Name&surname: Khanifa Kambardinova

Day of the lecture: Tuesday, 12:00 p.m.

Media and culture

Book review

The major point of Cultural Studies and the Studies of Popular

Culture: Theories and methods is to give a variety of theories and
methods that have been used in cultural studies to research modern
popular culture. The author attempts to minimize his personal criticism
of the theories and methodologies offered because that is not the primary
goal of this work. This book also aims to educate students and readers to
the modern study of popular culture by recommending and contributing
to the growth of cultural studies through the theories and methodologies
covered. Readers should be able to gain an understanding of a variety of
major ideas and methodologies to the study of modern popular culture
within cultural studies by the end of the book. This list of chapters offers
an overview of the book's content:
Chapter 1: Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: An
Introduction
Chapter 2: Television
Chapter 3: Fiction
Chapter 4: Film
Chapter 5: Newspapers and Magazines
Chapter 6: Popular Music
Chapter 7: The consumption of everyday life
Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Stuart Hall, and Valentin Volosinov are
just a few of the early intellectuals whose theories and concepts the
author weaves together and connects in chapter 1 to explain the concept
of culture in cultural studies. The book explains the idea of cultural
studies from Hall's point of view, which implies that there are several
discourses and a variety of historical perspectives on cultural studies.
Popular culture is a crucial component of the cultural studies enterprise,
the chapter argues. In the subsequent six chapters, this will be discussed
in more detail.
Given that watching television is the most common leisure activity in
the world, chapter 2 portrays it as one of the popular cultural forms.
Meanings and signs are continually created in order for TV viewers to
comprehend them. This chapter clarifies a number of approaches to
researching TV discourses. To begin with, Stuart Hall's encoding and
decoding with three decoding positions—dominant code, negotiated
code, and oppositional code—is discussed. Second, David Morley's
Nationwide audience validated much of Hall's model and emphasised
the role of class in determining access to various discourses and
ideological codes. Third, Ien Ang's research of Dallas categorised
viewers into three reading formations known as mass culture ideology.
Following that comes John Fiske's interpretation of TV as one of the
cultural commodities through which popular culture is disseminated for
commercial and cultural goals, which is based on Marx's interpretation.
In a nutshell, this chapter demonstrates the various methods in which the
interpretations of TV shows are negotiated. By filling in the gaps found
in the previous studies, each study attempted to further the study of TV
discourses.
Ideology and symptomatic reading, reading formation, and romantic
reading are the three key methods to the cultural studies study of popular
literature that are the topic of chapter 3. Louis Althusser's work, which
contends that double reading is used to perform symptomatic reading, is
introduced in the debate on ideology and symptomatic reading. Later,
Pierre Macherey tried using this technique to read novels. Tony
Bennett's and Janet Wollacott's works are contrasted with James Bond as
a popular hero in the reading formation discussion. The book Reading
the Romance by Janice Radway, which is widely regarded as the most
complete scholarly analysis of reading, was discussed in detail. Utopian
protest, which yearns for a better society, is a common theme in
romance literature.
The main problem in the link between popular cinema analysis and the
growth of cultural studies will be covered in the next chapter. The
cultural studies field, which grew out of Ferdinand De Saussure's
theoretical contributions, was dominated by structuralism in the study of
cinema. It should be mentioned that structuralists are drawn to cultural
activities and texts that resemble language. This chapter also serves as
an example of how feminist theory may be used to the analysis of
movies that feature women as the focus of attention. However, a
different research by Christine Gledhill encourages seeing the
interaction between viewers and cinema texts as a "negotiation." In
which female actors might provide viewers with a source of imagination
of a more strong and self-assured self than only beautiful dolls in
movies.
In chapter 5, the narrative role of tabloid journalism and popular culture
is discussed. Despite the fact that providing information is the declared
goal of journalism, narrative is frequently used. The chapter
distinguishes between the quality press and the popular press,
demonstrating how each is consistently handled differently. According
to John Fiske, the popular press lacks a stylistic distinction between
fiction and documentary, between news and entertainment, and is
spectacular in style and populist in tone. In this article, Fiske's critique of
the popular press is covered in more detail. The subsequent section
contains the magazine-related theoretical justifications. According to
Angela McRobbie, women's and girls' periodicals frequently define and
map out a feminine domain. The combination of entertaining content and
practical information arranged around a variety of fiction is how
magazines draw in female readers. In this case, chapter 3 is helpful to
consult since it offers greater clarification on what constitutes fiction.
The first statement in chapter 6 of Popular Music is made by Theodor
Adorno, who asserts that political economy of culture, which focuses on
the interaction between the symbolic and economic dimensions of public
communication, including popular music, has injected political economy
of culture into the study of popular music. According to Leon Rosselson,
the music business is a capitalist one, and the items it produces are
capitalists' products that adhere to a capitalist worldview. This notion,
however, did not take into account the fact that capitalism creates
commodities for trade values, where commodities are appreciated for
their symbolic worth. Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel's work serves as
the official starting point for cultural studies of popular music.
The consumption of everyday life is discussed as a cultural issue in the
last chapter. Beginning in the Marxist period, consumerism is culturally
analysed. Marxism's brand of capitalism is a profit-driven economic
system that marks a shift from production for necessity to production for
profit. Other closely connected viewpoints, like those of Frederick
Engels, Herbert Marcuse, Thornstein Veblen, and Pierre Bourdieu, are
also examined in relation to the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
Examples of consumptions are explained throughout the chapter,
including fan culture, subcultural consumption, and shopping as popular
culture. According to certain theories, these popular cultures actively
produced and consumed alternative and opposing meanings that aimed
to emphasise social classes, disparities, and cultural identity.
Specifically in chapters 3, 4, and 5, which give a full grasp of how
utopia is formed in popular culture, this book has utopian components
that are relevant to the class discussion. Since the creation of an
idealised society may be easily accomplished through literature and
cinema, the utopian notion can be found in the popular press,
periodicals, and novels. It may be said that utopian illusions are used in
popular culture because they help people comprehend the world and
provide an escape from reality.
It is clear that the commercialization of culture and consumerism in
chapters 1, 6, and 7 is heavily influenced by Marx's conception of
capitalism. Because the commercialization of culture and consumerism
is seen as an inevitable process in a capitalist society where everything
should be centred on profit, Marxism has a significant influence in
cultural studies of popular culture.
The reader has decent access to ideas and the study of popular
cultures thanks to this book, which is helpful. The theoretical ideas are
supported by well-known research that are discussed in each chapter and
are both connected to and critical of one another. An assortment of
papers from writers who have pioneered the field are deemed
appropriate for an introductory book. However, if readers are interested
in conducting research on popular culture, I think further readings that
are related to the other studies that are now being published will provide
a wide range of information. As a starting point for the study of current
popular culture within the field of cultural studies, I believe the book is
generally good. The use of straightforward language will assist students
the greatest.

Book:
STOREY, J., 1996. Cultural studies and the studies of popular culture: theories and
methods. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.