Class Notes 1/25/07

Class Notes 1/25/07

Gender and Popular Culture - Class Notes
January 25, 2007

Key Terms
• Political Economy – a convergence of political and economic factors; how the government and economic market interact with each other and what is produced from their interaction
• Politics creates the policy and regulations that allow the government to intervene in the economic side (e.g., decency laws intervening in economic side by regulating trade)
• Example: Think Howard Stern going to satellite radio to escape government regulations, and the long-term effects it had on the economy.

Readings
• Charlotte Bunch, “Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action”
• This four point approach is the best way to approach any literary analysis
• Description
• Describe what exists
• The “what” is typically an articulation of a problem that the author wants to address in his/her work
• This is often the argument or thesis proposed by the author
• Analysis
• Why the reality presented in the description exists
3. Vision
• What should exist – establish principles and goals
4. Strategy
• How do you get to the vision?
• A plan/blueprint/map
• Changing what is to what should be
• This is the hardest part of theory

• Preface: Gender, Race, and Class in Media
• Certain topics reoccur and are difficult to separate
• Description
• Cultural studies used to take a positivist approach
i. Focused more on quantitative studies in the lab, focusing on numbers
ii. The editors find this approach too simplistic
• More recently, cultural studies has also shown a more qualitative side – believe answers cannot be found on Scantron
• The authors saw that a gap exists between media/pop culture and the academic analyses that can be drawn, and a lack of useful research
• Media cannot be analyzed simply by numbers
i. Why do they watch it? What are the reasons?
• You can approach content-rich media using scientific processes
• There is an inequality which is evident in popular culture/media; this needs to be studied
• Analysis
• Causes of inequality in popular culture/media:
i. The media conglomerates and how they are managed, as well as who manages and owns them
ii. There is an academic mismanagement of the topic
• Vision
• A fairer distribution of cultural and economic resources worldwide
4. Strategy
• A book for undergraduates: education leads to awareness, which leads to informed involvement in policy-making decisions

Notes by: Amanda G
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