Douglas Kellner. Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism, and Media Culture. pgs. 9-20

Description:

• Media portrayals can positively shape our world and define our values, but can also reinforce negative or otherwise undesirable aspects of society. (pg. 9)
  

Analysis:

• Television, film, and music tend to give either liberal or conservative views, though extreme or oppositional views are occasionally seen. This serves to reinforce political homogeneity. (pg. 10)


• Ideologies can enforce domination and subordination, such as class ideologies celebrating upper-class life and degrading that of the working class, or gender ideologies promoting sexist representations of women. (pg.11)


• Because the majority of television and film are controlled by large corporations primarily oriented toward profit, these media outlets are dominated by genres that establish homogeneous systems and well-defined boundaries. (pgs. 12-13)
  

Vision:

• Cultural studies provide individuals and citizens with the means to productively analyze and criticize a media-rich environment, which enables them to resist socio-cultural manipulation and domination. (pg. 10)
  

Strategy:

• Studying the production and political economy of culture is the first step in cultural studies. This refers to examining how cultural texts are produced and inserted into mainstream culture (pgs. 12-13).
• The next step is textual analysis, which requires close examination of cultural texts using a multiperspectival approach (pgs. 14-15).
• Finally, studying audience reception to cultural texts allows one to examine how members of different societies react to texts (pgs. 15-17).