Soaps and Sitcoms: Cultural Studies

1. Soaps and Sitcoms: Cultural Studies

2. Soaps and sitcoms • (British) Cultural Studies: • Raymond Williams • E.P. Thompson • Richard Hoggart • Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Birmingham, 1964 – 2002)

3. Soaps and sitcoms • (British) Cultural Studies: • Raymond Williams • E.P. Thompson • Richard Hoggart • Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Birmingham, 1964 – 2002) • critical left agenda: Marxism • 1970s: feminism • post-colonial theory, critical race theory • (post-)structuralism + linguistic turn

4. Soaps and sitcoms • Cultural Studies: • a “toolbox” • identity and difference • signification, representation and ideology • agency

5. Soaps and sitcoms • Cultural Studies: • a “toolbox” • identity and difference • signification, representation and ideology • agency • ... Why are these important?

6. Soaps and sitcoms • Key terms: • “Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”:

7. Soaps and sitcoms • Key terms: • “Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”: • - traditionally: the humanities • the classics, the canon; the “best that has been thought and said” (Matthew Arnold)

8. Soaps and sitcoms • Key terms: • “Culture” and the role and place of its “critique”: • - traditionally: the humanities • the classics, the canon; the “best that has been thought and said” (Matthew Arnold) • - interfering historical + political contexts:

9. 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

10. 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:

11. 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?

12. Soaps and sitcoms • Cultural Studies: • a “toolbox” • identity and difference • signification, representation and ideology • agency • power: CS project = theorize how people shape their lives through culture in ways that are always intricated with power

13. Soaps and sitcoms • Cultural Studies: • a “toolbox” • identity and difference • signification, representation and ideology • agency • power: empowerment vs. disempowerment

14. 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)

15. Soaps and sitcoms • What can a soap/a sitcom be?

16. 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 • - ?

17. 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?

18. 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

19. Soaps and sitcoms • interdisciplinarity > againstessentialisms: • high vs. mass culture theories: e.g. technological essentialism • globalization, cultural imperialism: economic/technological e. • Marxist theories: class/economic e. • feminism: gender e. • ... ...

20. 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?'

21. Soaps and sitcoms • e.g. earlier models of communication: • assumptions: • shared reality (consensus) • transparent medium

22. The “Circuit of Culture” representation identity production consumption regulation • 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.

23. Popular culture • What is culture? What is popular culture?

24. Popular culture • Raymond Williams: • “To speak of popular culture usually means tomobilize the second and third meanings ofthe word ‘culture.’ The second meaning —culture as a particular way of life —wouldallow us to speak of such practices as theseaside holiday, the celebration ofChristmas, and youth subcultures.Theseare usually referred to as lived cultures orcultural practices.” • (John Storey, “Understanding Popular Culture”)

25. Popular culture • Raymond Williams: • “The third meaning— culture assignifying practices —would allow usto speak of soap opera, pop music, andcomics, as examples of culture. Theseare usually referred to as cultural texts.” • (John Storey, “Understanding Popular Culture”)

26. Popular culture • John Fiske: • “Culture (and its meanings andpleasures) is a constant succession ofsocial practices; it is thereforeinherently political, it is centrallyinvolved in the distribution and possible redistribution of variousforms of social power.” • (“Understanding PopularCulture”)

27. The “Circuit of Culture” representation identity production consumption regulation • 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.

28. 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

29. 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

30. Soaps and sitcoms and pedagogy • possible approaches with students?

31. 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?

32. 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” • ... ?