Soaps and Sitcoms: Cultural Studies

Soaps and sitcoms

(British) Cultural Studies: Raymond WilliamsE.P. ThompsonRichard HoggartCentre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Birmingham, 1964 – 2002)

Soaps and sitcoms

(British) Cultural Studies: Raymond WilliamsE.P. ThompsonRichard HoggartCentre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Birmingham, 1964 – 2002)

critical left agenda: Marxism1970s: feminism

post-colonial theory, critical race theory(post-)structuralism + linguistic turn

Soaps and sitcoms

Cultural Studies:

a “toolbox”identity and differencesignification, representation and ideologyagency

Soaps and sitcoms

Cultural Studies:

a “toolbox”identity and differencesignification, representation and ideologyagency

... Why are these important?

Soaps and sitcoms

Key terms:“Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

Soaps and sitcoms

Key terms:“Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

- traditionally: the humanitiesthe classics, the canon; the “best that has been thought and said” (Matthew Arnold)

Soaps and sitcoms

Key terms:“Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

- traditionally: the humanitiesthe classics, the canon; the “best that has been thought and said” (Matthew Arnold)

- interfering historical + political contexts:

Soaps and sitcoms

Key terms:“Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

- interfering historical + political contexts: 20th century...... mass culture and the media... fascism... capitalism, post-WWII consumer society, globalization... culture as politics: minority rights, women’s rights

Soaps and sitcoms

Key terms:“Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

- interfering historical + political contexts: 20th century...... mass culture and the media... fascism... capitalism, post-WWII consumer society, globalization... culture as politics: minority rights, women’s rights

... therefore:

Soaps and sitcoms

Key terms:“Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

... the critical task: contemporary “culture” and the humanities = still a perfect match or rather an uneasy fit?

Soaps and sitcoms

Cultural Studies:a “toolbox”identity and differencesignification, representation and ideologyagency

power: CS project = theorize how people shape their lives through culture in ways that are always intricated with power

Soaps and sitcoms

Cultural Studies:a “toolbox”identity and differencesignification, representation and ideologyagency

power: empowerment vs. disempowerment

Soaps and sitcoms

Cultural Studies:

“... how discourse and imagery are organized in complex and shifting patterns of meaning and how these meanings are reproduced, negotiated and struggled over in the flow and flux of everyday life.” (Murdock 1995, in Miller 4)

Soaps and sitcoms

What can a soap/a sitcom be?

Soaps and sitcoms

What can a soap/a sitcom be?

- an economic product - a textual/symbolic structure- an occasion for processes of identification- an occasion for the production of pleasures- a patriarchal tool- ?

Soaps and sitcoms

What can a soap/a sitcom be?

- an economic product - a textual/symbolic structure- an occasion for processes of identification- an occasion for the production of pleasures- a patriarchal tool- ?

• potentially unlimited number of contexts > contextualism• What is a soap/a sitcom for whom, in which context?

How is it used?

Soaps and sitcoms

What can a soap/a sitcom be?

- an economic product - a textual/symbolic structure- an occasion for processes of identification- an occasion for the production of pleasures- a patriarchal tool- a representation- teaching/didactic tool

• de-essentializing culture and its products

Soaps and sitcoms

interdisciplinarity > against essentialisms:

high vs. mass culture theories: e.g. technological essentialismglobalization, cultural imperialism: economic/technological e.Marxist theories: class/economic e.feminism: gender e.... ...

Soaps and sitcoms

e.g. earlier models of communication:

Shannon und Weaver (1948):

sender message receiver

Lasswell’s formula:

'Who / Says what / In which channel / To whom / With what effect?'

Soaps and sitcoms

e.g. earlier models of communication:

assumptions:shared reality (consensus)transparent medium

The “Circuit of Culture”

Paul Du Gay, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes, Hugh Mackay, und Keith Negus. Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage/The Open University, 1997.

representation

identity

production

consumption

regulation

Popular culture

What is culture? What is popular culture?

Popular culture

Raymond Williams:

“To speak of popular culture usually means to mobilize the second and third meanings of the word ‘culture.’ The second meaning — culture as a particular way of life — would allow us to speak of such practices as the seaside holiday, the celebration of Christmas, and youth subcultures. These are usually referred to as lived cultures or cultural practices.”

(John Storey, “Understanding Popular Culture”)

Popular culture

Raymond Williams:

“The third meaning — culture as signifying practices — would allow us to speak of soap opera, pop music, and comics, as examples of culture. These are usually referred to as cultural texts.”

(John Storey, “Understanding Popular Culture”)

Popular culture

John Fiske:“Culture (and its meanings and pleasures) is a constant succession of social practices; it is therefore inherently political, it is centrally involved in the distribution and possible redistribution of various forms of social power.”

(“Understanding Popular Culture”)

The “Circuit of Culture”

Paul Du Gay, Stuart Hall, Linda Janes, Hugh Mackay, und Keith Negus. Doing Cultural Studies. The Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage/The Open University, 1997.

representation

identity

production

consumption

regulation

Soaps and sitcoms and pedagogy

question of approach:ways of speaking about them (discourses: M. Foucault)shape what can and cannot be said about and done with them

Soaps and sitcoms and pedagogy

question of approach:ways of speaking about them (discourses: M. Foucault)shape what can and cannot be said about and done with them

role of power: agency and (dis)empowerment

Soaps and sitcoms and pedagogy

possible approaches with students?

Soaps and sitcoms and pedagogy

possible approaches with students?

- soaps and sitcoms as “culture”: Collect examples of writing/speaking about a soap/sitcom. What “is” it in the respective example?

Soaps and sitcoms and pedagogy

Possible approaches with students?

- soaps and sitcoms as “culture”: Collect examples of writing/speaking about a soap/sitcom. What “is” it in the respective example?

- soaps and sitcoms and...... the economy: media and production... politics of representation: identities -- class, gender, sexual, race, ethnicity, nationality, age, lifestyle, etc.... textuality: structures, narrative, symbols, “languageness”... ?