
Q
The film Rocky (1976) was about a working class white male in the South Philadelphia. According to Kidd, what was this films overall “class theme”
A
The American Dream
20
Q
__ referes to the structure of dispositions/tastes that we acquire from life, especially from our families, schools, and communities.
A
Habitus
21
Q
Max Horkhiemer and Theodore Adorno argued that ____ is a capitalist system which produces art as a market commodity for profit and to mentally manipulate populations
A
Cultural industry
22
Q
The approach that refers to the overlapping effects of race, gender, class and other identities that shape human experience within a system of stratification
A
intersectionality
23
Q
Analysis which records key observations about how social issues are represented and discussed in cultural objects
A
Qualitative Content Analysis
24
Q
According to the PBS documentary, The Merchants of Cool, which unique cultural figure was invented by Viacom corporation to engage young male audiences in the mid 1990s?
A
The Mook
25
According to Laura Grindstaff, TV shows like Jerry Springer and the Jersey show are what type of minstrelsy
White trash face minstrelsy
26
When a group of homeless people were observed watching the film Die Hard, they cheered as the villains destroyed police property. What form of decoding is this?
Oppositional
27
What is popular culture?
1. is widely favored or well liked by many people. This approach is most dominant and obvious.
28
What is the second way popular culture is defined?
- is what is after 'high" culture is defined
29
By what measure do you mark cultural 'distinction'?
Cultural distinctions function to legitimate social differences an social classes (polo vs soccer, filet mignon vs burger, opera vs rap)
30
Who consumes this elevated culture and who doesn't?
mass produced vs individual act of creation
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How are cultural divisions defined?
they are transhistorical or temporally fixed
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Is true or false-- the borders of culture between high and low are always shifting/changing
true
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What is the 3rd definition of popular culture
- popular culture is "mass culture"
| - establish pop culture as helplessly commercial culture
34
What is culture?
is formulaic and manipulative, consumed with brain numbed and brain numbing passivity
35
What is the 4th definition of pop culture?
- popular culture originates from 'the people'
| - authentic culture of the people
36
What is the 5th definition of pop culture?
-Pop culture is the terrain of hegemony
37
what is hegemony? (Antonio Gramaci)
is the way in which dominant groups in society, through a process of 'intellectual and moral leadership' seek to win the consent of subordinate groups in society.
38
How is pop culture not an imposition of power or organically emerging from the people?
Rather an exchange and negotiation between the two: a terrain marked by resistance and incorporation
39
What is the 6th definition of pop culture?
- is postmodern
| - no distinction between high and popular
40
How is culture commercial?
culture is commercial, commercial is cultural= no difference
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What is popular culture?
the culture of the people that can refer either to folk culture or to commercial culture
42
What is commercial culture?
expressive styles and objects that are mass produced and sold for a profit. Often contrasted with folk and high culture
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What is folk culture?
expressive styles and objects associated with local cultures and lower income groups. Often contrasted with high and commercial culture
44
What is culture?
a system of shared meanings embodied in social practices, social relations, and socially meaningful objects.
45
What is cultural object?
works of arts, pop culture, furniture, food, films, magazines, albums.
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What is a receiver?
audiences and consumers of high, folk, commercial and pop culture
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What is reception?
the process of consuming a cultural object
48
What is consumption?
the process of buying and making use of good and services
49
What is interpretation?
the process of determining the meaning of a cultural object like a book, film, tv show, or art work
50
What is tool kit?
Ann Swidler's theory of how individuals make use of cultural experiences as resources and strategies that they utilize when making decisions about social action.
51
Who is the creator?
producers, writers, directors, artists, performers, technicians
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What is cultural industry?
the web of corporations that produce commercial culture and the meanings that are embedded in commercial culture objects
53
what is production?
the process of creating and distributing good and services
54
What is political economy?
the complex relations of profit making and decisions making in the marketplace where goods and services are produced, distributed, sold, and bought
55
What is horizontal integration?
a cost-saving method for a business that involves controlling ever higher proportions of market production within a field.
56
What is vertical integration?
a cost saving method for business that involves controlling every aspect of the creation and distribution process
57
What is interlocks?
When a board member of a major media organization is also a board member of another corporation, it creates corporate interlock that may make the media organization more favorable to the interlocking corporation
58
What is culture industry?
cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. Promissory note with its plot and staging, draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged. Promise is actually all the spectacle consists of illusory .. all it confirms is that the real point will never be reached.
59
What is the social world?
norms, demographics, historical arrangements, dominant ideologies, and institutions of the world
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What is social stratification?
a social system that produces and reproduces social differences, and subordinates different social groups into unequal social structures
61
What is privilege?
the benefit of being situated at the top of a social hierarchy. Is often taken for granted and not noticed by those who have it
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What is intersectionality?
sociological theory that examines inequality and privilege with a focus on the connections between systems of hierarchy, particularly race, class, and gender
63
What are the two main social forces behind the 'cultural crisis'?
industrialization and urbanization
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What were the two main sources where the alternative cultural space of the subordinate classes came from?
- culture supplied for profit by the new cultural entrepreneurs
- culture made by & for the political agitation of radical artisans, the new urban working class and middle class reformers
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What were Benjamin Disraeli's 'Two Nations'?
the elite nation and working class nation
66
According to Mathew Arnold, culture is? (4 WAYS)
1. body of knowledge- the best that has been thought and said in the world
2. concerned to make reason & the will of God prevail
3. mental and spiritual application of what is best
4. the pursuit of what is best
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Culture is... (Mathew Arnold)
the endeavor to know the best and to make knowledge prevail for the good of all humankind
68
What were the different social classes in relationship to culture? (Mathew Arnold)
1. aristocrats (lazy, old elites that did not want to innovate)
2. Barbarians (Middle class people who were swayed by aristocrats or philistines)
3. Philistines (the masses of poor people who have no taste or culture)
69
What did the terms "high brow" and lowbrow" represent?
-a racist pseudoscience of the 19th century that determined racial identity and intelligence by measuring cranial shapes
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What did "highbrow" represent?
higher more intelligent
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What did "lowbrow" represent
lower less intelligent
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What are the two main strategies for the control/discipline of the pleasures of the subordinate classes?
- repressive legislation, ban or eliminate the cultures
| - appropriation, by which "vulgar" uncontrolled leisure pursuits could be respectable and disciplined
73
What is vulgar?
is powerful because it takes very simple ideas seriously, earnestly, and energetically.
predictability, derivative, repetitive, tolerant of all, inclusive, adaptive, easy, and cheap
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According to John Fiske, culture is...
the constant process of producing meanings of and from our social experience, and these meanings produce a social identity.
75
How is our social system stratified?
it is dominated by certain groups who have relatively more power: whites, males, wealthy capitalists
76
What is dominant ideologies?
affect the preferred or dominant-culture readings of media texts
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What is oppositional ideologies?
are more likely to emanate from social categories that are ranked near the bottom of our social stratification system: racial minorities, women, the poor
78
What are alternative or oppositional readings of media texts?
are more likely to emanate from these groups- the subordinated
79
According to Fiske, "pop culture" is....
made by various social categories who are subordinated or disempowered in some way by the social system
80
What is the "betty crocker" norm?
norms of everyday life are sufficient for most people, particularly those who do not feel disempowered by the social system
81
How is popular culture made?
it's made by people who lack some of these societal resources. it is made by subordinates within the stratification system who do feel somewhat disempowered
82
What resources do the dominant social system provide?
provides a lot of resources in our culture: cars, clothes, TVs, games, language, shopping malls, music, sports
83
What is excorporation?
when an item of the dominant culture is modified to 'fit' the interests of subordinate groups in the social system. This liberates an alternative meaning of that item.
84
What is incorporation?
when members of society accept the preferred meaning of an item-- the Betty Crocker or mainstream definition that carries the interests of the dominant groups.
85
What's the example of Dirty Dutch excorporation?
Dirty Dutch-- excorporation produced by a small subordinate group of techno music
86
What's the example of Dirty Dutch incorporation?
Dirty Dutch sound was incorporated into mainstream Top 40 pop music.
87
What is 'cultural change'?
the process by which some cultural forms and practices are driven out of the center of popular life.
88
What are "the people" ?
are the source of this popular life, but also the object of 'reform' from the perspective of the powerful
89
Study of pop culture oscillates between two poles are...
Containment (control, appropriation, incorporation)
| Resistance (autonomy,reappropriation, excorporation)
90
What is culture struggle?
incorporation, distortion, resistance, negotiation, recuperation
91
True or false... are class struggle and the cultural struggled interlinked?
True
92
What are "popular" and "the people" ?
alliance of classes and forces which constitute the 'popular classes'. The culture of the oppressed, the excluded classes.
93
What is "the power bloc"?
side w/ the cultural power to decide what belongs and what does not. Alliance of classes and social forces which constitute what is not 'the people'= culture of the power bloc.
94
What is cultural text?
sound ,message, image or narrative that creates meaning for its 'readers'
95
What is intertextuality?
a field of implied chain of associated meanings, usually across genres, institutionsm contexts, history etc.
96
What is critical deconstruction?
Analysis of images, narratives, and ideologies that reveals the way meaning is produced and thus debunks the "naturalness" of a cultural text
97
What are semiotics?
is the study of signs, signification or meaning-making
98
What is a sign?
image, object, or action that stands for something else, including objects and concepts
99
What are signs made up of?
they are made up of a signifier (Sr) and signified (Sd)
100
What is a signifier?
material or physical form of a sign takes, something seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted
101
What is signified?
object, concept or ideas to which the signifier refers
102
What is signification?
the signifier and the signified are "articulated" or linked together through the process of signification
103
What is denotation?
(literal meaning) first order signification
| - a sign consisting of a signifier and a signified
104
What is connotation?
(implied meaning) second order signification
| - uses the denotative signifies as its sign and attaches an additional signified
105
What is the triangle (semiotics)
interpretant (top), object (right) sign vehicle (left)
106
What is interpretant?
possible meanings
107
What is object?
something other there
108
What is sign vehicle?
signifier
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What are the three sign modes?
iconic, indexical, and symbolic
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What is iconic?
Signifies by: Resemblance
| Process: Recognize it
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What is indexical?
Signifies by: Physical or causal connection (event occurred)
| Process: Figure it out
112
What is symbolic?
Signifies by: Convention
| Process: Must learn it
113
What are iconic signifiers?
are motivated, whereas symbolic signifiers are not motivated; we can recognize (received) signs or must learn them (perceived)
114
What is re-signification?
when new meaning is created from existing signifiers, a cultural producer is engaging
115
What is code?
a system of signs, a framework within which signs make sense
116
What is encoding?
the practice of assembling signs with intent to create meaning
117
What is decoding?
the practice of receiving and consuming meaning
118
What is dominant/preferred meaning decoding?
Take producers
119
What is negotiation decoding?
take own meanings and mix it
120
What is oppositional decoding?
going against it
121
What are the 2 ways the 3 modes of decoding can occur?
1. individually
| 2. collectively (interpretative community)
122
What is individually?
just watch it with yourself
123
What is collectively?
within a group
124
What is the multi-perspectival approach?
textual-- audience reception-- use of culture-- production/political economy
125
What did The Jeffersons and "All in the family" represent?
```
they were about the working class people lives
focused more on the traditional american dream story
```
126
What does "Modern Family" represent?
features people who live affluent lifestyles without seeming to work for them
127
What were the 2 major classes from Karl Marx?
1. Proletariat
| 2. Bourgeoisie
128
Who are the Proletariat?
the working class, which provides the labor necessary for production within the capitalist economic system
129
Who are the Bourgeoisie?
the wealthy class that own the means of production (the land, the resources, factories, machines)
130
According to Karl Marx, popular culture is?
is a form of capitalist production
131
KM popular culture is
a system of commodities (can be described both as art transformed into commodity and as commodities that sell commodities)
132
KM popular culture provides..
a symbol system that teach audiences how to think about the economic world in which they live
133
How does class implies categorical differences?
It implies clear categorical difference between groups within a hierarchy
134
How are lower-class roles portrayed in the media?
They are shown as criminals, victims, and medical patients
135
How are class concepts shaped?
Is a shaper of life experience and as a point of conflict in human and social life is absent from the big screen
136
How have films become more middle class?
they are more commercial and more centrally controlled images of class conflict largely disappeared.
137
What are the themes found in film?
True Love Conquers All
American Dream
Ethnic Division Trumps Class Unity
138
What are examples of film in "True Love Conquers All" ?
```
Gone with the wind
My Fair lady
Funny Girl
Pretty Woman
Aladdin
Titanic
```
139
What are examples of film in "American Dream"
Funny Girl
| Rocky
140
What are examples of film in "Ethnic division trumps class unity"?
West Side Story
141
How do working class women view television?
They view television through class based lens and how realistic it seems
142
What are the critical responses by journalists to reality tv?
They characterized reality tv as low and vulgar
143
How does reality tv genre blur the tv lines?
It blurs the lines of class-as-culture.
144
What does reality tv re-presents?
It re-presents social relations in predictable ways
145
What do reality programs glorify?
they glorify the lower class for entertainment purposes, but also reiterate their "place" in the social sphere by portraying people that belong to these class in a certain light
