Get Set for Media and Cultural Studies

Get Set for Media and Cultural Studies

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Get Set for Media and Cultural Studies

Tony Purvis

Edinburgh University Press

Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh

Typeset in Sabon
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and
printed and bound by
William Clowes Ltd, Beccles, Suffolk

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7486 1695 0 (paperback)

The right of Tony Purvis to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

CONTENTS

Introduction

vii

PART I: UNDERSTANDING MEDIA AND CULTURE

1 What are the media? What is media studies?

2 What is culture? What is cultural studies?

PART II: TOPICS, THEMES AND DEBATES IN MEDIA
AND CULTURAL STUDIES

3 Texts and signs in media and culture

4 Cultural identities and media representations

5 Genres: television and film

6 Audiences in media and cultural studies

7 Popular cultures

8 Production and consumption of media and culture

9 Subcultures

10 Media: methods of analysis

108

11 Theories of cultural analysis

121

PART III: STUDY SKILLS

12 Week one, semester I, level 1

135

13 Reading, writing and essays

145

14 Common errors in writing and presenting

159

15 Examinations

164

16 Seminars and group work

174

17 Dissertations, research projects and productions

178

18 Media production courses

189

19 Employability and progress files

195

Bibliography and recommended reading

201

Index

204

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THIS BOOK

Before I started writing this book, I held a number of work-
shops and seminars with first- and second-year undergraduates
studying for degrees in media and cultural studies at UK uni-
versities. The students, from a range of social, cultural and
international backgrounds, were asked to discuss the kind of
advice they would pass on to first-year students just starting a
degree in media and/or cultural studies. During the writing of
the book, I tested sections and chapters when students said they
were finding parts of the degree challenging. However, from the
workshops, two key points emerged. The first one was ‘provide
a sense of the span of media and cultural studies’. Students
new to the field of media and cultural studies are amazed at the
breadth and depth of material covered on degree programmes
in these areas. The second point was ‘make links between what
we learn in modules and the study skills required in media and
cultural studies degrees’. The students I spoke to said they really
benefited from having a clear and detailed idea about such
things as essay writing, seminar presentations, doing media
production projects and the recent debates about employabil-
ity and progress files. It is undergraduates’ responses such as
these which helps shape the current volume in the Get Set series.

This book will be of interest to:

• readers who are about to embark on or have already

started a degree course in media and cultural studies;

• those who are interested in media studies and cultural

studies and want to know more about the subjects;

• students who are interested in study and research skills.

vii

The book encourages you to understand how to approach
critically and enthusiastically media and cultural studies. In
addition, the book will help you in the development of impor-
tant critical and research skills in media and cultural studies,
inviting you to ask questions, and think analytically about the
media and cultural industries.

RESISTING EASY ANSWERS

Two of the most pressing questions for all new students con-
cern the programme of study and what it will entail. The book
attends to these questions in a number of ways, but it answers
the questions specifically in relation to media and cultural
studies. Another important question – one which is often
asked in essays and examinations, and which preoccupies
students at the start of the course – is concerned with the
terms ‘media’ and ‘culture’. What is meant by ‘the media’ and
media studies; and what is meant by ‘culture’ and cultural
studies? Do the definitions matter? Read on – carefully! In the
study of media and culture, perhaps hard-and-fast definitions
of the terms are to be avoided and resisted. This book will not
provide them, at least not in order to stifle or conclude
ongoing debates. Many degree programmes will also resist
these definitions and deliberately encourage some complexity
across the first year of study. Such complexity is to be wel-
comed rather than rejected!

APPROACHES

Questions and confusions about degree programmes have in
part resulted in this series of books. The Get Set series aims to
encourage and invite students to explore the study skills, the
learning strategies and the topics and themes involved in study-
ing for a degree programme. Get Set for Media and Cultural
Studies also aims to encourage its readers to ask questions
about how to approach study skills and degree topics critically

viii

INTRODUCTION

rather than provide definitions which ultimately prove of
limited use. Many introductory textbooks concerned with
summarising and outlining others’ work will supply students
with a range of responses, definitions and answers. It is true –
at least to some extent – that several of the principal definitions
of media and culture are considered in this book, and later
sections provide a general discussion and an outline of methods
of analysis in the study of media and culture. However, this is
not a textbook in the sense in which the term is generally
understood, and it does not offer neat summaries. But it does
prompt you to ask questions, to think critically, to question the
media and culture, and to adopt a positive and wholehearted
approach to study and learning.

The book encourages you to consider how media and

culture can be approached as fields of study at university. In
pursuing this aim, Get Set for Media and Cultural Studies
invites and expects readers to ask more questions, to consider
key approaches to study, and to gain a confident sense of
what it means to engage critically with media and cultural
studies. Many textbooks provide guidelines on methods of
analysis, on theories and on the application of theory, and
they can be essential in the first year of study. Second- and
third-year students then go on to read sources which deal
with discussion and examination of the media and culture
industries in more detailed, more specific and more focused
ways. These ‘advanced’ texts are the kinds of sources which
the majority of textbooks cite and encourage students to
read. Often, however, textbooks do not have the space or
remit to consider critical approaches to study and learning.
More specifically, there are few books which deal with
approaches to study and research in media and cultural
studies at university. This current book addresses the ques-
tions students ask concerning successful, critical and reflex-
ive study at university, specifically in relation to media and
cultural studies.

INTRODUCTION

DOING MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

One of the most frequently asked questions in the first year of
study at university concerns introductory textbooks. It is
often imagined that there will be one key text which will
provide students with a complete knowledge base for the
degree programme. However, a number of discoveries are
made by undergraduates in the early months of study at uni-
versity. Among these discoveries, which are made by media
production students as much as media and cultural studies
students, the following are the most frequently listed:

• There is no one book which covers the programme in its

entirety.

• There is no ‘right’ answer to the essay question.

• I was told not to use ‘I’.

• ‘How’ something happens is as important as ‘why’.

• The question can be approached from at least three perspec-

tives, and all of them are valid in answering the question.

• I have to give a presentation. Nobody told me I was

assessed on presentation skills.

• Nothing in media and cultural studies is free of controversy

and conflict.

• There is no one version of media and cultural studies which

all undergraduates study.

• Media production degrees are as demanding as all other

degree courses at university.

• Media production also means studying theories and

concepts.

There are a set of other discoveries:

Doing media and cultural studies has made me less certain about
the media and culture than when I started the degree. But doing

INTRODUCTION

media and cultural studies has made me more critical, more reflec-
tive, and more inquisitive. I can go on to do postgraduate study,
train in teaching or enter a number of professions and careers.

There are lots of other items which could be listed above.
Perhaps the single most important area is the one to do with cer-
tainty. At the end of the third year of study, students do know
more than when they started in the first year. However, perhaps
the qualities that are required for a greater knowledge base are
not so much to do with volume or activity. Rather, they are to
do with being inquisitive, critical and self-critical, open to the
views and perspectives of others, alert to feedback and criticism,
aware of how to study, and to make the most of the space and
time which undergraduate study permits. The idea of certainty
is linked to two other areas which have preoccupied universi-
ties: ‘truth’ and ‘knowledge’. Students, academics and all those
involved in universities continue to be concerned with knowl-
edge. However, the university’s relation to knowledge is one of
discovery but also construction. This is also true of the media.
Although media industries report events, any two reports about
one event suggest that it is not limited to one meaning. Although
university degree programmes, then, are concerned with truth,
with knowledge and answers to problems, university courses
are equally concerned with how a topic is approached, the ways
in which the answer is arrived at, and the perspectives and the
evidence used in the construction of knowledge. This critical,
questioning approach applies across all aspects of media and
cultural studies degrees, whether in the form of theories and
essays or in the form of media productions such as radio
reports, newspaper articles or recorded interviews.

OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

Part I: Understanding Media and Culture

Part I is divided into two chapters. Chapter 1 considers the
questions ‘What are the media? What Is media studies?’ It

INTRODUCTION

provides a short, clear account which outlines key activities,
institutions and forms associated with the media and cultural
industries, and an outline of the rationale and logic which
underpin media studies degrees. Issues of employability,
employment and further study will be addressed in relation to
the range and type of courses students can study. These issues
are also developed in Part III. In keeping with the book’s
concern to develop and encourage critical questioning and
inquiry, however, it will also demonstrate how the study of the
media is one of the ways of studying the wider aspects of local
and international cultures.

Chapter 2 is concerned with the questions ‘What Is

Culture? What Is Cultural Studies?’ It outlines and discusses
key notions of culture and popular culture in terms of way of
life, everydayness, practices and texts. A brief history of the
development of the idea of culture will preface a discussion of
how culture means more than Culture with a capital ‘C’.
A range of key concerns within cultural studies will be intro-
duced, followed by a discussion of what is involved when
thinking about human societies from the perspectives of cul-
tural studies. The section will consider what sorts of careers
or postgraduate study routes students can consider in relation
to the field of cultural studies.

Part II: Topics, Themes and Debates in Media and
Cultural Studies

Part II discusses audiences in media and cultural studies; cul-
tural identities; media representations; visual texts, television
and film; cultural production and consumption; newspapers
and magazines; popular culture and popular music; subcul-
tures; theories of media; theories of culture. These brief dis-
cussions are written in the spirit of inquiry and criticism,
encouraging readers to develop their own questions, and to
indicate how media and cultural studies degrees intersect with
the spheres and concerns which are local and international,
and personal and ‘Political’ with a capital ‘P’. Part II provides

xii

INTRODUCTION

a structured outline of some of the principal terms, concepts
and areas of research in media and cultural studies, topics
central to degrees in these fields. However, the emphasis is less
on providing an exhaustive discussion and is focused more on
encouraging criticism and questions. This section of the book,
therefore, does not offer detailed outlines as in standard text-
books. Rather, it provides highlights which allow readers
to gain a sense of what is studied on degree programmes, and
how to approach the discussion with a critical sense. This
section will also be useful for the purposes of essay writing,
examinations and extended studies, as well as the closer
examination of media and cultural texts, practices and pro-
ductions. For all of the topics discussed there are suggestions
for further reading, and in Part III there are examples of
typical essay questions which tie in with the discussions in
Part II. Where relevant, production-based activities are also
listed for further consideration.

Part III: Study Skills

Part III outlines, discusses and offers advice on the various
teaching and learning strategies students will encounter at
university. It explains what students can expect in media and
cultural studies programmes, and it offers suggestions on
writing assignments of various types. Much of the material is
structured around worked-through examples based on exist-
ing practice in media and cultural studies.

INTRODUCTION

xiii

PART I

Understanding Media and Culture

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT
IS MEDIA STUDIES?

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

At first sight, it might seem that the questions which entitle the
chapter are questions that do not need to be asked. The media
are surely anything associated with film, television, radio,
magazines and newspapers. Therefore, the mass media have as
their objects of study film, television, radio, or simply the
media themselves. This kind of answer is sufficiently broad for
the opening of a chapter which aims to assist its readers to
understand what the media are, and what might be studied on
a media studies degree programme. But a degree in media
studies will not simply study the media. Nor will a degree pro-
gramme study the media simply as media. The media – because
they intervene in and across the social, political, cultural and
personal dimensions of life – are thus central to the under-
standing of how local and international societies operate in the
twenty-first century.

Staying for the moment with questions of the media and

media studies, new students will find that the specific focus
of degree programmes is never simply the media industries or
the output of media such as television or radio. Consider the
analysis of television. If television is the object of study, what
precisely will be studied? Television drama, news, documen-
taries, sitcoms and advertisements all count as television
output. However, in the programmes listed here, there are
some fairly obvious differences. Apart from the fact–fiction
divide, it is probably apparent that advertisements are trying
to provoke and engage audiences in ways that news pro-
grammes and documentaries are not. Nonetheless, news and
factual programmes attempt to provoke audiences and draw
on dramatic devices more often associated with television

dramas. A day spent watching television, for instance, might
suggest that all programmes dramatise and embellish what
they say and how they say it, at least to some extent.
A student, however, would not have the time to spend watch-
ing television all day (despite what the popular media say
about students!). But a media studies student would be inter-
ested in the evidence for and against the claim that all televi-
sion output is embellished and dramatised. Moreover, media
studies would be interested in the methods and approaches
deployed in order to ascertain the truth or falsity of the claim.
In addition, media analysts and theorists would need at
some point to work with audiences. Because all media output
has or assumes an audience, then a degree in media studies
will be concerned with understanding and interpreting audi-
ences. Any form of media analysis – whether of film, televi-
sion, radio or other medium – which ignores readers, viewers,
listeners and spectators – is an analysis which will remain
limited and partial. The terms used in these opening com-
ments, ranging as they do from global and political dimen-
sions of the media to the groups who make and consume the
media, make the media an exciting course of study on which
to embark. The next sections provide details as to these
courses of study and the directions in which media and media
studies travel.

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA?

A book of this sort will not provide the complex definitions
and arguments that surround what is meant by the media. In
many ways, the critical discussion, analysis and assessment of
the media in contemporary cultures proves more interesting
and exciting than defining an object of study. However, at the
beginning of undergraduate study, definitions and frame-
works can help in allowing students to arrange their own
structures for learning and to establish research agendas fairly
quickly. Most media studies programmes will be arranged
around modules (see below). These modules, crucial to your

GET SET FOR MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

programme of study on all media and cultural studies degrees,
make assumptions and provide definitions of the media which
converge around the following subheadings.

The ‘object’ of study

The mass media can be understood in relation to

1. media producers;

2. media institutions and organisations;

3. media audiences/users;

4. media output.

Television audiences, for instance, might watch a news pro-
gramme, a format which, like sitcoms, documentaries or soap
operas, is part of the daily output of the television industry.
The news is a part of the organisation’s (for example, BBC’s)
output. It will have been put together and produced by BBC
personnel – a production team – and will have involved people
who edit, report, check sound or provide continuity. Media
studies will be concerned with understanding how all these
interlocked domains of the media operate in the construction
and representation of human cultures.

Media analysis will seek to discuss, examine and assess all

the components which constitute the media. The more criti-
cal the analysis, the more interesting the dynamics of the
media and media output can become. The object of study,
then, is something which can be described (as above) and it
is something which can be analysed. Approached critically
and analytically, by students who are interested in asking
further questions about the media’s power and influence,
then media studies is a programme which seeks to under-
stand how the world can be shaped by media industries and
practitioners. But because the media are never neutral or free
of ideology or underpinning beliefs about how the world

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

should be or could be represented, then media studies will
always be interested in asking questions about the analysis
of the media and the analysis of the production of media
output.

Media analysis/output

In order to comprehend and embark on media analysis, it will
be useful at this stage to consider what is meant by media
output. This can be understood in relation to almost every-
thing media producers and organisations put together for
audiences: advertisements, magazines, newspapers, films,
DVDs, television programmes and comics are familiar, every-
day examples of media texts. One way of talking about media
output is in terms of the written and spoken narratives and
stories and the audio-visual sounds and images – the texts in
other words – which construct and represent a specific reality
at a particular point in history.

To analyse this output is one way of carrying out media

analysis. Degree programmes, then, will encourage students
in methods of analysis. Perhaps the main point concerning
media analysis (examples of which are discussed later in
the book) is that the analysis be understood not just in rela-
tion to the text (programme, newspaper, magazine), but in
the context of the society and history in which the media
is produced. Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), for
example, is a very vivid illustration of how the relationships
between the mass media and society always matter. On the
one hand, his film is made in response to a very specific polit-
ical situation in America’s history and, on the other hand,
his own deployment of the media (the making of the film)
indicates that how the media represent society and history
always has to be investigated. Approaches which attend to
historical context are vitally important to the ongoing eval-
uation and appraisal of the media’s role in political and
social life.

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Media analysis/audiences

But media analysis and media analysts must also consider
components of the mass media ‘outside’ the frames of the
texts. Audiences, or the readers, listeners and users of texts,
not only interpret texts but also use media output and prod-
ucts in the ongoing (re)construction of everyday life. Thus,
what audiences have to say about the texts, and what audi-
ences ‘do’ with output and products, will form a vital part of
any media analysis. Without a sense of what the users think
of media output, then media analysis remains textual analy-
sis and, whilst important, it limits how the role of the media
is understood in contemporary cultures. If we take as our
example Moore’s film, it will be important to ask questions
not simply about the film (for example, its genre, its use of
news footage, its use of Moore himself), but about what audi-
ences made of the film (for example, who watched the film,
what sense did audiences make of the film).

Media forms, representations and productions

Media studies can also be represented in terms of the con-
tainers into which media content is shaped and packaged.
Terms such as genre, narrative, style and form can be used to
describe this packaged content, with specific terms such as
soap opera, documentary, film noir, sci-fi, pulp fiction, house
and rap indicating some of the subdivisions which exist in
all media categories. The term ‘representation’ is used to refer
to a range of depictions of social life in film, televisual,
musical, linguistic and cultural media. ‘Representation’ is used
in media and cultural analysis to denote not simply written,
spoken and visual texts (for example, film, TV documentary,
photographs) but to refer to arrangements of signs used in
order to generate meanings about people or experiences.
Media representations, in the sense that they are textual, are
composed of signs which generate meanings about culture and
people, and which intersect on national and international

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

planes. But it is production teams which make output. Script-
writers put together stories and narratives; sound, recording
and camera operators ensure output is accessible to audiences;
and reporters and interviewers front the programme or are
seen and heard when the output is screened, broadcast or
aired.

An organisation like the BBC employs staff who include

radio producers, assistant producers, commissioning editors
and assistants, broadcast journalists, technology assistants,
editorial assistants, education advisers, PAs, heads of trans-
missions, television journalism trainers, stenographers and
caterers. The production staff for a television soap opera will
include writers, directors, script editors, story editors, story
associates, casting directors, series editors, designer, head of
production, executive producers and producers. For films, the
following would all contribute to production: directors, pro-
duction companies, producers, unit managers, assistants to
producers and managers, script and screenplay personnel,
camera operators and assistants, gaffers, stills personnel,
editors, special effects, art directors, hairstylists, wardrobes
staff, titles and graphics specialists, recording engineers, staff
involved in sound and sound effects, opticals and music, and
actors! It can be seen, then, that students who enter media
studies should be prepared for a range of posts. The univer-
sity department or careers office will advise students in more
detail about the work and employment opportunities once
they take up their places to study at university. It should be
noted, however, that media studies students also take up jobs
in teaching, social work, human resource management, polit-
ical and charitable work, PR, journalism and postgraduate
study (to do Master’s degrees or PhDs).

MEDIA STUDIES AND MEDIA ANALYSIS

How, then, are the industries and activities as vast and as
diverse as those associated with the mass media analysed in
formal or quantifiable ways? What kinds of questions need to

GET SET FOR MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

be asked of the media? Are audiences the place to start, or
should questions first be asked of the people who make media
output? One way of thinking of these questions, and ones
which are asked on all media studies degrees, is via a twofold
division of quality and quantity. You are reminded that a
book of this kind is only offering introductory observations
in order to provide a sense of some of the activities on media
studies degrees. The two divisions below are ones which, in
the second and third year of study, will be put under scrutiny,
perhaps even reformulated in more complex ways though, in
the first year, they are important building blocks with which
to work. Research and dissertation projects in the final year
are excellent places to deploy and test out methods of media
analysis.

Quantity

Media studies, then, in its investigations of output, audi-
ences, products and industries will ask questions in at least
two ways. Sometimes, media analysis is concerned with
quantity. Quantitative research will be concerned with ques-
tions which ask:

• how much time is spent watching television

• how many programmes of a specific genre are shown on

one night or across the duration of a week

• which specific groups of people watch programmes or

listen to the radio at specific times during the day

• who uses mobile and digital media technologies

• how have new media, digital media and media technologies

influenced social life

• how far are media representations ‘representative’ of the

society which produces and consumes them

• are the mass media neutral in how they put output together

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

The questions are potentially endless and, from the above list,
it can be seen that some questions have a different urgency
attached to them than others. Quantitative research is used by
all sorts of constituencies and for various, often conflicting,
reasons. For some groups, media research assists the aims of
marketing and PR. For others, quantitative media research is
concerned with analysing the relations between the media and
politics, human behaviour and society.

Quality

Qualitative media research is not disconnected from the enu-
merative analysis of quantity. However, qualitative research is
frequently interested in people’s relationships to the media,
asking questions about how audiences interpret or decode
media output and considering how far the media is instru-
mental (or not) in shaping ideas and behaviour. Although
audiences are central to qualitative and quantitative research,
qualitative methods will want to understand the interpreta-
tions, readings and meanings of media output which audiences
make. Terms such as ‘audience reception’, ‘ethnography’, ‘case
study’ and ‘decoding’ are linked to qualitative research. These
methods underline a methodology which will draw on struc-
tured interviews, participation and participant observations,
and focus group interviews in order to understand media mes-
sages. Quantitative research will analyse segments of media
output, will present its findings in terms of statistical data and
will adopt methods which are broadly positivist. The effects,
uses, meanings and cultural consumption of media are central
concerns of quantitative research. Qualitative research will
analyse media messages as a whole and will ask how audiences
construct meanings. The media do not cause people to act in
a certain way, and thus the questions of qualitative research
will focus on the decoding of the media text or message. These
issues of quality and quantity are developed in later sections of
the book.

GET SET FOR MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

MEDIA STUDIES: DEGREE PROGRAMMES

What will you study on the media studies degree? Will
research methods be used? Will there be opportunity to train
in radio production, television or print journalism? How do
theory and practice link up in media studies? Do degree pro-
grammes train students to analyse media output? Do degree
programmes provide experiences with lead bodies in the
industry? Does media studies include film studies? ‘Which is
the best course for me?’

Degree programmes in media studies (and cultural studies,

though this is discussed in the next section) are not uniform
in shape or direction. A brief glance at the following titles,
however, provides a sense of many of the courses on offer in
UK universities: BA (Honours) in Media Studies, Cultural
Studies, Communications Studies, Media Production, Media
and Cultural Studies, Media and Film Studies, Media and
Communications Studies, Film and Video, New Media,
Journalism, Media Practice, Photography, Creative Writing,
Media with Marketing, English, Sociology, Psychology and
other subjects in the humanities and social sciences. The list
is probably much longer, but university brochures and
websites give a clearer picture of the aims and objectives
of the course. Moreover, all degrees in media studies will
make references to ‘theory’ and ‘production’ or ‘practice’.
The issues surrounding these terms are discussed later in the
book, but at this stage ‘production’ is being used to refer to
those courses which provide ‘hands-on’ experience (for
example, training in sound, radio, television, reporting and
so on), and ‘theory’ is being used to signal those courses
which deal with the social and cultural uses and analysis of
the media. In reality, theory and production are not terms
which are easily separated; media production degrees draw
heavily on theory, and media theory degrees draw heavily
on traditions and practices in media production. The divi-
sion below, therefore, serves a definitional and explicatory
purpose.

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

Production-based studies

Media production degrees, which are NOT the opposite
of media theory degrees (all degrees are theoretical and criti-
cal and practical to greater or lesser extents), will allow stu-
dents to gain experience and practice in the processes of
media production more than broad-based media studies
degrees. The skills acquired in production degrees will relate
to advertising, writing for the print media, script writing,
editing, audio production and work in sound, video and tele-
vision, documentary, photography and multimedia applica-
tions. In terms of specific modules, it is often the case that
options will include visual cultures and photography, com-
munication technologies, cyber cultures, radio production,
working in digital media, new medias and various types
of research, professional and employment-related projects.
Many degree programmes in media production have close
links with media companies, and it is worth investigating the
kinds of opportunities the course makes available for under-
graduates.

Production-based courses are often taught in ‘new-sector’

universities, in part because the former polytechnics were
founded in order to provide training and education in courses
of studies not offered in the ‘old’ or red-brick sector. The new
universities have thus been able to establish centres of excel-
lence in specific areas of media production. Many of the new,
but also old-sector, universities offer courses and training
in media production, media technologies and new media,
often with opportunities to gain practical experience in the
media industries. Production-based courses do not necessarily
exclude modules in media theory and many universities and
degree programmes combine a predominantly practical train-
ing with opportunities for study and discussion of the critical
theories and perspectives used in media analysis. As already
underlined, the terms ‘theory’ and ‘production’ do not ade-
quately describe how degree programmes are organised, so the
division here is solely for explanatory reasons. Most courses
provide opportunities for a range of modules, and it needs to

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be stressed that production degrees are no less ‘theoretical’ in
that sense than ‘theory’ degrees.

Production-based courses, moreover, are not all the same.

For example, some courses aim to offer experience of and
training in radio production, print or broadcast journalism,
television and film production, writing for the media, new
media studies, digital media and photography. Degree courses
may encourage students to focus on only one of these areas,
whereas other production courses may encourage breadth
rather than specific focus. Increasingly, journalism, marketing
and public relations are taught at universities, sometimes as
part of media production courses and sometimes as discrete
degree programmes. These courses are often structured around
key training in journalism or marketing, with a stress on prac-
tical and vocational training. However, there are no guarantees
that the degree course in journalism or PR is accredited by
lead-industry or professional bodies. Indeed, it is important to
consider a degree as valuable and worthwhile in its own right
rather than the vocational qualification which might come
with it at graduation. Besides, nearly all undergraduate pro-
grammes place some stress on employability skills (discussed
later), and so concerns about a course being vocational or not
should not seriously impact on your decision to study.

Theory-based studies or simply ‘media studies’

Media studies degrees which offer modules outside produc-
tion include options which cover:

• media history

• media and society

• media ethics

• film and television analysis

• studies of media discourse, media and identity (for example,

social class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age)

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

• local and global aspects of media output and industries

• audience studies

• writing for the media

• power, politics and the media.

However, it is often the case that media ‘theory’ programmes
will also offer core modules to students across all media degree
programmes. Core modules usually entail discussion of and
assessment in the principal debates and theories surrounding
the media. Equally, media production degrees will usually
entail core modules which all production students will com-
plete in order to meet the requirements of the programme suc-
cessfully. In theory-based media studies degrees, it may be that
more stress is placed on the dynamics of media communica-
tions, analysis of media texts, media criticism, audience studies
and theory specific to the study of the media. Psychology, soci-
ology, politics, literary studies and critical and cultural theory
have all impacted on how the media are studied, and so you
should be prepared to explore issues associated with other dis-
ciplines but which have been useful in media analysis.

‘Critical’ and ‘cultural theory’ are terms which do not

mean that the degree programme has no contact with
(so-called) ‘reality’. And nor do the terms mean that students
and staff working with theory are not interested in produc-
tion. Production specialists are as interested in theory as much
as theorists are interested in production. Both serve each
other, and in the UK’s Media, Culture and Communications
Studies Association (www.meccsa.org.uk/), and in the UK’s
quality assurance benchmarking documents (these serve to
monitor quality in media education), theory and practice are
understood in terms of partnership and mutuality (http://
www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/honours/
communications.pdf). In media degree programmes, the
reality is usually that students will choose a mixture of theory
and production while specialising in one area more than most
by the third or final year.

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DEGREE STRUCTURES IN MEDIA STUDIES

Modular systems

It is often the case that degree courses in media and cultural
studies are structured around a programme of ‘modules’ on a
degree course which lasts three or four years. Modules are the
elements that comprise the degree. Typically, a degree pro-
gramme is organised around modules which are valued at 10,
20 or 30 credits, and each year a student will accumulate 120
credits. Note that module outline and module guidebooks
(see Part III) will become important documents in the under-
standing of the degree programme, the module and the ratio-
nale of both.

Describing the degree programme in these terms might

appear mechanistic and formulaic. In a sense it is, but that
does not detract from the importance of the content of the
module or the ideas, practices and skills which the module
facilitates and assesses. What it often means is that the
degree is clearly organised and structured, and it allows stu-
dents to take time out, transfer to other courses and degrees,
or resit one module without having to retake the whole
degree programme or level. Many of the descriptions of
media courses listed above will be modular, typically struc-
tured around practice and production, theory, criticism and
analysis.

The module, the degree and credits

For example, Year I of a media studies degree might well
resemble the following:

Semester One (September to January)
Core module: Media Criticism

20 credits Core module

Core module: Media History

20 credits Core module

Core module: Study and

10 credits Minor Option module

research skills

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

Semester Two (February to June)
Film Option module:

20 credits Major Option module

Hollywood cinema

Film Option module:

20 credits Major Option module

Popular Genres

AND 30 credits to be selected from other degree modules.

Total credits for level I: 120. The remaining two or three years
will be structured in a similar way (though research and dis-
sertation projects may well have a credit value of 30 or 40).
The above example of the modular system applies to produc-
tion degrees and media studies degrees as much as film, jour-
nalism, or communications degrees.

The course can be imagined as follows:

Year I

Year II

Year III

Modules

Total credits

120

120 ⫹120

240 ⫹120⫽360

The best way to think this through is to imagine each year as
one-third of the total credits or points you need to gain. There
are sure to be exceptions to the above, and courses in Scotland
are often spaced over four years.

Year or level I

The first year is one-third of the course. The main requirement
and aim is to pass the first year, and the grades you are awarded
will not usually contribute to the final ‘classification’ of the
degree. (Classification means the honours grade of 1st class,
2nd class [2:1, 2:2], 3rd class, pass and fail. The system will be
explained in more detail once at university.) The teaching will
be structured around a module, and the modules, as noted, will
be valued as 10, 20 or 30 credits. First-year students usually
take five, six or seven modules (and amass 120 credits in total).
It is advisable to take modules which offer a broad sense of

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what the degree entails rather than doing modules which have
similar themes. In addition, taking modules outside the degree
programme is a way of widening how the degree will be used
once in work or postgraduate study.

Year or level II

The second year is one-third of the degree but two-thirds when
combined with the first-year work. Again, students amass 120
credits (totalling 240 with the first year), and modules of 10,
20 or 30 credits will mean something between four, five or six
modules. Grades for level II modules will count towards the
final grade of the degree, sometimes 50:50 with level III, some-
times 40:60, or a weighting that has been established by the
university.

Year or level III

The final year means students will amass another 120 credits
from modules making 360 for the full three years. How work
is marked varies, as do the titles of the award (for example,
BA, BSc), but the final award is invariably an ‘Honours’
degree and will be classified according to the rank which best
reflects the grades of levels II and III.

WHO DOES MEDIA STUDIES? AND WHY?

All sorts of students, from a wide variety of backgrounds and
cultures, and with varying qualifications reflecting age, experi-
ence and interests do media studies. Various research projects
which have investigated media studies programmes and media
studies students (see, for example, the Media Employability
Project) suggest that media studies is an excellent grounding for
a wide range of graduate employment routes and destinations.
Some students do media studies degrees because they have

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

studied the subject at school or college and want to continue in
the field. Others are interested in the media degree and see it as
a way of extending and deepening knowledge of contemporary
cultures and societies. Some students see a media studies degree
as a route to doing further academic or professional study in
the media. Yet other students see the breadth of analytic, inter-
personal, academic and leadership skills as a way of doing a
range of jobs (personnel and marketing, administration, adver-
tising, journalism, youth work, teaching and a host of jobs
which involve working with other people). Students frequently
see media studies as a way of engaging with other disciplines
and subjects (for example, sociology, literary studies, psychol-
ogy), but who want to pursue these subjects in relation to
media production or media analysis. The interdisciplinary
nature of media and cultural studies degrees means they leave
open many doors for work in academic, scholarly and profes-
sional and industrial settings.

EMPLOYABILITY AND MEDIA STUDIES

This area is discussed, with examples, in Part III, but a brief
mention here establishes its relative importance in media
and cultural studies degrees. Employability, or a students’
readiness and preparedness for work or further study after
university, is something which is discussed later in the book.
However, over the last five years (at the time of writing),
various research projects (for example, Media Employability
Project; http://www. sunderland.ac.uk/caffairs/203jun3.htm)
have been funded in order to measure and assess the readiness
of media and cultural studies graduates for employment after
university. Media studies graduates perform very well in the
job market, in postgraduate study, and in comparison with
graduates in other disciplines. However, the main point to note
is that media and cultural studies degrees equip students with
the critical, intellectual, analytical, practical and interpersonal
skills which employers and other academic institutions seek in
graduate recruitment. Of course, no degree, in any discipline,

GET SET FOR MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

is a guarantee for any job. What the research evidence does
suggest, however, is that critical, practical and generic skills
are equally as important as course and subject-specific skills.

Increasingly in higher education, students are required to

complete progress files and personal development plans (dis-
cussed later in the book). There is no doubt that for students
who study and research effectively, and for students who
positively respond to the practical training which degrees
facilitate, then such paperwork and self-assessment can some-
times be tedious. However, the identification of strategies
which demonstrate your intellectual and critical abilities, as
well as your generic transferable skills such as using IT and
databases, and being able to structure written and spoken
presentations, are also ways of indicating your employability
in media- and non-media-related employment situations.
Finally, employability is not so much about being prepared for
a vocation or a career, important though such preparation is,
as it is a critical and analytical predisposition to the world of
work, whether ‘work’ means a career or a move from under-
graduate to postgraduate studies.

FURTHER READING

Burton, G. (2000), Talking Television: An Introduction to the Study of

Television, London: Arnold.

Creeber, G. (ed.) (2001), The Television Genre Book, London: BFI.
Devereux, E. (2003), Understanding the Media, London: Sage.
Gripsrud, J. (2000), Understanding Media Culture, London: Hodder

Arnold.

Holland, P. (1997), The Television Handbook, London: Routledge.
Lacey, N. (2000), Narrative and Genre: Key Concepts in Media Studies,

Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, now Palgrave Macmillan.

McCullagh, C. (2002), Media Power: A Sociological Introduction,

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

McQuail, D. (1992 (1983)), Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction,

2nd edn, London: Sage.

Watson, J. (1998), Media Communication: An Introduction to Theory

and Process, Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, now Palgrave
Macmillan.

WHAT ARE THE MEDIA? WHAT IS MEDIA STUDIES?

USEFUL INTERNET RESOURCES FOR MEDIA AND
CULTURAL STUDIES

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~favretto/media.html
www.michaelmoore.com/
www.theory.org.uk/

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WHAT IS CULTURE?
WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

WHO IS ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT CULTURE?

Before considering specific definitions of ‘culture’ and more
general questions about cultural studies, it might be useful to
think of the ways in which culture is lived at the beginning of
the twenty-first century. Not an easy task but one whose many
responses begin to point to one of the problems which besets
any definitional project. Definitions serve limited ends and are
written for purposes of provisional rather than final clarifica-
tion. The countless responses to how people live their lives at
the beginning of the twenty-first century surely raises further
and important questions. Which country is being discussed?
‘Twenty-first century’ assumes a Christian calendar. Whose
lives are being considered? If everyone is included, then surely
the many cultural differences will only serve to add to the
problems of defining culture. Do we ask questions about
people from the same group (for example, gender) or occu-
pation or income? Who is in a position to ask questions about
culture or people in the first instance? Does ‘culture’ mean
high culture, low culture, mass culture, popular culture, folk
culture . . .? Is culture the same as ‘society’? What kinds of
features will be listed under culture and what will be listed
under society? Is it possible for many groups to live in the
same society but not share the same culture? These prelimi-
nary questions – and there a lots more besides – are intended
to provoke further thought rather than simply confuse how
culture is defined. Definitions, whilst of limited use and appli-
cation, are nonetheless of some importance at the outset of
study, and this is surely true of culture and cultural studies in
higher education.

THE CULTURAL STUDIES DEGREE

It will be useful to get some sense of the kinds of modules you
might see on a degree programme which is primarily interested
in cultural studies. Before thinking more systematically about
definitions of culture, here is what one version of a cultural
studies degree might include:

Year One Modules:*-

Culture and society: the key debates

Cultural theory and popular culture

Industry, technology and empire, 1850–1950

The study of everyday life in (place, country, location)

Critical approaches to the study of culture

Representations of gender and sexuality

Introduction to the study of language and culture

Language, power and discourse

Black popular cultures

Television drama

The history of the press

Study and research skills

Creative and production modules

Options from other degree programmes

Year Two Modules:*-

The legacy of Romanticism in literature, art and other media

North American cultures: literary texts, art and film

Nineteenth-century popular culture

Film studies and contemporary technologies

World cultures and globalisation

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Critical and cultural theory: core theory unit, level II

Visual cultures and ethnicity

Sexuality and contemporary society

The family and social class in British film

Drama and documentary: the golden years of British

television

Advertising and consumption

Advanced study and research methods

European cinema

Creative and production modules

Options from other degree programmes

Year Three Modules:*-

Postcolonialism and cultural production

Culture and the politics of literacy in South America

Utopias

Representing the metropolis

Urban music and protest movements

Carnival: core theory unit, level III

European modernism and visual cultures

Japanese cultural studies

Chinese cinema

Creative and production modules

Options from other degree programmes

Dissertation (10,000 words)

(* Of which you would choose between five and seven on

a degree programme.)

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

The shape and feel of the degree

As with the media studies degree, so these modules might have
a value of 10 or 20 credits, though many degrees are now
moving to 20 or 30 credits for each module. The dissertation
or research project will usually have no less than 30 credits.

Note that the above list is only one way of understanding

how a degree in cultural studies might be structured, and not
all of these modules would be studied in any one year. However,
consider some of the recurring words in the above lists (‘repre-
sentations’, ‘popular’, ‘consumption’, ‘visual’, ‘language and
discourse’, ‘theory’, ‘television’, ‘film’, ‘critical’, ‘art’, ‘ethnic-
ity’, ‘identity’), and you begin to gain a sense of the terms which
cultural studies degrees engage with in the analysis and under-
standing of culture. Some of the terms overlap with themes
and issues raised in sociology, literature, art, music and anthro-
pology. This is partly because of the interdisciplinary nature
of cultural studies. However, later discussion of the term
‘culture’ will highlight what it is that makes a cultural studies
degree more specific than simply interdisciplinary or combined
studies (though cultural studies degrees, as noted in the previ-
ous chapter, do relate quite closely to courses in media
studies).

Universities have their own specialists in certain fields and

not others; teachers and researchers will work with some
critical traditions and not others; and the faculty or department
will teach a range of critical approaches (for example, Marxist,
feminist, psychoanalytic, semiotic, structuralist, discourse
based, political economy and postmodernist). Moreover, it is
likely that students will take only some of these modules if the
degree is being studied in combination with media studies,
English, psychology or another subject. Some of the titles of
modules will seem fairly obvious (for example, popular music,
language and culture, the family and social class). Other
modules (for example, utopias, postcolonialism and cultural
production) might seem more obscure at this stage in your
studies, but the list is intended to enable prospective students
to gain a sense of modules which seem unusual as well as

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familiar. It is worth being prepared for a diverse range of titles
where university modules are concerned, and it’s always worth
consulting module guides, and reading lists for details of the
direction which the module takes (see discussions in Part III of
module outline forms and module guides).

‘Carnival’, for instance, might be one of the ways of com-

bining theoretical and empirical work, allowing for a close
examination of cultures other than British or European ones.
Film representations, popular protest, dance, music, the
economy and mass society are just some of the issues which a
module such as Carnival might cover. ‘Postcolonialism and
cultural production’ might seem an even more unusual title
for a module on any degree course, though those familiar with
recent developments in media and cultural studies would be
surprised if a module of this sort was not included on the pro-
gramme of study. However, the chances are the module will
discuss some of the following: ethnicity, empire and imperial-
ism, power and social relations, world film and literatures,
media representation of politics and cultural difference, local
and global cultures, the production of mass culture and the
production of marginal cultures, subcultures, fashion, music
and style. It is also more than likely that a module of this kind
will consider at least one major Western culture and one
culture whose way of life was, or continues to remain, under
the influence of another (dominating) state or culture. It’s pos-
sible to see how module titles such as these are not only very
wide ranging, but also very topical, playing a vital role in the
overall feel of the programme of study.

In addition, some cultural studies degrees will want to

stress particular subject specialisms or disciplines more than
others. It is not uncommon, for instance, to complete a degree
in cultural studies which stresses literature, film and media,
popular music, art and visual culture, sociology, anthropol-
ogy and linguistics. It is worth spending some time (using
university web pages) becoming familiar with the particular
degree course, the university and the faculty teachers, or by
attending an open day prior to starting the degree pro-
gramme. One of the advantages of media and cultural studies

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

is the breadth of study but also the depth of specialist investi-
gation which they facilitate.

CULTURAL STUDIES: FURTHER CONSIDERATIONS
AND DEFINITIONS

An initial definition of culture – one which Raymond Williams
proposes – is ‘way of life’. The lists of modules above, if they
communicate anything, at least convey a sense of how cultural
studies degrees explore culture in relation to specific themes,
issues and approaches but where the focus and object of study
is culture as a whole or particular way of life. If we imagine
what people did over the course of a week in a city, town or
region of Britain, we begin to gain a sense of the dimensions
of British culture or the British way of life. Cinema going,
reading a novel, buying a novel from a bookstore, listening to
music, buying a newspaper, pursuing leisure activities, watch-
ing television, attending sporting events, going to popular
music concerts, participating in religious services, taking a
holiday, joining a public protest or demonstration, and visit-
ing the children’s section of the local library, all in broad terms
typify some of the everyday activities associated with contem-
porary British cultures.

But a way of life is not simply about what audiences or

readers or listeners do. People also write books, make films or
produce radio shows. On the one hand, people are imagined
doing ‘everyday’ things such as listening to the radio or buying
a newspaper. On the other hand, in order to ‘do’ culture or live
a particular way of life, items such as CDs and CD players,
books and bookstores, and films and cinemas need to be avail-
able for an everyday way of life (culture) to take place.
However, the relatively mundane, ‘everyday’ act of buying a
newspaper is never neutral. Newspapers serve different pur-
poses in British culture and construct the everyday world in
different terms. In some societies, for instance, the act of
buying a newspaper is far from being a mundane or everyday
cultural practice. This can be said of nearly every activity listed

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above: not all cultures have libraries or children’s fictions; not
all cultures are ‘literate’; consumer goods such as CD players,
telephones and televisions remain a luxury and are not as
widely available as they are in Western cultures. In other
words, buying a newspaper or a CD – while they seem to many
as everyday activities – are not as mundane as they might
appear. What is being described is also a very particular (dom-
inant) version of Western cultures (Europe, United States and
Canada, and Australasia), rather than something universal or
timeless.

Whose cultures?

The relatively trivial example of buying a newspaper or mag-
azine hopefully suggests that not everyone lives the same
culture, even in what appears to be the same nation (in this
case, Britain). In one sense, it is fairly obvious that urban
cultures, or cultures associated with towns and cites, are not
quite the same as rural cultures. But what is it that makes
these cultures different? Both urban and rural cultures would
be described, very generally, as British. Is there, then, a
Culture, one with a capital ‘C’, which encompasses something
called British Culture and which is shared by everyone? Is
there an intrinsic value to or in the culture if the culture is
shared by all? Questions such as these will be central in the
core introductory lectures and seminars of a cultural studies
degree.

One way of considering ‘cultures’ and ‘Culture’ is by imag-

ining British urban cultures. There is not one urban culture in
Britain (or one rural culture for that matter). Cities and urban
communities communicate sameness (for example, large-scale
housing developments, shopping centres, places of mass
recreation and entertainment, common dress codes) and dif-
ference (for example, urban middle classes compared to urban
working classes, city-centre residents compared to suburban or
high-rise residents). Cites are zoned according to social class,
town centres are zoned in relation to expectations about age,

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

gender and sexuality, and contain cultural differences as great
as those often thought to separate city from countryside or one
country from another. Differences are articulated, expressed or
projected in terms of class, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, age
or geographical location, and are also those same factors
which complicate a definition of ‘Culture’ (the official culture
of the country or the one shared by everyone). Whilst it might
be the case that many people seem to share a way of life, there
are sufficient differences and practices to suggest that the way
of life is more plural than it is singular, far more unfamiliar
than the term ‘everyday’ might seem to suggest.

Meanings and values

Cultural studies degrees, then, aim to understand and examine
how people live in relation to each other. The degree course
will partly achieve this aim via the analysis of ‘cultural texts’
(stories, narratives, films, songs, paintings, photographs, news
programmes or other ‘texts’) and ‘cultural practices’ (cinema-
going, reading, holidaying, public lobbying and protesting,
internet browsing). Cultural studies degrees will examine how
far texts and practices, and objects and practices such as films,
novels, television programmes, shopping habits, listening to
music, visiting an art gallery, fashion, architecture, suggest
something about what it means to live according to the poli-
tics of a specific society at any one point in history.

People who live a similar way of life to others are thought

to share a culture. The ‘people’ dimension makes clear that
whilst individuals might have distinct or private views about
a way of life (a preference for soap opera, a dislike of operas),
culture is at some point lived at a collective level. But soci-
eties have a habit of making some people’s contributions to
culture seem more valuable or worthwhile than others. One
of the effects of such cultural evaluations is that some cul-
tures are respected more than others. Cultures are connected
to values, but the values are not intrinsic to a culture or nec-
essarily shared by all. Rather, such values and distinctions

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are constructed by people who make the culture. The fact,
however, that some contributions are valued more highly
than others raises questions about how such valuations came
about.

In a sense, all cultures and cultural practices (for example,

shopping or cinema going) communicate something to other
people about values in culture. However, a pause for thought
will also suggest that some people are in a position to say
more about value in culture than others. People don’t have
equal access to what is made or valued in a culture; politics,
wealth, social status and other factors combine to seriously
limit or disproportionately enable what people do in culture.
Consider the meanings and values associated with reading
two popular ‘love stories’, one a popular paperback bought
at a train station and the other Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet. Popular culture is here paired with academic culture,
fiction is paired with drama, and the pleasures associated
with reading the former text are probably not the ones asso-
ciated with studying or viewing a theatrical production of
the latter. The differences between the two reading practices
can be understood in terms of something called cultural
capital, where one cultural text is seen to be more valuable
than another. Similarly, looking at the mass-produced pic-
tures and posters in a shop does not have the same cultural
value attached to it as looking at pop-art posters in an art
gallery exhibition. Here, cultural capital is associated with
an activity and a cultural literacy or competence. Is cultural
value – what is thought to be valuable or worthy in culture –
an attribute which is imposed rather than constructed?
If cultural value is constructed, do all the people who
live as part of the culture have some say in the cultural valua-
tions which are made? Questions such as these will be
developed in seminars and debates on all cultural studies
programmes.

The concept of values (rather than ‘value’) suggests that

there is no single view or perspective which can dictate
the terms of what, in the culture, is good or bad (though there
are plenty of examples of how this has been attempted).

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

The imposition of one overriding value indicates something
about power in culture and it also begins to suggest that
culture – the way of life – is not free of political consider-
ations. No course of study in higher education is outside the
domain of political, ethical or economic considerations and so
the study of culture, like the study of the media, is one of the
ways in which the meanings which are given social and cul-
tural life can be examined in relation to the wider historical
formations in which culture is valued.

RAYMOND WILLIAMS

Way of life

It was Raymond Williams (1921–90), one of the most impor-
tant figures in the early history of British cultural studies,
who described culture as ‘a way of life’. But Williams was
himself alert in his writings to the political and economic con-
texts in which culture is valued. All degree programmes in
cultural studies will study or make reference to Williams’s
work at some point; and all degree programmes will compli-
cate Williams’s definition, though most of the complications
are already discussed in his massive output. He variously con-
siders how culture is a way of life of a people and of a country;
and a whole way of life includes the material, intellectual and
spiritual dimensions of cultural life.

How might the material, intellectual and spiritual dimen-

sions be interpreted in terms of initial study? The material
goods, services and products of any culture (for example, tele-
visions, clothes, transport) matter in terms of how a culture is
lived; and their usage, and the meanings attached to them in
social relations, not only indicates something of the distribu-
tion of money and ownership of property. The ways material
and cultural products are used and valued also indicates some-
thing about the construction of meaning and the construction
of identities. If culture is a way of life, it is a way of life which
is not simply about ideas. In addition, a culture is separable

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from the material and social conditions in which people live
and reproduce culture. Ideas, nonetheless, have considerable
impact on how cultures are lived, and what we do with ideas
are important in terms of how a culture takes the shapes it
does. And, by the spiritual spheres, Williams refers generally
to those activities which, while not fully detached from the
material and intellectual dimensions, nevertheless allude to
something which exceeds the material dimensions of life in a
complex way but which nonetheless makes sense in the very
material conditions in which spirituality is seen to emerge.

Moreover, a way of life for Williams means the lived

culture of a specific time and place which is known to the
people living at that particular time. But specific cultures (for
example, medieval Europe, Victorian London) are recorded
(in literature, in paintings, in buildings, in diaries, in myths),
and so these are accounts which document ‘the most every-
day facts’ to do with the culture of a period. These are some
of the words which are associated with culture in Williams’s
The Long Revolution: whole way of life, shape of communi-
ties, organisation and content of education, status of art and
entertainment, living experience, structure of feeling, and
communications.

Culture and meanings

These descriptions are then linked to how culture might be
analysed. The analysis of culture will be concerned with the
meanings which are associated with the way of life. But mean-
ings are never detached from values associated with a partic-
ular way of life. In Williams’s work, one culture should not be
valued above another. Rather, Williams suggests that culture,
in explicit and implicit ways, communicates values.

For Williams, culture is reflected in the acts of producing

and interpreting literature, music and painting, for instance.
Cultural analysis it is about understanding something of the
history and society which makes culture. Although Williams
often studies ‘great’ works of literature and art, he nonetheless

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

understands culture as not confined to ‘high’ culture or
indeed ‘low’ or ‘mass’ culture. These terms are investigated by
Williams and shown to be highly problematic. What one
society defines as popular culture might become high or clas-
sical culture in the future. A way of life is something which is
plural for Williams, and also singular, but the meanings of
culture (possibly with a capital ‘C’), as his work always insists,
are never far removed from political, economic and aesthetic
considerations.

What is interesting about Williams’s work for students of

cultural studies is that it sets out to define what culture is,
proving useful if not indispensable as far as definitional frame-
works are concerned. Further, Williams stresses that to under-
stand culture is to analyse its meanings. Through such an
analysis, our definition of culture is often refigured, and we
sense the importance of Williams’s contribution to the field. In
that sense, his work is important as the basis from which to
build any understanding of culture over the course of a degree
programme. Williams’s output is valuable also for its com-
plexity and texture, and is in many respects very much alive.
He was a pioneer in the field, along with two other key figures
in the history of British cultural studies, Richard Hoggart and
Stuart Hall.

DOING CULTURAL STUDIES

How might we bring together these introductory observations
concerning the definition of culture? How is cultural studies
taught in UK and English-speaking universities? What might
I expect in a degree programme with ‘cultural studies’ in the
title? Many of these questions are addressed in Part II, though
it is important to map out in general terms how cultural
studies might be undertaken as a course of study. One way of
doing this mapping is to imagine culture in terms of the rela-
tions between four variables: ‘an object of study’; ‘texts, prac-
tices and audiences’; ‘producing meanings’; ‘subjects, agents
and people’.

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1. An ‘object’ of study

There is an object of study (culture), though this might
seem to be stating the very obvious at this point. However,
it is and it is not always obvious what the object of study
is in cultural studies. Similarly, it is and is not obvious what
the object of study is in studies of literature, art and
history. Although there is an object of study in cultural
studies (that is, a whole way of life), how exactly how will
a whole way of life be analysed?

The degree programme will offer introductory as well

as more advanced modules on methods of analysis, some
of which are referred to in Part II. Which objects will be
examined? Again, no two courses are the same, though the
modules listed earlier in this chapter provide a general
sense of how courses are organised, and Part II offers
summaries of some of the contents of these courses. In
higher education, the phrase ‘object of study’ will be used
to identify not simply material objects (important though
they are in cultural studies), but also the activities, prac-
tices and structures (ideas, discourses, economic condi-
tions) which make a way of life what it is. How will
cultural studies differ from the study of a way of life as it
is examined in literary or historical analysis? Sometimes
courses overlap or are combined, though English literature
courses will usually place much more stress on the literary
object, and history courses will pay more attention to spe-
cific periods in their attempts to understand economic,
social and political formations over time. It should be
stressed that the study of European and world languages
is in many ways also a form of cultural studies. Degrees in
French or Spanish, for example, are not simply concerned
with the understanding of the learning of language, and
offer modules in cinema, media, art, popular culture and
music. But studying culture means looking at the texts,
practices, identities and groups which compose culture. By
looking at these dimensions, culture is never removed from
political, economic or ethical considerations. Meanings in

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

culture are seen as contentious and never straightforward,
and as complex as much as they are apparently unde-
manding or trouble free.

2. Texts, practices, audiences

Perhaps it is useful at this point to recall Williams’s propo-
sitions. He discusses culture in terms of documents, books,
archives and everything from ‘poems to buildings and
dress-fashions’. Culture as an object of study, then, is an
object composed of texts (for example, popular novels,
magazines, advertisements), practices (shopping, activities
of subcultures) and activities of audiences (viewing televi-
sion and talking about its meanings). But culture is also
associated with the people who write the texts, make the
television programmes and manufacture the goods which
are put to use in the living of culture. The stress on texts,
practices and activities of audiences, as well as the dimen-
sions of culture associated with its production, is one way
of emphasising that cultural analysis is concerned with
what and how a culture means what it does mean at any
one point.

3. Producing meanings

Meanings are not wholly contained in the object of study
(all groups make culture mean slightly different things at
different times), although meanings nonetheless connect
with cultural objects (the signs and signifying systems of
culture). Cultural signs come in all shapes and forms, but
consider how a way of life is associated with visual, acoustic
and linguistic signs. Sounds, images and specific languages
are made into cultural forms (for example, film, CD track,
novel, etc.) via industries and technologies which not only
produce an object (for example, CD), but which are addi-
tionally implicated in the generation of meanings. The
impact of the photograph was to revolutionise how visual
cultures were perceived in the nineteenth century, even
though paintings had for centuries supposedly depicted
similar objects and terrain. The object of study in cultural

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studies is a way of life, but the object becomes interesting
because of the conflicting interpretations which are made of
the way of life in question. During the 1950s and 1960s,
‘soul music’ and record players were associated with far
more than the obvious use value (listening to music from a
player). The exchange values were much more complicated,
tied as they were to identity formations, urban life, race
and subcultures. Soul music and record players, then,
are objects of study which make sense in terms of the eco-
nomic and political context of their production. The mean-
ings ‘given’ to the objects (for example, records, music),
however, suggest that meanings are constructed and deter-
mined in relation to the context and constitution of the
audiences who buy and listen to the music.

4. Subjects, agents, people

The object of study is made intelligible by the subjects (users,
audiences, groups) who use the object in terms of its
exchange value in the sphere of everyday life. As suggested
earlier, everyday life is not a neutral or natural state of affairs
but something which is highly structured and highly polem-
ical. In the sense that people – subjects, consumers, audi-
ences – make culture, so all subjects are implicated in the
(cultural) politics of everyday life. Notions of everyday life,
then, like ‘common sense’, are bound up with the conflicts
and structures which shape the processes of meaning-
making in people’s lives. All cultural texts and practices are
made to mean something at any one point but, given that it
is people who make meanings, the object of culture study
is always at the same time concerned with the people (or
the subjects) who give the object the meanings it has.
Expanding the insights of cultural theory, as well as sociol-
ogy and social history, it is subjects who determine meaning
in culture and history in a complex way, but some subjects
have historically been positioned to exercise more economic
power and cultural agency than others. The meanings which
subjects give to cultural texts and practices, then, are seen to
take place in relation to the conflicts of everyday life.

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

QUESTIONS IN CULTURAL STUDIES

We can now see that cultural studies has an object of study,
which is linked to cultural texts, practices and audiences. The
fourfold division of culture outlined above constitutes only one
way of understanding a way of life, although all four divisions
are inseparable in any analysis of culture. The texts’ construc-
tions and representations make sense in relation to the mean-
ings which audiences give to the texts. Meanings in texts are
important, but not because of a secret message which, previ-
ously contained in the texts, has been successfully deciphered.
Rather, meanings in culture are frequently linked to questions
of power, cultural value and ideology. Cultural studies degrees
are in large part concerned with the meanings which circulate
in culture at any one point. However, because meanings in
culture are never neutral, then the people or subjects who use
the texts are as essential in the construction and understanding
of culture as any of the other elements sketched above.

Methods of analysis; theories and perspectives

Most cultural studies courses, in addition to examining culture
in relation to texts, practices, audiences and meanings, will
also encourage students to study what is broadly referred to as
cultural and/or critical theory. This book prepares students for
the broad range of options and critical traditions taught on
cultural studies programmes in UK universities, though a
number of excellent books cover ‘theory’ in more detail.
Some degree courses are more interested in the details and
dynamics of cultural theory than others. Theory can mean all
sorts of things on any one degree programme, but it usually
refers to those critical perspectives which can be used as ways
of understanding how texts and practices are made to mean
certain things and not others. (A book of this kind does not set
out to cover ‘theory’ comprehensively, but the list of theories
includes feminism, semiotics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, struc-
turalism, postcolonialism, political economy, queer theory,

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hegemony theory, postmodern theory, and a range of other
perspectives which only serve to enrich the field of study.)
But theory can also simply mean adopting a critical as opposed
to a common-sense reading of culture. Theory is a way of
metaphorically standing outside the object of study in order,
paradoxically, to get ‘inside’ culture, and to understand more
critically and more closely the social and political dynamics of
culture.

Students invariably welcome theory. It can prove a rich

and fruitful way of analysing culture. Some courses adopt
methods and approaches which immediately combine the
analysis of an object or text with the teaching and application
of a theory. But it is a mistake to think theory is simply
‘applied’ to texts and objects (so that any theory will do).
Perhaps Williams was working in the right direction when he
attempted to show how the culture itself is a kind of theory in
its own right. Culture, or the living of a way of life, is also a
way of seeing, representing and constructing the spheres of
human reality in one way and not another. Theory, following
Williams, is not simply applied to culture but is seen to emerge
from within culture. Some courses draw heavily on social-
scientific methods, others on audience research and ethnogra-
phy, others on textual study, and yet others on psychoanalytic
and psychological perspectives. In the UK, most degree
courses in cultural studies will introduce most of these theo-
retical areas and encourage students to specialise in relation
to interest and motivation. In practice, degree courses in
cultural studies draw on a vast range of theories, texts and
practices in the examination of local and international ways
of life. Societies and cultures are thought to be merging and
becoming less distant as a result of the internet and new media
technologies. The study of culture becomes all the more
urgent, therefore, in understanding what it is that makes
cultures distinct, internally conflictual and discontent, unique,
and never quite as local or as global as communications tech-
nologies might imply.

WHAT IS CULTURE? WHAT IS CULTURAL STUDIES?

FURTHER READING

Barthes, R. (1973), Mythologies, London: Jonathan Cape.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H.) and Negus, K. (1997), Doing

Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, London: Sage.

Hall, S. (ed.) (1997), Representation: Cultural Representations and

Signifying Practices, London: Sage.

Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (1992 (1980)), Culture, Media,

Language, London: Routledge.

Storey, J. (2001), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction,

3rd edn, Harlow: Pearson Education; http:// cwx.prenhall.com/book-
bind/pubbooks/storey_ema/ (this also has exercises, self-assessments and
glossary of key terms).

Williams, R. (1965), The Long Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Williams, R. (1988; 1976), Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and

Society, London: Fontana.

USEFUL INTERNET RESOURCES
FOR MEDIA ANALYSIS

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~favretto/media.html
www.michaelmoore.com/
www.theory.org.uk/

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PART II

Topics, Themes and Debates
in Media and Cultural Studies

TEXTS AND SIGNS IN MEDIA
AND CULTURE

MEDIA IMAGES

Cultures and societies are dominated by images and represen-
tations. It is the mass media (for example, television, film,
newspapers, radio) which construct and re-present these
images of the world to audiences (that is, the spectators,
readers, listeners and users of media output). Any university
degree course in media and cultural studies will be engaged in
teaching a new vocabulary and a new discourse. This ‘techni-
cal’ language includes theories, concepts, practices and formu-
lations. The theoretical language allows mass media and
culture to be discussed in specific ways. But media productions
(films, radio programmes or television shows) also construct
‘reality’ according to the conventions of the specific medium or
form. A competing perspective or critical discourse enables the
spheres of human culture to be viewed and understood in
complex and multidimensional ways. This theoretical vocabu-
lary can also challenge what passes as ‘common sense’.

In many respects, degree courses in media and cultural

studies actively seek to challenge common-sense views of
human societies. The increasing numbers of students who
embark on degree courses in film, media production, televi-
sion studies and cultural studies are thus engaged in the acqui-
sition of a discourse which enables media and culture to be
understood and questioned in critical ways. One of the prin-
cipal ways of analysing media and culture is in relation to
texts and signs. The terms are part of a critical tradition
known as semiotics and the names frequently associated with
the field are Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes.

In the work of Roland Barthes (1973), for example, media

output is not simply concerned with texts, images and signs but

with the construction, flow and interpretation of meanings,
identities and audio-visual images in society. In a sense, media
analysis for Barthes involves understanding something of
factors which shape the production and consumption of a
media text (see also Chapter 8, ‘Production and Consumption
of Media and Culture’). The stress here on production and con-
sumption, terms often found in the analytic tradition known as
‘political economy’, also indicates the extent to which media
analysis involves taking into account the conflictual nature of
media output. For instance, when the news media use shots of
Rome (often Saint Peter’s basilica) to represent Italy, these
image concentrations can often hide much political and cul-
tural difference. Because all media signs and images contain
elements of conflict, division or ambiguity, so images of Saint
Peter’s basilica, for instance, could signify Rome, Italy, the
Vatican, Roman Catholicism, the papacy, romance or a reli-
gious and political state. Equally, images of Saint Peter’s could
signify power, tradition, history and religious discord. There
is no single, fixed or final meaning to the image. Barthes’s now
very famous analyses of popular culture demonstrate how
media images of nations are always perilously balanced
between concord and conflict, cohesion and disintegration.

Barthes’s work encourages a form of analysis which con-

siders the ways in which signs and texts not only represent but
also construct the world of social, political and personal rela-
tions. Social and political events, sporting occasions, natural
disasters, wars and social conflict happen as ‘fact’ (though the
term is always contentious). But they are never represented in
the media simply as ‘facts’. Some political events may not
count as newsworthy, and what many would consider disas-
ters remain wholly outside media construction and represen-
tation. Thus, facts are parcelled and packaged by the media
into ‘products’ (for example, television news reports, radio
bulletins, newspaper columns), which are then viewed or lis-
tened to by audiences. In representing the world using texts
and images, then, the mass media are also powerfully posi-
tioned to shape the world, to make one part of the world seem
more or less alien than another part. Because of the media’s

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power to construct the world in this way, it is important to
understand what the mass media are, what they do, and how
they can be analysed. Media and cultural studies degrees will
be important, then, in the acquisition of these analytical skills.

On many media and cultural studies degrees, the mass media

are often discussed in terms of a fourfold dynamic which
involves media producers, media organisations, media audi-
ences and users, and media output (see Chapter 1, ‘What Are
the Media? What Is Media Studies?’). Images in visual media
(television, magazines and films, for example) are everyday
examples of media texts. Media output can be thought of in
terms of the texts, the written and spoken narratives and
stories, and the audio-visual sounds and images which are used
to construct and represent a specific reality at a particular point
in time and space. How, then, might texts be understood?

TEXTUAL STUDY AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

What are texts? What is textual analysis? Is textual analysis
useful in media, cultural and film studies? Isn’t textual analy-
sis only for students of literature? There are many ways of
approaching the object of study in cultural, film and media
studies, and many of the key textbooks will offer outlines and
discussions of ‘cultural theory’. Theories are used in all sorts
of ways. However, it is possible to undertake the analysis of a
cultural text without a great deal of theory (not for too long,
though!), particularly in the initial stages of study and while
the theoretical side of the course is still new. Theory is impor-
tant and valuable in cultural and social analysis, but, if there
is more than one theory being used to interpret the text, what
remains of the text or the object? If theory allows the object
to be seen in a different light, is it the theory which ‘changes’
the object, or is it you, the viewer/analyst, who has changed
how the object is viewed? What impact does the text or object
have on the theory?

These questions are worth thinking about from day one of

the media and cultural studies programme, and they will

TEXTS AND SIGNS IN MEDIA AND CULTURE

become more complex, interesting and controversial the more
the course develops. The following observations, however, are
designed to encourage study and analysis of the text in terms
of its structure and form. The kind of analysis being proposed
here is of course not untheorised, but it can be undertaken
without too much knowledge of cultural and critical theory.

The text: what can be said about ‘texts’?

The first point to note is that degree courses in media, film and
cultural studies are not concerned with texts in exactly the
same way as literature or language courses. At the same time,
however, there are huge points of overlap between film studies,
cultural studies and literature study, and many of the skills
required in one area overlap with another. Degree programmes
in French or English, however, would be interested in analysing
a poem or an extract from a play in order to consider style, use
of rhetorical devices, imagery, etc. Media and cultural studies
work with texts in similar and in complementary ways, but
would not place a premium on stylistic analysis in the same
way as modules on literature courses might do.

So how do media and cultural studies programmes under-

stand texts? Texts are arrangements of signs, and, to the
extent that cultural analysis is in part dealing with the analy-
sis of signs, so culture is tied to texts, and vice versa. Films,
novels, paintings, newspapers, sitcoms, advertisements, music
and photographs can all be described as texts. Texts are
arrangements of signs which are also systems for the making
of meaning. Novels and films can be read in all sorts of ways,
and so the kinds of interpretations people give to texts are
important to the extent that they assist in the ongoing under-
standing of a culture’s values and way of life.

Texts thus have a particular shape, or are patterned in

certain ways. One way of thinking this through is by simply
looking at the shapes of the single letters which combine to
make a word. Or, consider the patterns that operate in popular
detective fictions where one character is always innocent and

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another is always guilty. A character’s innocence and guilt in a
film or TV drama will be associated with music, sounds, time
of the day and so on. Or consider finally text and shape in rela-
tion to visual cultures (for example, a painting or photograph).
A particular colour or shade is made to generate certain expec-
tations and not others. The generation of meaning around
expectations is arbitrary in that culture need not have associ-
ated the colour green with ‘nature’. Soil is not green, the sky
is without colour or finite shape, and water is similarly without
colour and is only stable when frozen. Nature in that sense is
not ‘seen’ or understood outside the concepts, languages and
forms which culture provides. These shapes and figures are
given form in texts (novels, poems, films, dramas, painting,
photographs and so on).

Texts are also useful in that they allow us to understand

something of human cultures and social groups. If people
choose to dress in particular ways, identify as part of a sub-
culture, listen to particular types of music, and communicate
using a specific language code which defines the group’s iden-
tity, then clearly the analysis of texts will provide clues as to
how human subjects relate to each other.

Asking some preliminary questions about texts

Aim
All texts have a purpose and aim, some more apparent than
others. The aim of the text is often linked to the author or the
producer of the text, though the aims and intentions of the
text often exceed what the producers of the text might have
had in mind.

Questions to raise

• What is the text setting out to achieve?

• Is more than one meaning or intention evident?

• Does the text inform, persuade, entertain or instruct its

audience?

TEXTS AND SIGNS IN MEDIA AND CULTURE

• Is the text designed to be spoken, read, looked at, or

watched?

• Is the text without obvious intention? How is this appar-

ent? Why?

• How does the aim of the text connect with the context of

its reception?

Form and genre
Genre, discussed later in the book, simply means type or clas-
sification. In media studies, it refers to output which can be
classified as soap, drama, police series, news and documentary.

Questions to raise

• Is the genre important or significant in how the text is inter-

preted or used in a culture?

• Is it possible to understand a text purely on the basis of

genre or form?

• Why are many texts formulaic in their construction?

• Are texts not formulaic in construction? How? Why?

• Hybridity: begin to consider why form/genre are important

when the genre is mixed

• with other genres.

Contexts of texts and cultural objects
A text is never understood in isolation but is always seen
in relation to social, economic and political contexts. For
example, the production of Shakespeare’s plays in London
during the 1960s and 1970s had a very different impact to
their production and reception in former Warsaw-pact coun-
tries such as Poland and Hungary during the same period.
Consider how the impact and reception of urinals and pairs of
shoes in modern art exhibitions at the beginning of the twen-
tieth century are very different to the reception and impact
today.

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Questions to raise

• What is the relationship of the text or object to social, his-

torical and political situations?

• Does the historical context of the texts or objects make a

difference to how we understand them?

• Or is it possible to understand the text or objects regardless

of context?

• Why might some texts/objects be more popular than others?

Consider the impact of political and social history on form/
genre (for example, fantasy and gothic in the nineteenth
century; soap operas after 1945; radio dramas and propa-
ganda; French new wave; punk rock; hip-hop; rap).

• Is it possible to understand culture outside or regardless of

‘texts’ or ‘objects’?

• Think about context and textual-social situations. Are

buildings works of art, spaces in which to live and work,
or both?

Texts and the construction of reality
The term ‘reality’ is highly contentious and, whenever it
comes up in seminar debates, you can be assured of really
interesting discussions and interpretations. However, media
and cultural studies degrees will begin to problematise what
is meant by reality, and at some point questions about a text’s
relation to reality will emerge. For some in cultural studies,
there is nothing outside texts (reality is mediated in a repre-
sentation), and for others reality exists regardless of how it is
framed in texts.

Questions to raise

• Does the text provide a reflection of a reality? Or does it

construct reality?

• Do texts always reflect reality from the angle of the subject

who looks or writes?

TEXTS AND SIGNS IN MEDIA AND CULTURE

• In what ways does the text (accurately) reflect or construct

‘reality’?

• Does the text distort reality?

• Does the text set out to challenge reality?

• Reality?

Texts and identities
All texts assume something about an identity at personal,
social and national levels.

Questions to raise

• ‘Who’ is represented in the text?

• ‘Who’ is left out of representation?

• Are these the important questions in media studies? Why?

Why not?

• Who are the key subjects in this text?

• How representative are they of the identity?

• Why is identity such an important issue in relation to the

text?

• Why is the identity of the user, spectator or consumer of the

text important?

Ideology
Most texts connect with, are influenced by, and generally
cannot avoid, ideology. A book of this kind is offering only
preliminary observation and discussion, but a text’s ideology
might be understood in relation to the ways in which it makes
its representation of reality seem natural, acceptable and
unquestioned. Consider how some 1950s films represent ‘the
American West’ in terms of the English-speaking settlers and
not the indigenous communities who predate colonisation.
How might the American West be represented from perspec-
tives other than the dominant output of the 1950s and 1960s?

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The views, beliefs, values and opinions which in the text are
dominant and unquestioned are connected to the text’s and
the dominant culture’s ideology. But ideology is not ‘seen’ so
much as it is put into a representation which makes the ideo-
logy seem acceptable and thus unquestioned.

Questions to raise

• Why is ideology such an important issue for cultural

analysis?

• Why are some cultural texts and practices perceived as

more valuable than others (for example, art versus adver-
tising, opera versus popular television drama)?

• All texts connect with views, beliefs, values and opinions

about the world; but does the text naturalise one world and
not another?

• Does the text de-naturalise the world?

FURTHER READING

Barthes, R. (1973), Mythologies, London: Jonathan Cape.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. (1997), Doing

Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, London: Sage.

Hall, S. (ed.) (1997), Representation: Cultural Representations and

Signifying Practices, London: Sage.

TEXTS AND SIGNS IN MEDIA AND CULTURE

CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND MEDIA
REPRESENTATIONS

MISTAKEN IDENTITIES IN ‘ENGLISH’ CULTURES

Identity is central to the study of most academic disciplines in
universities. The existence of areas of study such as English,
biology, geography or Chinese indicates something of the
importance of ‘identity’ to undergraduate study in the univer-
sity. When embarking on a course of study, much is assumed,
and often has to be assumed for strategic purposes, about the
identity of the object being studied. The opening chapters of
this book, for instance, begin to explore what it means to study
a degree whose identity is media and culture. But we can
extend the discussion of identity a little further by beginning to
ask some questions about identity and identities.

Staying for a moment with academic disciplines allows us

to highlight some of the problems which beset all identities.
Does English literature, for instance, assume that there is an
object of study whose identity is ‘literature’ and also ‘English’?
Similar questions might be asked about French and Greek lit-
eratures and cultures. Can the language of literature contain
an identity? Is speaking a modern language such as Spanish or
Japanese also a way of establishing an identity? Is English
literature also an example of English culture? Is there some-
thing called ‘British’ literature which is different to English
literature? In these questions, we can see that identity seems to
rely on defining something (in this case an object of study).
But, very clearly, ‘literature’ or literary texts do not have actual
voices which speak their identities, so in that sense it is an iden-
tity which is imposed at a certain point in time. It is also very
much an identity which emerges from the language.

The giving (and thus the receiving) of identity in this way is

also a means of classifying some texts and not others. So who

gives the subject or the object an identity? We can think of the
giving and receiving of identity in relation to English culture
and English ‘Culture’ with a capital ‘C’. What exactly is
‘English’ about the culture of people living in England? Does
‘English culture’ mean all cultural texts which have some
association with the English language, or all the texts which
have some association with England? Are there some texts
which enshrine English ‘Culture’ and which should be studied
because of the insights they provide into Englishness? For
some critics, the answer to this last question is ‘Yes’. But for
many the answer is more complex, especially when it is
remembered that the identity or definition of ‘Culture’ might,
in the past, have been based on excluding some of the texts
written in English but which are now included in the identity
‘English’. We can now sense that English culture has an iden-
tity which is defined on the basis of being inside and outside:
texts not in English will not be English literature (though there
are certain exceptions); but not all texts in English are ‘English
literature’. Mmmm . . . ! Confused?

THE CONFUSIONS OF IDENTITY

The matter becomes more complex, but also very interesting,
when identity is thought about in relation to people, the media
and culture. Is an identity something given at birth or some-
thing given by the culture? Are subjects born with gender or
sexual identities, for instance? What is the identity of Britain
or the British? What constitutes an ‘American’, ‘Canadian’ or
‘Australian’ identity? The majority of people in Australia and
the United States speak English but are not ‘English’. In the
United Kingdom, can I be ‘British’ and not speak English? Can
I be English and European but not speak English? Can I be
‘Scottish’ and speak English and Welsh, but not Scottish? Is
there a ‘Scottish language’ or is there a language of Scotland
which is not English? These questions allude to many of the
questions which media and cultural studies degrees will ask
about identity. They are questions which are intended to

CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

encourage readers to consider how the problems might be con-
sidered or even solved.

Identity is one of the most frequently used words in media

and cultural studies. It is also something which underpins
how culture and media are produced: newspapers, sporting
events, music, song and dance. Where people shop, what they
wear, and where and what people eat can reveal much about
cultural dissensus and identity. Often, it is the claims and
counter-claims which are made in the name of identity which
underpin social conflict. Some identities appear more accept-
able than others in cultures which are based partly on differ-
ence and exclusion. In the case of the study of culture and
society, countries such as the United Kingdom contain far
more hybrid or complex identities than are represented in the
popular media and dominant culture. Identity is a term which
is used to refer to nationality, ethnicity, social class, gender
and sexuality. But it can also mean sense of ‘self’, personality,
sameness, homogeneity or uniqueness. The term might seem
straightforward but in fact it is highly contentious, and so it
is important to consider how the term is being used in the
study and construction of culture.

FEATURES OF IDENTITY

In all discussions of identity in media and cultural studies, we
can note five recurring themes which serve as a backdrop to
how identity might be understood.

1. Identity is often figured in terms of a binary opposition (or

pair of terms) in which one term has the opposite meaning
of the other. Thus, if the identity being referred to is ‘I’, the
term in opposition is ‘you’. Similarly, ‘them’ and ‘us’ are
language terms which point to sets of differences.

2. Following on from this, we can see that identity has a pos-

itive and a negative side to its dimensions. ‘I’ is not ‘you’,
and vice versa. However, we can see that both terms are co-
dependent in that they rely on each other for their meaning.

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3. An identity, then, is defined in terms of what it is, but only

on the basis of what it is not. For instance, to discuss the
positive attributes of someone (for example, tall, fair hair,
young, etc.), we assume some knowledge about the oppo-
site attributes of another subject (short, dark hair, old). In
other words, all identities rely on systems of sameness and
difference.

4. In cultural and media studies, binary opposites are often

paired in terms of privilege or dominance, on the one hand,
and disfavour and subordination, on the other. Historically,
some social and cultural identities have been privileged over
others, effectively making culture something which is con-
stituted on the basis of either dominant and favoured or
subordinated and underprivileged groups.

5. In terms of representation, some identities are historically

over-represented in media and cultural texts and others are
historically under-represented.

IDENTITY, COMPLEXITY, HYBRIDITY

If identity is constructed in these ways, then how far does the
media replicate or resist these binary pairings in its construc-
tions and representations of culture? We can begin to sense
something of the controversial nature of the construction and
representation of identity by reconsidering some of the terms
which opened this chapter, and try to understand how they are
used by the different groups which make up a nation. The
nouns United Kingdom, Britain, England, Ireland, Scotland
and Wales are all linked, forming as they do a geographical
space whose citizens are subject, in theory at least, to one
monarch. But the elements which unite the terms or identities
can hide the fact that the terms also imply division and conflict.

For instance, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the

United Kingdom was geographically larger than it is today,
and included what is now known as the Irish Republic. We
can see that, in order to make everyone the same, there have

CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

to be systems of inclusion and exclusion: those who are the
same and those who are not the same, or different. By stress-
ing sameness and homogeneity, cultures can exclude (or fail
to represent) the heterogeneous and diverse elements which
expose how the nation is more complex and multiple than the
single flag or language which appears to unite disparate com-
ponents. The English language is itself a hybrid language,
made from older languages such as Arabic, Greek, Latin and
Sanskrit. Moreover, in Britain, one linguistic code, known as
Standard English, is ultimately an ideal code, something most
people do not reproduce in speech. Dialects and accents high-
light, moreover, just how far that which appears the same (for
example, the British nation or the English language) is com-
posed of elements which call sameness into doubt.

Identities, then, are singular and plural at the same time. For

instance, a subject can speak in the first person using ‘I’ or ‘we’.
This can be heard in the speech of politicians who frequently
blend the first-person singular with the first-person plural in
order to strengthen the case for a particular action. The affir-
mation of identity operates in positive and negative ways.
In claiming, for example, to be British, one has effectively
excluded and included England, Scotland and Wales. Similarly,
masculinity takes some of its meaning from femininity; male-
ness assumes something about femaleness; manliness relies on
womanliness; and so on. Culture is often represented in terms
of sameness and commonality for reasons of political conve-
nience (in order to win over a large number of voters), or in
order to make the spheres of ‘human’ experience appear less
disparate than they are (as in the case of genders, sexualities
and ethnicities).

MEDIA IDENTITIES: DA ALI G MAN

We can begin to consider some of the complexities of all cul-
tural identities by examining how the performance of identity
has been staged in recent popular television output. In the last
six years, Sacha Baron Cohen has become more popularly

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known on television as ‘Ali G’. Audiences ‘know’ Ali G rather
than Sacha Baron Cohen (the name he was given at birth).
Ali G is the identity which is projected on screens and which is
written about in the press. But we can also see in the two names
an obvious reference to cultural traditions. Linguistically, and
in recent British history, the surname ‘Cohen’ has come to
signify a Jewish history, surname and identity, whereas ‘Ali’
is usually linked to Muslim or Arab cultures. Yet there is
nothing ‘natural’ or essential about an identity. Rather, the
names point us to history, tradition and culture. The apparently
simple marker of a ‘first’ name (often referred to as the
‘Christian’ name in British culture) or surname points in the
direction of way of life, history, geographical location, gender
and religion.

In order to highlight the multiple components of his and

most identities, it might be useful to start with a very brief
résumé of Cohen’s own biography, even if this is only to
demonstrate how personal biography, whilst important, proves
of limited use in the understanding of contemporary identities.
Popular magazines and internet sites are keen, as with most
media ‘celebrities’, to draw on biography and personal history
in order to reveal the truth behind the media identity, to expose
something that the media persona conceals. But, when the
press and magazines promise to reveal the truth behind the
celebrity’s identity, the media will always be forced into further
constructions of identity, and not revelations. For instance,
Cohen was born to a Welsh-Jewish family in 1971. His family
observed synagogue customs and festivals and, during his
youth, he spent time working as a volunteer for Habonim Dror,
a Jewish youth organisation. After attending a public school in
Elstree, he studied history as an undergraduate at Cambridge
University. But what does this tell us specifically about Cohen,
and what does this tell about the different formations which
compose British identities?

In his early years doing the comedy circuits, there is no

doubting Cohen’s indebtedness to his middle-class Jewish
background, and any analysis of his performances and comedy
would need to make some reference to his biography. But in

CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

examining identity constructions, media and cultural studies
degrees seek to confront the limited nature of family and child-
hood history in the determination of identity. Cohen, then, has
to be understood in relation to the media and culture indus-
tries, and the generic formats which have enabled the actor to
construct convincingly the identities he has done over the last
ten years. Although his characters variously critique popular
cultures, street cultures, boy gangs and middle-class values, we
can see that Cohen’s investment in and reliance on these cul-
tures is as great as the critique he appears to conduct against
them. To perform the identities he does, Cohen the comedian-
mimic necessarily relies on the popular cultures in which these
identities are both legible and credible.

Communicating media identities

It has to be recalled that it is the media industry which itself
invests in and constructs these identities by means of formats
such as comedy, docu-dramas, young people’s television and
reality television. In many ways, the discourses of psychiatry
and psychology regularly (re)construct identities referred to
as ‘personality disorders’. If there were a fixed category of per-
sonality disorder, then it becomes difficult to account for the
regular redefinition of the ‘disorder’ in the diagnostic and sta-
tistical registers. Celebrity identities, psychiatric classifica-
tions and sexual identities, for example, are bound up with
forms of representation and, in the West, the media and
culture industries are in part concerned with the constant
reproduction of cultural identities which are then packaged
into forms and representations in film, television or music.

It was a reliance on forms of representation (drama and

comedy) which allowed Cohen to experiment with a number
of formats, eventually leading in 1996 to the Paramount
Comedy Channel and Cohen’s creation of Bruno, the
Austrian whose interviews served to satirise the trends and
superficialities of Western Europe’s fashion industry. We
can see how Cohen’s own constructions of identities are in

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part dependent on the media’s own constructions (of race, of
class and of gender), but we can see how Cohen himself is
implicated in the media, someone who reproduces the media
identities which simultaneously produce him. Cohen, per-
forming interviewer Bruno, uses the identity of the fictional
reporter to comment satirically on contemporary popular
culture, even though it is popular culture which enables
Cohen to have the identity he does in the media. A brief period
in 1997 with Granada’s short-lived teenage programme F2F
led, in 1998, to Cohen’s time working for the 11 O’clock
Show (Channel Four). The show’s deliberate overdramatisa-
tion of news and current affairs, alongside its ironic exami-
nation of the culture industry and world of celebrity, paved
the way for Cohen’s Ali G of ‘East Staines Massive’ fame,
and Borat, the East European reporter and his hilarious inves-
tigations of ‘British Life’. But the 11 O’clock Show’s mixture
of genres and narratives, and the engagement of hyperbole
and hype in its fantastical ‘news’ stories, provided Cohen
with material to explore the construction of identities in the
media.

Taking identity seriously

What is interesting about Cohen’s work – both his politically
controversial material as well as his more obviously hilarious
outbursts – is the parodying as well as critical rearticulation of
identities associated with genre conventions. Is Cohen being
serious or simply satirical? Are Cohen’s parodies an attack on
identity categories, on the people who embody the identities or
the media which exploits them? Should we take his work seri-
ously or not? Identities are tied to race and gender, but is
Cohen, and are his characters, racist or sexist? Questions such
as these are important because Cohen’s reworking of these con-
ventions serves to expose how recent television and associated
culture industries exploit narrative and genre forms in terms of
the identity of the ‘celebrity’. In relation to the sphere of culture
and representation, it might be argued that his creations

CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

participate in and critique the unrelenting and melodramatic
construction of celebrities and celebrity cultures, particularly in
television and popular magazines. Yet his programmes also
make sense in this domain of the media, relying as they do on
the very media-celebrity circuit his work satirises and mocks.
Cohen’s attempts to expose the unequal social and economic
spheres in which the veneration of celebrity appears to happen
occurs via the media, suggesting that no identities are inside or
outside media representation in any straightforward sense. His
work, then, highlights how identity is always in the process of
being mediated and constructed, so that who one is makes
sense in relation to how one is represented in linguistic and
visual ways.

Cohen’s and his characters’ participation in the media

industry serves to reflect the extent to which identity has to be
staged, performed and narrated. Without the frameworks of
language and discourse – key elements in all media and cul-
tural analysis – then it is difficult to imagine or talk about iden-
tity. Programmes such as Da Ali G Show and The Kumars at
No 42 show how identity is derivative and intertextual, some-
thing made out of elements of other representations, words,
images and texts. These programmes draw attention to iden-
tity, poke fun at it, rely on an identity in order to speak and be
heard, and demonstrate the discomforting significance of iden-
tity categories in contemporary cultures. The programmes are
examples of a range of recent television output which relies on
a multi-textual as much as a multicultural and multi-ethnic
history and context. The Kumars, for instance, exposes how
British culture is not one thing but is itself composite or made
from the remnants of others’ traditions. Aware of the politics
of identity and ethnicity inside and outside the media, and
anticipating viewers’ awareness of racial and gender stereo-
types, both Da Ali G Show and The Kumars are programmes
which go some way to establishing why it is that matters of
identity are always much bigger than the individuals who seem
to embody the identity in question. But these are shows which
draw on a range of cultural stereotypes in order to highlight
the composite and hybrid features of all identities.

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FURTHER READING

Malik, S. (2002), Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on

Television, London: Sage.

Woodward, K. (ed.) (1997), Identity and Difference, London: Sage.

CULTURAL IDENTITIES AND MEDIA REPRESENTATIONS

GENRES: TELEVISION AND FILM

GENRE

Have you ever watched a popular television series or film
and, after a short period of time, been able to predict what
would happen? Crime dramas, sitcoms, soap operas, classic
Westerns, thrillers and romances are genres which allow, and
in many ways encourage, audiences to speculate about the plot
and the characters, with some reliability. Soap operas come to
a provisional ‘conclusion’ after each episode, leaving audi-
ences with a dilemma or conflict, and encouraging viewers to
guess what or who comes next in the plot. Recent British soaps
have invited audiences to nominate the hero’s bride, and in the
case of the UK’s longest-running television soap, Coronation
Street, a national newspaper campaign was mounted to ensure
a character’s release from prison (the case itself also being
raised in a House of Commons debate at Prime Minister’s
Questions).

Why all this fuss over dramas and genres often labelled

‘low quality’, and which are frequently dismissed on grounds
of their formulaic nature? It’s possible to miss the opening
minutes of a popular genre but still manage to follow most,
if not all, of the episode. In the case of popular film, actors
and storylines are packaged according to criteria which
will ensure fairly short-term popularity and sales. Actors’
lives are dissected on television talk shows, and popular
magazines invite audiences to share a ‘day in the life of’ the
celebrity.

Films and television dramas are often described and defined

in terms of genre. The term is one which indicates that texts
are (and will be) classified in certain ways and not others.
The classic Western, for instance, can be divided into sixteen

narrative functions, and can be analysed in terms of the forces
who are on the ‘inside’ of the society which the Western con-
structs, and those who are on the ‘outside’. To speak of a text’s
genre is to describe its specific features or shape. Dramas, for
instance, might be comic or romantic in form, and films might
be thrillers or romantic comedies. As soon as a text’s genre is
known, then certain predictions can be made about what will
happen, to whom, when and why.

In classic film noir, certain claims can be made about the

genre’s women characters; in television soap operas, certain
predictions can be made about the scriptwriters’ plotting
of births, deaths, murders, marriages and divorces; and
1950s Westerns will invariably present the pioneer and ‘his’
family in heroic terms. Recent teenage gothic dramas on tele-
vision (for example, Buffy) and romantic comedies (for
example, films such as Bridget Jones’ Diary), can be defined
in terms of the specific characteristics of each text and the
impact the genre will have on respective audiences. Genre,
then, serves the purpose of definition and it allows texts to
be classified according to conventions of characterisation,
plot and narrative.

Yet genre definitions (for example, gangster films, horror

films and more complexly film noir) raise more problems than
they solve. We can understand their problematic status in rela-
tion to Hollywood, film and the cinema. No genre can be
easily isolated from the society and the economy from which
it emerged. Hollywood narratives, then, are as much linked to
notions of the ‘American dream’ as they are connected to
technology and innovation in film and production practices.
Nor do Hollywood narratives and film genres operate outside
an ideology which serves to affirm the values of a conserva-
tive social order centred around the family and marriage. Yet
Hollywood narratives and popular film genres do not simply
reflect this ideology. Exceptions to the rule suggest that nar-
rative itself can undermine the very values which the narrative
apparently seeks to instate. But popular genres also make
money, and can more or less guarantee huge sales inside and
outside the cinema.

GENRES: TELEVISION AND FILM

CONFLICT MODELS OF FILM AND TELEVISION

A degree course in media and cultural studies which examines
film media and film cultures will surely examine the above
points in detail, but most of the debates and politics sur-
rounding popular film or television will at some point consider
details of genre and narrative. One of the most common ways
of beginning to look at dramatic and filmic texts is in relation
to a balance–conﬂict–resolution model. Television dramas
and popular films are of course far more complex than is being
suggested here, a complexity which undergraduate-degree
programmes will want to explore in greater detail. However,
it can be seen that film and television texts, whether popular
or whether ‘canonical’, have to be constructed in certain ways.
In film or television genres:

1. Stories will be told from a particular angle.

2. Action of some kind will occur.

3. A sense of time and place will be provided.

4. Characters will generate action.

5. A sense of movement through time, whether linear or not,

will become apparent.

6. Action will begin and end.

7. Assumptions are made about implied readers or viewers

and actual readers and viewers.

In all genres, a sense of equilibrium or balance will be disturbed
by some form of conflict. However, the conflict (no matter how
minor) is pivotal in genre and narrative constructions in that it
is that which propels the movement of the story. Thrillers or
police dramas (for example, Inspector Morse, Prime Suspect,
The X-Files) are good examples of how the balance of a par-
ticular state of affairs is shattered by conflict or mystery,
but audiences know that some resolution or restored balance
will come about before the narrative concludes. A media

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and cultural studies degree will be important in this ongoing
analysis and understanding of alternative cinema and drama,
although, in the early stages of study, popular genres can
be understood schematically on the basis of the following
‘conflict–resolution’ model:

Stage 1.

Preliminary stages, which can occur in a range of

formats, will: (1) introduce characters; (2) establish a loca-
tion and setting; (3) construe, not necessarily in this order,
events and circumstances, motives and intentions, particu-
lar states of affairs; and (4) establish key actions or initiate
key events.

Stage 2.

Intermediary stages, whose constituent parts will

overlap with each other as well as with the beginnings and
ends of the other stages, will: (1) begin to establish systems
of identification within the drama and with audiences;
(2) establish character aims and objectives in some detail;
(3) position principal characters in relation to key emo-
tional and intellectual domains; (4) construct a web of
complications, confusions, perplexities and disconnec-
tions; and (5) allude to resolution, solution and connection.

Stage 3.

Developmental and post-intermediary stages will

draw heavily on items in Stage 2 above. However,
(1) systems of identification will be intensified or seriously
questioned; (2) character aims and objectives will be either
affirmed or called into doubt; (3) characters may be repo-
sitioned; (4) complications, confusions and perplexities
will be provisionally augmented or provisionally dimin-
ished; and (5) allusions to resolution may be made more
obviously or continue to remain with some sense of indi-
rection or inconclusiveness.

Stage 4.

Outcomes may: (1) disappoint or surprise viewers;

(2) imply viewers were always in a place of knowledge and
knew outcomes from the start; (3) allow for outcomes to
frustrate happy endings; and (4) establish (provisional)
resolution and establish an end or a new departure.

GENRES: TELEVISION AND FILM

GENRE: HISTORIES AND INDUSTRIES

In many ways, these accounts of film and television genres, and
of contemporary popular cultures in general, are usefully
understood in the historical context of, first, industrialisation
and, secondly, mass production. Genres, star systems and
interest in celebrities are also major features of nineteenth-
century popular cultures. The industrial revolution brought an
economic wealth to Britain and Western Europe, and some of
this wealth served to lay the foundations of urban popular cul-
tures. Places of entertainment and public singing did not
emerge by chance in the nineteenth century. Rather, they were
tied to increases in population, increased urbanisation and the
rise of a cultural domain which complemented in a complex
way (and at times resisted) the economic domain of work and
labour. There is much evidence to suggest that nineteenth-
century melodrama, music hall and the early days of the
cinema were also celebrated and denigrated in ways that the
genres of popular culture are today. The star system emerged
at the end of the nineteenth century, and celebrity status – as
today – depended a great deal on the favours or otherwise of
impresarios, audiences and the press.

Yet the notion of genre predates nineteenth-century popular

cultures by quite some time. Opera can be classified in terms of
genre, and the plays of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods
are often discussed in terms of their fulfilment (or not) of genre
categories and expectations associated with tragedy or comedy.
Historically, it was literary output that was first grouped
under the three key formal headings which divided drama,
poetry and prose. Of course, within these broad arrangements,
further subdivisions existed. Classical Greek drama, for
instance, is described and defined as comic or tragic. Tragedy
and comedy follow specific paths and pursue different aims. In
the work of Aristotle, one of the first exponents of drama, the
tragic plot is designed to arouse pity and fear, leading audiences
to experience a catharsis or cleansing. More commonly today,
popular cultural texts are listed and promoted as thrillers or
sitcoms, though, within these categories, further subdivisions

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proliferate: teen soaps (Hollyoaks), anicoms (The Simpsons),
police psychological thrillers (Cracker) and so on. In film
studies, the classifications include gangster films, film noir,
horror films and Westerns. Within these classifications, further
subdivisions might include teenage horror, British Hammer
horror, ‘slasher’ films and psychological horrors. But the film
classifications also make sense in the context of later industrial
change and the strengthening of capitalist economic expansion.
Thus, Hollywood is referred to as a ‘system’ whose operations,
including the studio system, are directly linked to specific
working practices. A media and cultural studies degree pro-
gramme, then, will not simply be interested in the analysis of
genre, but in the wider history in which the genre is made
intelligible.

FANTASY FICTIONS

In many ways, the number of subgenres and hybrid versions
of genres (for example, docusoap, docudrama) suggests that
genre boundaries may no longer serve as useful ways of
describing popular cultural forms with any reliability.
Understood within the broader culture, however, it can be
seen that genres also serve as ways of categorising experience
and of describing how people live in relation to others.
Genres, and fictions more generally, are one of the principal
means of making sense of human experience. Genres allow
the complexity and enormity of social life to be provisionally
managed, observed and understood. Films and television
dramas do not directly reflect or mirror an actual or real
world in any straightforward sense so much as they construct
a reality.

These fictional representations allow the mundane realities

of everyday life to be examined and criticised. Fiction is never
simply ‘fiction’ or fantasy, so much as it is made intelligible in
the contexts of its uses. However, do the popular genres
screened in cinemas or on television represent a cultural reality
with which you are familiar? Is this cultural reality one which

GENRES: TELEVISION AND FILM

captures, represents, constructs or distorts the reality? Are
groups left out of the representation, and why? These kinds of
questions will be encouraged on media and cultural studies
degree programmes, and should be embraced as important
parts of the course, especially in seminars or as prompts for
essays.

The current popularity of garden makeover programmes,

DIY and cookery shows is partly a reflection of a television
channel’s reliance on viewing figures and audience share
(and thus revenue). Television and film make sense in the
wider settings of capitalist economies. But capitalism itself
relies on fantasies: of wealth, individual freedom and of being
able to realise a dream as a result of hard work. Similarly,
Western television output also operates on the basis of fantasy
and desire. In that sense, holiday and travel programmes,
but particularly television output structured around dis-
courses of domestic bliss (for example, via representations of
a second or early-retirement home) serve a utopian function.
The programme constructs a fantasy of escape, content-
ment and (apparent) freedom. But these fantasies of escape,
which are not restricted by any means to the popular genres
of recent television, promise an ideal which makes sense in
terms of the economic and social realities of lived experience
outside the genre. The programmes posit a reality, but
does the fantasy truthfully reflect the lived experiences of
audiences?

A closer examination of the history of television genres sug-

gests that the idealisation of the home and the family, via
cookery and DIY programmes, has always been part of tele-
vision’s scheduling. In today’s output, spectacular garden
improvements, impressive loft conversions and images of
perfect living spaces are part of a utopian, pastoral and
romantic legacy which contemporary television exploits in
the deregulated world of television programming. But it is to
be stressed that this is a legacy which predates television
and film. Fine art and paintings, in their appropriation of
the same genres and conventions, are measured by different
standards to the ones which are imposed on popular genres

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and popular output. It is thus perhaps questions of the func-
tions and uses of cultural capital, rather than the object of
culture, which will be of ongoing concern to debate in cultural
studies.

INSIDE AND OUTSIDE GENRES

All cultural output – that which is mass-produced as well as
that which is ‘authored’ – is constructed in relation to formu-
las. The formulas, in that all culture can be understood in rela-
tion to structures and conventions, are by no means limited to
popular genres. ‘High culture’, or Culture with a capital ‘C’,
is itself framed according to formulaic and often quite rigid
considerations. Television scheduling, though far less obvi-
ously structured than it was in the ‘golden age’ of television
in the 1970s, is put together in relation to formulas, expecta-
tions and audience viewing habits. Yet popular film is no less
able to shock audiences than the work of avant-garde direc-
tors or experimental output. Hitchcock’s output, for instance,
can be read in terms of popular culture, in terms of the auteur
or author tradition, in relation to American studies, or in rela-
tion to the conflicting expectations of structuralist, feminist or
queer critique. Moreover, all cultural output is regulated at
least to some extent, whether this is ‘high culture’ or film and
television. British television exists partly in relation to Acts of
parliament, public policies and government regulations.
Similarly film is subject to censorship and control.

Perhaps media and cultural studies degrees, then, are well

placed in the analysis of output which will be measured not
just in terms of its meaning or impact, but in relation to the
social structures, moral conventions, state regulations and
ideologies which surround any text or practice. Media and
cultural studies degrees are interested in all these areas with
the aim of providing a detailed and full account of how mass
media and cultures function in a given society.

GENRES: TELEVISION AND FILM

FURTHER READING

Creeber, G. (ed.) (2001), The Television Genre Book, London: BFI.
Thornham, S. and Purvis, T. (2005), Television Drama: Theories and

Identities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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AUDIENCES IN MEDIA
AND CULTURAL STUDIES

AUDIENCES AND MEDIA OUTPUT

How important are audiences in media and cultural studies?
Is it possible to have media output for which there is no audi-
ence? Who determines what audiences do with messages? Is
the message ultimately more important than the audiences
which receive the message? These sorts of questions will be
raised with some frequency in media and cultural studies
degrees. Moreover, modules specifically interested in audience
studies are increasingly listed in undergraduate programme
guides in media studies. An audience research project, for
instance, is an interesting and valuable way of concluding a
degree in media or cultural studies. Audience research involves
working in quantitative and qualitative terms, allowing stu-
dents to measure statistically readership or ratings, and then
to assess the meanings which audiences attach to particular
texts or activities.

In cultural studies, and especially the study of cultural con-

sumption and meaning, the audience is a key element in any
form of analysis. The analysis of texts and cultural products is
as much concerned with the recording and analysis of what
audiences say about the uses and meanings of these texts as it
is the texts themselves. But audiences have an economic and
financial role as much as they function to make texts mean one
thing and not another. ‘Audience ratings’ and ‘audience shares’
are not simply terms used to measure audience numbers. They
can indicate who is watching which programme at a particular
time. Knowing how many people watch a programme is impor-
tant for PR and advertising companies, political parties and
social researchers. Ratings and shares have become important
in the increasingly deregulated and privatised world of media

production, where audiences are also consumers and markets.
But audiences are also people who self-identify in other ways
and who attempt to resist the labels which market-led models
of media consumption impose on audiences.

All media output, then, is understood in relation to audi-

ences. And all audiences are defined in terms of watching, lis-
tening to, or reading media products (television programme,
radio broadcast or CD, or newspaper). On the one hand, media
output is produced in order to make money, tied as all the
media are to the economic and financial constraints of national
and global markets. On the other hand, media output is made
in relation to the audience’s demand for this output. Local
newspapers, for example, frequently have a base in the town or
region of the newspaper’s circulation. It is not the case that the
local press is free of the constraints of bigger companies and
organisations. While they do not have the financial indepen-
dence that is often assumed, local newspapers nonetheless are
identified in terms of the reciprocal relationships they have
with their readers and particular ‘communities’ (however
imagined). This notion of the audience – one which is founded
on the twofold processes of production (going to press) and
consumption (reading the paper) – is a fairly straightforward
model of how audiences can be conceived.

AUDIENCES AND LOCAL NEWSPAPERS

The local newspaper is a useful starting point for understand-
ing some of the details of audiences and producers, and of
seeing how the media product establishes its relationship with
its readers. A brief summary of this dynamic serves to introduce
a number of the arguments that will surely be raised in the first
year of a media and cultural studies degree programme.

1. Local newspapers have actual readers who, whether living

in the region or the town, will buy the newspaper on the
basis of its connection with the reporting of local issues.
Here, the newspaper acts as point of identification, both

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for the region as geographical and cultural space, as well
as the people who live in the region.

2. Newspapers also have readers who are imagined or implied

via editorial columns or letters to the editor. For instance,
editorials offer a specific comment or insight and, having
adopted a position in relation to a local issue or event, will
allow the (implied) reader to identify with the editorial
comments being made.

3. Local newspapers also address audiences on the basis of

difference. The newspaper’s very ‘localness’ is a key factor
in establishing its identity as different from the national
press and thus in identifying its readers. And, within the
newspaper itself, local news and issues are frequently
reported in terms of specific geographical locations within
the region, or on the basis of social differences (children’s
section, holiday pages, cultural life of the city or region).
In other words, the newspaper audience has a single iden-
tity (all the readers constitute the audience at any one
point) and a plural identity (the disparate groups and iden-
tities serve to compose the audience).

4. Letters pages, the organising of local campaigns via the

newspaper, details of local politics, readers’ reactions to
this via short reports and readers’ articles and columns
mean that the audience, in imaginary and actual ways, is
able to offer its own feedback to the newspaper.

5. Advertisers use the local press in order, in part, to gener-

ate consumer needs but also to encourage audiences to buy
one product above another. However, advertising is vital
to the survival of the newspaper, and the advertising com-
panies can be considered as audiences on which the news-
paper relies for an important part of its income.

CONFLICTING AUDIENCES

Audiences on the above model are groups of people who are
positioned at the reception-end of message production. But

AUDIENCES IN MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

the model outlined is also one which assumes a public role
for the newspaper (to serve its communities of readers) and a
public sphere in which the newspaper is received and read.
The audience on this model is not only part of a public sphere
but also has a role to play in this sphere, and the media has
a public duty to serve the people. The audience is in a posi-
tion to comment on the accuracy and effectiveness of the
media’s role in society. The audience has, then, a very public
duty: it comments on and interprets the media messages and,
as a result, provides feedback to the producers. Terms such
as listeners, readers, viewers and spectators denote some of
the activities of audiences. Historically, audiences have had
a public role. We can see in the example of the newspaper
that an audience is that group of people who not only receive
a message and take from it some form of pleasure, entertain-
ment or information, but also provide feedback to the press.
However, audiences, as noted, are also markets and con-
sumers, people who use the cultural products and services
of what are ultimately big media businesses. In an increas-
ingly deregulated public sphere, then, the public role of audi-
ences will need to be reimagined in relation to the world
of the new media. The internet, for instance, is fast becoming
an alternative medium. The public sphere which the internet
brings together is one which is useful in the mobilisation of
groups who are also able to challenge the power of the press,
which publishing and advertising industries have in domi-
nating the kinds of media messages that are produced and
transmitted.

QUESTIONING AUDIENCES

These points may seem straightforward enough, but on media
and cultural studies degrees it will be important to examine
further the perceptions and social composition of the audi-
ence. If audiences receive information and then interpret this
information, then surely the task of media and cultural analy-
sis will be concerned with how texts generate the meanings

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they do amongst audiences. Knowing what audiences do with
texts, or what audiences think, is also an activity which has
an ethics attached to it. Questions regarding the motivations
of the research project, and its respective researchers, are thus
of some importance. It is to be underlined that market
research, ethnographic studies and content analysis are not
without their own agendas.

However, if the audience is the market, then the meanings

and interpretations audiences give to texts will matter far less
than how to get customers to buy and consume the product.
If the aim is to sell something, why would content matter?
But if content does not matter, then what is being sold? The
terms used to define the audience, and the questions which
surround the function of audiences, hopefully begin to
suggest that the media are not free of ideology. The media are
not external or objective to culture and society, but help to
shape the society’s values and belief systems. Often the press
has been in a position to determine what people should think,
and has instructed readers on ‘right’ action (‘vote this way
and not that’, ‘support this cause’, ‘this is what happened’).
It is easy to see how ‘propaganda models’ of the media (see
later discussions) might want to remind audiences and critics
alike that television and print-based news reports function in
powerful and determining ways in the formation of public
opinion. Election campaigns rely on the mass media to
deliver messages, and so it is via the media that the attempt
to position audiences (voters) in supportive rather than
antagonistic ways actually occurs. To refer to people as the
‘audience’ rather than as ‘consumers’, or to refer to people as
‘subjects’ as opposed to ‘individuals’, begins to indicate that
names and labels in media and cultural studies should always
be critically scrutinised and not taken for granted. If ‘mean-
ings’ (of media output, of aims and intentions of media pro-
ducers and the meanings audiences make) are never neutral,
neither are the terms for the people at the receiving end of
media representations.

AUDIENCES IN MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

POSITIONING AUDIENCES

We can gain an initial sense of the inter-operations of mes-
sages and producers, and audiences and users, in relation
to the framework below. The left-hand column highlights
how audiences interpret and actively choose to watch (or not)
a particular television programme (or read a newspaper).
The right-hand column indicates how far audiences are con-
strained by structures. In the right-hand column, audiences do
not have the ability to self-determine in the ways that ‘active
audience theories’ (associated with the left-hand column)
might imply. Rather than audiences receiving and then posi-
tioning the text, the right-hand column lists terms which
underline how audiences are shaped by discourse.

Audiences, actions

Audiences and structures

and agency

Self-determination

Predetermination

Activity

Passivity

Agency and action

Structure and discourse

Choice

Social and cultural constraint

Independent Dependent

Of course, models such as these can be reductive, and in all
studies they should not be used to oversimplify what is a
complex operation. In many ways, the model itself, and the
terms which appear to separate activity and passivity neatly,
will be called into question and deconstructed on media and
cultural studies degrees. However, the terms are used because
they typify the kind of language which will be encountered in
seminar discussions and lectures in the first year of study. They
are also terms which are worth pursuing further, especially in
relation to their usage in other topics in media studies (for
example, social constructionism, cultural production and con-
sumption, subcultures).

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In many ways, the points raised about newspapers and

readers are made in the spirit of active audience theory (the left-
hand column). Ethnographic approaches to audience meas-
urement have variously supported this model in findings and
research exercises. However, a number of issues can be raised
which begin to complicate the model.

1. Ethnography is a methodology, and brings with it some of

the assumptions of a ‘realist’ theory of knowledge. Realist
methodologies have often assumed that social research
discovers rather than constructs a ‘real’ world. (Degree
programmes will seek to enlarge and develop the argument
summarised here.)

2. Ethnography itself is forced to use the devices associated

with literary and figurative writing, and so the terms
of ethnographic research will always to some extent
determine the object. Ethnographic research cannot
accurately reflect or represent an ‘objective’ reality but
always reports others’ representations of experiences of
reality.

3. More generally, active audience studies might consider

how far the public sphere is not so much a space inhabited
by audiences as it is something which discourses and texts
construct for audiences. Processes are always indirect in
the construction of meaning, and constraints govern and
structure producers as much as audiences. This is not to
suggest that the mass media determine meanings more
than audiences or vice versa, but it is to suggest that a
media representation has first to be constructed for it to be
interpreted by media audiences.

PROPAGANDA MODELS OF MESSAGES
AND AUDIENCES

It is the media’s power in the constructing and shaping of the
news message that interests ‘propaganda-model’ theorists

AUDIENCES IN MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

such as Noam Chomsky. Understanding audiences in rela-
tion to the propaganda model reveals the ways in which
media messages are filtered according to particular sets of
ideologies and conventions. A propaganda model does not
focus initially on the media, on messages or on audiences but
rather considers the social and economic situations in which
audiences receive messages. In the work of critics such as
Chomsky, it is questions of wealth and power which are
primary in any understanding of media output and the audi-
ence. The vested interests of the mass media, in Chomsky’s
view, are often entangled with capitalism’s profit motives, so
that it is the requirement to increase profit margins which
shapes what audiences see. In order to perceive social and
political relations in one way and not another, the media
has to monitor its own output carefully, particularly what is
presented as ‘the news’. The media is ‘big business’ in a cap-
italist economy. And because of its involvements with other
major global business, it is forced to ﬁlter the news. This
filtering effectively marginalises people and groups who
call the news into doubt. This makes it easier for govern-
ments, but particularly private enterprise, to determine news
content. Whilst audiences may be in a position to interpret
or decode the news, the fact that the news is filtered from
the start means that any decoding is always limited by prior
filtering.

The news is packaged and managed, says Chomsky, in ways

that don’t totally dupe audiences, but in ways that never fully
allow audiences access to the truth of the facts of the case. As
a result, audience interpretation is impaired because filtering
also ensures that the premises by which the news might be
decoded are determined in advance. Certain discourses are
established as more reliable than others, and these discourses
serve only to define and limit any sense of newsworthiness.
Alternative media, therefore, will always find it difficult to
compete, partly because of the dominant messages conveyed
by global news operations and partly because the alternative
media have to convince audiences that there might, in fact, be
an alternative way for audiences to be provided with ‘news’.

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The media, contends Chomsky, is able to stand outside

democratic accountability, dominated as the media is by a
small elite who can marginalise dissident voices. News is fil-
tered (for example, via the pressure from advertisers, global
corporations and governments) in ways that call into doubt
not so much the reporters or people who work in the media,
but the claims to objectivity that media organisations make
on grounds of ‘professional news values’. For instance, in con-
sidering the newsworthiness of a particular national govern-
ment’s interventions in global affairs (for example, in ‘illegal’
wars), the media, according to the propaganda model, are
never fully enabled to report what they think are the facts of
the case. Nor do they have the freedom to cast doubt on the
state’s action. Chomsky suggests that while events and stories
are reported in the news, audiences can only decode an
agenda which is manoeuvred in advance of the media’s own
construction and representation of a particular action.
Chomsky suggests that an analysis of the media and audiences
must first inquire into how the media might be imagined as if
outside the constraints and filters which determine what will
be reported in the first instance.

We can see, then, that the study of audiences in media and

cultural studies encourages interesting, lively and important
debates. Whichever model of the audience is adopted for pur-
poses of analysis, the analysis will at some point always focus
on the constraints or otherwise which position audiences in
one way and not another. Yet in being positioned by media
output, audiences nonetheless seem able to produce meanings
which run against the grain of the texts which would seek to
fix the audience and determine its behaviour.

FURTHER READING

Abercrombie, N. and Longhirst, B. (1998), Audiences: A Sociological Theory

of Performance and Imagination, London: Sage.

Morley, D. (1980), The ‘Nationwide’ Audience, London: BFI.

AUDIENCES IN MEDIA AND CULTURAL STUDIES

USEFUL INTERNET RESOURCES

http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/www/chomsky.home.html
http://www.chomsky.info/

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POPULAR CULTURES

IS POPULAR CULTURE ‘CULTURE’?

Some critics would say a very resounding and exclamatory
‘Yes!’ to this question. Others would say that the question does
not need to be asked. And some critics and commentators
would say a very definite and resounding ‘No!’ This ‘no’ is
especially definite when popular culture is linked to, or made
to mean, ‘mass culture’. But if culture, using Williams’s very
broad definition means ‘way of life’, then there is no immedi-
ate reason why popular culture is no more or no less culture
than what some critics would refer to as ‘high’ culture. But
terms such as ‘commercial culture’, ‘consumer culture’, ‘post-
modern culture’, ‘mass culture’, and ‘popular culture’ are often
paired with an imaginary or ideal ‘Culture’ (with a capital ‘C’),
where one way of life, that of ‘Culture’, is figured in better
terms than others. Of course the problem which attends these
claims is always one which impacts on the people whose
culture is being described or examined.

Perhaps at this stage we can agree that popular culture is

culture (a way of life) as much as any other ‘culture’. But
perhaps we can also agree that the contentions and disagree-
ments which surround the debate point to the importance of
its discussion and analysis in the university. The analysis
of popular culture has increasingly become a field of study
at undergraduate and postgraduate level in its own right.
However, it remains one of the most interesting and one of the
most controversial areas in cultural studies degrees. Popular
culture study is also popular with students; and its study
encompasses fields such as popular music, youth cultures,
magazines and reading behaviour, fashion and style, subcul-
tures, club cultures and activities and practices that might be

considered well liked, undertaken by many or mass produced
for mass markets.

SERIOUS CULTURAL STUDIES

Perhaps one of the issues that makes popular culture study
contentious is that it is often imagined – inside and outside
academic institutions – that anyone who studies culture in its
popular expressions and manifestations could not really be
a serious student or critical scholar. And because popular
culture study is linked to the study of the mass media and
mass production, then it is often imagined that mass output
can’t be differentiated in the ways that the study of ‘Culture’
can be. ‘Culture’ has historically been privileged as aestheti-
cally refined and civilising, and popular culture has been
understood as common, collective and formulaic. However, it
needs to be made clear that popular culture is worth studying,
it is worth studying seriously, and it is seriously useful in terms
of the insights it provides into society, history and politics.
However, so-called ‘Culture’ with a capital ‘C’ is also worth
studying seriously, and for the same reasons. So where do the
‘problems’ about popular culture lie?

It is in the description ‘popular’ that some of the controversy

lies. Popular culture is not to be confused with, but nor is it
disconnected from, mass culture, folk culture and working-
class culture. Its associations with ‘mass culture’ have linked
popular culture to notions of mass deception, the belief that
popular mass culture keeps people uncritically happy and
therefore blind to life’s social and political realities. There is
sufficient evidence to suggest that popular cultural texts do not
impact in direct or unequivocal ways on how people lead their
lives in culture. But mass culture and popular culture, because
they are often described solely in terms of the formulaic and the
manufactured, are thought to be less authentic and less civilis-
ing than high culture.

Yet the range of meanings and nuances attached to ‘popular

culture’ is vast. Popular culture can also mean – as Raymond

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Williams suggests – common or low or base. He also defines
how popular can mean ‘widely favoured’ and ‘well liked’.
Popular can additionally mean ‘courting the favour of the
people by undue practices’, though it might finally mean a
culture which was defined as popular, truly a culture of the
people, but a culture not defined by the people. Williams also
identifies terms such as popular literature, popular press,
popular journalism, popular entertainment, popular song and
popular art, the last two of which became known as pop
songs and pop art. By shortening the word ‘popular’ to ‘pop’,
Williams suggests the word seems lively and informal, but
such informality might serve to trivialise a way of life which
is far from inconsequential.

FORMULAS FOR CULTURE

A number of theoretical perspectives is used in the analysis
of popular culture and particularly in relation to the study of
popular music and popular fiction. These perspectives allow
popular culture to be viewed in a certain light and not others.
Some theories see culture and popular culture in terms of their
relation to the economy. It is the economy which, in the last
analysis, dominates how people in society are required,
because of income and wealth, to live in one particular way
and not another. In some perspectives, popular culture, and
popular music in particular, are thought to replicate the
monotony of labour in the factory or place of work. If work
in mass, automated society is carried out in conditions which
require workers to repeat the same task day after day without
any need for thought or creativity, so popular music is manu-
factured according to formulas which do not require musi-
cians or listeners to engage critically or constructively. The
music is mass produced, manufactured for audiences whose
discernment is such that the music, like the society which
produced it, is not called into question. On this reading,
popular culture acts as a sedative, deadening cognitive and
critical faculties.

POPULAR CULTURES

Popular culture has also been viewed in terms of its rela-

tion to ‘Culture’. This latter version, and its associations
with particular values and morals, is upheld in great works
of literature, art and music. Popular culture is a cheap sub-
stitute for authentic living; and authentic culture is one
which is discerned by carefully studying specific works of art
and literature. This is a culture whose texts reveal the best
that has been thought and written; these texts contain, there-
fore, the essential messages of how to live Culture today. In
this model, culture is a way of life, but it is a very specific
way of life, one which Raymond Williams investigates and
seriously begins to question. If culture is a whole way of life,
why, and under what conditions, is one culture considered
more valuable than another? Do you need careful training in
order to acquire cultural skills and knowledge? Will these
skills make your analysis of culture more competent than
others?

Popular romance

The formulaic aspects of popular culture are the features which
are often highlighted when it is (uncritically) labelled cheap,
vulgar, low or common. Popular music and its associations
with boy bands, shows such as American Idol, romantic lyrics,
clubs and youth cultures, and commercialism are often singled
out as examples of bad popular culture. Similarly Mills and
Boon romances, comic books, television soap operas and
Hollywood films have been in the firing line at one time or
another. Often, the popular text (for example, Mills and Boon)
is discussed in terms of its formulaic construction; these sorts
of texts are thought not to provoke readers in other than affect-
ive or emotive ways; thus critical and intellectual faculties are
dulled. Moreover, the audiences who use these fictions are
often labelled alongside the product. Perhaps one way of exam-
ining the details of these debates is by looking at an example
of a popular text. Consider the following example, taken from
a popular romance.

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‘You know, you surprise me, Tania. I’ve never known you and
Mona together without your managing to get into heated argu-
ment, but I must congratulate you . . . you behaved impeccably
tonight.’

Despite her better judgement, Romy couldn’t check her anger,

piqued firstly by the way Aaron had made her suffer out there,
and now by his condescending tone.

‘Really?’, she retorted, hotly. ‘And is there a prize for good

behaviour, sir?’

Amused, his mouth was twitching at the corners, his voice

softly suggestive as he said, ‘Oh, yes.’

He was moving towards her, stalking across the Indian carpet

like a dangerous panther. Romy swallowed hard, her heart ham-
mering crazily.

Tell him you aren’t Tania! A little voice shrieked inside of her.

Tell him now, before it’s too late!

But his threatening proximity held her rigid – tongue-tied – and

she couldn’t utter a sound.

This extract from Mills and Boon’s Shadow in the Sun
(Margaret Power, Mills and Boon, 1987), has all the ingredi-
ents that combine to shape the formulas of heterosexual
women’s romance. Readers encounter a man at the centre of
two women’s lives; conflict (a key word for many in genre
studies) and secret desires and lovers serve to make the story
move in the right direction; the discourses of romance and the
erotic will ultimately entice readers all the more; and the power
of the hero to dominate the heroine is usually evident in the
final pages. In being dominated, the heroine recognises her
‘true’ self and, as a result, gets on with a happy life with the
man she always knew she would be with ‘for ever’. But
even before the seduction which the narrative promises takes
place, readers recognise the brand name (Mills and Boon, or
Harlequin romance), and if it is not part of a mail-order
package then readers know where it is stocked in railway
station bookstores or second-hand shops. A Mills and Boon
romance will always have a set number of pages (between 180
and 190); front covers and titles invariably allude to romance,

POPULAR CULTURES

love, togetherness, passion or desire; marriage or heterosexual
relations are usually idealised; the introduction of the heroine
and hero makes way for conflict but ultimate resolution; and
the blurb on the back makes clear the novel’s romance, intrigue
and potential for both readers’ and characters’ happiness.

It is more than likely that the name of the author on the

front cover of a popular romance novel is not the actual name
of the author. The extract provided above is written accord-
ing to a formula and in line with the conventions adopted in
all popular romance fiction. In that sense, why would the
author matter? Proposals to publishers are required to follow
a specific series of guidelines for the writing of the romance,
and accompanying notes instruct writers in the writing of the
finer details of romantic conflict.

CRITICISMS OF POPULAR CULTURES

Popular music, for similar reasons to Mills and Boon fictions,
is often singled out by critics for its formulaic qualities.
Criticism of popular culture, especially music and fiction,
begins in the early twentieth century and is informed by
various critical traditions. Some attack popular music and
fiction on moral grounds. Unlike great works of literature and
art, popular fiction does not require its readers, it is argued, to
think beyond the ‘here and now’ of the plot. For other theor-
ists, popular music is associated with mass culture and – more
worrying still for some critics – America and Americanisation.
The words which are used to describe popular music include
‘standardised’, ‘one-dimensional’, ‘inauthentic’, and ‘manu-
factured’. It is also music which requires passive listeners who,
acting in conformity with the song, similarly act in conformity
with the demands of the economic and social system which
produced such inactive listening.

Popular music and popular-music performers are manufac-

tured in the same way that brands and material products are
throughout the rest of the economy. Standard formats are
required, and so music is produced according to fairly specific

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guidelines. As a result, popular music is often thought to lack
variation and melody. Lyrics, moreover, are often structured
around songs with only two or three verses, a chorus and a
bridge. Thirty-two-bar sequences, with frequently repeated
refrains and catchphrases, serve to ‘hook’ audiences into the
mechanistic process reproduced in the music. Whilst produc-
tion processes during the twentieth century became more and
more sophisticated, popular music, it is often argued, is more
and more simple. And it is thought to satisfy a lack in an
uncritical audience. But audiences who consume popular
music are thought to be inattentive and distracted. By affirm-
ing popular music’s standardised patterns, the audience are
both emotively and rhythmically obedient.

As suggested, shows such as BBC’s Fame Academy and

ITV’s Pop-Idol rely on the standardised formulas of contem-
porary popular music and entertainment in order to attract
audiences and thus increase market (audience) shares. The
individual contestant’s image, sound, looks and ‘personality’
are constructed and understood in relation to the iconic status
of a popular music celebrity whose own (manufactured)
image and work sets the standard for the show’s contestants.
But the cult of the personality is established, and it is another
way for the programme to attract audiences: the show, like the
celebrity, speaks to ‘you’.

POPULAR BRANDS

Much of popular culture is produced in relation to cultural
and media formulas, and these formulas are not limited to
romances for women or popular music. They pervade televi-
sion and are marketed as follows (at the time of writing):

Monday: BBC1, 5.35 p.m., Neighbours.

Monday: ITV1, 7.30 p.m., Coronation Street.

Monday: BBC1, 8.00 p.m., Eastenders.

Monday: BBC1, 10.00 p.m., News.

POPULAR CULTURES

Saturdays on BBC1, after 12.00 midday, are invariably given
over to sports programmes; and Saturdays on ITV1 and BBC1
before 12.00 midday are devoted to children’s programmes.
Outside the time slots and programme names, audiences can
rely on the fictional or actual names of people associated with
what is very popular output. Certain names, for instance, are
associated with very popular light entertainment; other names
will signify a particular television soap opera; and yet other
names are associated with early morning news, breakfast
shows, chat shows or news bulletins. In the case of popular
television, audiences know what to expect regardless of the
inflections and twists which the particular episode or pro-
gramme might take.

However, a range of theoretical and empirical studies has

rightly cautioned against the uncritical dismissal of popular
culture, both in terms of structures and in terms of readers
and audiences more generally. Moreover, these studies
have highlighted that critique of popular culture is often
predicated on a deficit model: popular culture is lacking
whereas as ‘Culture’ is not. But the deficit model is difficult
to sustain. Many ethnographic studies have shown how
people use popular cultural texts in reactionary, oppositional
and enriching ways. Popular cultural texts can seem to
affirm the status quo, yet they can equally provide the very
material by which to undermine and question the established
order. If it is textual properties which are being examined,
then there is no final measure which allows one cultural text
to be deemed more valuable than others. Texts, in other
words, say and do different things at the same time as gen-
erating different expectations. Ethnographic studies addi-
tionally suggest that it is how texts are used by audiences,
and how the meanings are manipulated by readers or listen-
ers, which generate potentially more interesting sites of
research. Feminist studies of readings and cultural studies of
the media, especially television, suggest that the selection,
interpretation and appropriation of texts is always greater
than the seemingly transparent intention of the authors or
producers.

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A short history of branding

However, the production and consumption of popular
romance paperbacks, alongside many popular television
shows, are in part connected to the changes in industrial pro-
duction which occurred during the twentieth century. The
romance genre itself predates the television and the Mills and
Boon versions by quite a few centuries. Indeed, despite the
criticisms to which popular cultures are subjected, none of the
generic formulas are wholly new. From the late nineteenth
century, mass production, alongside the increasing stress
which was placed on the division of labour, specialisation and
consumption impacted on notions of good taste, literary
quality and culture. Some critics and commentators, from the
eighteenth century onwards, have always expressed concern
about the practices and manifestations of popular culture. In
that sense, there is nothing new about the ‘complaints’ tradi-
tion. But the theoretical, historical and empirical evidence reg-
ularly serves to complicate how popular fiction or music
might be understood.

First, much cultural output is written in relation to forms,

formats and conventions. Comedy, tragedy and romance
predate popular twentieth-century material by some consider-
able time, though it is rare for earlier works to be subjected to
the kinds of criticism which popular output has been over the
last fifty years. Secondly, much eighteenth-century popular
culture, for example, though produced in relation to formulae,
is today considered ‘high’ culture. History surveys of the period
1700–1820 show two distinct cultures in Britain. One version
surely reflects the learned and formal culture of the grammar
schools, universities and the educated classes; and the other
version, with its links to market places and sites of common
assembly, reflects the popular culture of the period. But both
are necessary in the formation of each culture, and both are
necessary in the analysis of the period under scrutiny. The
two cultures, then, are interrelated in a complex way and
operate on each other in the formation of the wider, more
plural eighteenth-century culture. But even within these broad

POPULAR CULTURES

divisions of educated culture and popular culture, there is evi-
dence to suggest much finer divisions and separations, so that,
within the former culture, sharp distinctions of taste serve to
differentiate one particular aesthetic from another. Apart from
the differential distribution of cultural products across differ-
ent social groups, yet further refinements can be made when
consideration is given to the uses and multiple appropriations
of cultural forms and artefacts.

Cultural distinctions

Much of the historical and intellectual legacy which has
informed the distinctions between high (or sometimes ‘official’)
and popular culture is informed by the increasingly market-
and commercial-led distinctions of the eighteenth century.
When cultural goods and artefacts can be bought, sold and
exchanged for money, then the more expensive the goods, the
more cultural taste is endowed with the purchase and the pur-
chaser. ‘Taste’ (what people judge as good or bad in culture)
increasingly became a marker of social differentiation, allow-
ing distinctions to be made not just on grounds of social class,
but on how an individual in the class was able to talk about
‘culture’. But it is important to note that what, in the eighteenth
century, the educated might have referred to as ‘vulgar’ or ‘low’
culture is today referred to as ‘popular’ culture; but it is also a
culture whose importance to the understanding of the period
cannot be underestimated. Similar distinctions are seen to mark
the nineteenth century as well. Whilst the free municipal gal-
leries, libraries and public reading rooms of the late nineteenth
century increased working-class access to cultural output and
literacy, so those with wealth and income maintained cultural
distinctions by travelling to the galleries, exhibitions and sites
of archaeological merit in Italy, France, Greece and Spain. In
other words, in whichever way the cultural goods of a period
are judged, the fact of the judgement perhaps says as much
about the culture and its subjects more than the actual goods
themselves.

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Research into what audiences do with cultural products

also suggests that the distinctions between high culture and
popular culture continue to inform how ‘postmodern’ cul-
tures are understood today. On the one hand, popular culture
has been seen as something which underlines and affirms
‘things as they are’. Popular culture is not radical; it does not
seek to question or change the status quo; and it is evidence
of cultural decline. On the other hand, popular culture serves
to endanger social cohesion, undermine the authority of the
dominant group, and generally represents a threat to tradi-
tional ways of life. If only for these reasons, then, popular
culture is surely worth further study. By situating these
debates in relation to more detailed discussion of economics,
politics, social history and cultural theory, so media and cul-
tural studies degrees are in a position to confront the argu-
ments about ‘Culture’ and popular culture.

FURTHER READING

Storey, J. (2001), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction,

3rd edn, Harlow: Pearson Education; *http:// cwx.prenhall.com/
bookbind/pubbooks/storey_ema/ (this also has exercises, self-assess-
ments, and glossary of key terms).

Strinati, D. (2000), An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture, London

and New York: Routledge.

Williams, R. (1965), The Long Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Williams, R. (1988; 1976), Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and

Society, London: Fontana.

POPULAR CULTURES

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION
OF MEDIA AND CULTURE

MAKING MEANINGS IN MEDIA AND CULTURAL
STUDIES

Production and consumption are key terms in media and cul-
tural studies. However, the terms do not simply refer to the
products and services which the media and culture industries
create for audiences or users. More complexly, production and
consumption are concerned with one of the more contentious
and indeed interesting areas in media and cultural studies:
‘meaning’. How, then, is meaning discussed and theorised in
media and cultural studies? Why is meaning an important
area of discussion and debate on degree programmes in the
field? Are the meanings of media and culture not self-evident
because fixed? How is meaning connected to production and
consumption?

The meaning of media and culture is important for a

number of reasons, but three areas are worth singling out in
any outline of media and cultural studies degree programmes.

1. The media are the concern of those areas of social life

which deal in part with the production of representations
and images. Films, television news, popular romance
novels, comic books, newspapers and photographs are
some of the obvious examples of how images and narra-
tives are communicated to audiences. These images are
produced, and subsequently consumed, and so the study of
the processes of production and consumption are always
important in deepening knowledge about the processes and
functions of mass communications in society.

2. At some point, however, media representations make sense

in relation to much broader discourses and ideologies in the

wider society (for example, discourses of race, of gender
and of social class). In making sense of media images, and
in trying to work with and understand the meanings of
media representations, media analysis will need to focus
directly on the discourses which surround and structure the
production and consumption of media forms themselves.
Thus, discourses of race and ethnicity, social class and
gender and sexuality are just some of the areas which a
degree in media and cultural studies will explore.

3. After taking into account the operations of discourse in the

structuring of production and consumption, then analysis
will need to consider the construction of meaning. Should
critical analysis focus on media output (for example, the
film) or should media analysis focus on what audiences do
with the product (for example, audience interpretations)?
If the meaning of an object is largely connected to the inten-
tions and activities of production, then meaning will reside
in the production activities and intentions themselves. But
because producers make an object (for example, a televi-
sion programme), so meaning must partly lie in the finished
product itself. If meaning resides in the media product
itself, then this will have implications on how media ana-
lysts do their research. If the making of meaning is thought
to be an activity of the audience (that audiences make
meanings in specific acts of cultural consumption), then
clearly research will focus less on the properties of the
media text and more on what audiences do with the text.

Throughout this book, much stress is placed on the importance
of social, economic and historical situations in the understand-
ing and analysis of media and culture. Whilst the media and
culture have been discussed in terms of texts and output, and in
terms of the activities and practices of ‘everyday life’, the inter-
pretation of culture also has as its backdrop the economic and
political forces in which interpretive acts occur. Moreover, the
activities of consumption which are thought to mark everyday
life (for example, shopping, reading or going to the cinema) are
activities which are far from neutral. These activities are always

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA

motivated, taking place in relation to the discourses and ide-
ologies which position subjects as consumers, and the economic
factors which ensure that some subjects find themselves unable
to consume for financial reasons. The following sections, then,
provide an outline of some of the key issues and concerns which
degree courses in media and cultural studies will address in rela-
tion to the study of the spheres of production and consumption.

Two-way operations

How will media and cultural studies degrees elaborate on the
operations of media producers and consumers? The activities
associated with production (making, constructing, inventing,
creating) seem obviously opposed to those of consumption
(using, expending, digesting, consuming). At the beginning of
the undergraduate study of media and culture, both terms
prove useful in understanding how individuals and societies
produce goods and services which are subsequently consumed
at the level of use value (the car is a means of transport) and
exchange value (the car is a status symbol). In the case of
media output, television programmes are made by production
teams, and the viewers of the TV programme watch the final
product. Similarly, musicians, filmmakers, record producers,
radio production teams, writers, journalists and photogra-
phers produce output and texts which are subsequently lis-
tened to, watched or read.

But a fairly simple enlargement of this binary model begins

to demonstrate degrees of complexity. For instance, the
groups who are responsible for the production of the output
(a television drama, for instance) are also themselves engaged
in activities of consumption simply by using and expending
the human and material resources which they do in order to
produce the finished programme. Actors need to be hired;
props will need to be bought; and camera equipment has to
be renewed. Similarly, the audiences who are watching the
drama on television are understood to watch or consume the
programme, but, in the very acts of consumption, audiences

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are in effect producing their own readings and interpretations
of what seems a finished product.

The above model of production and consumption, then,

will be developed in more complex directions on degree pro-
grammes. For example, production and consumption are
terms which can also be used to imagine how capitalist modes
of production operate separately from modes of consump-
tion. In many senses, the production of media and culture is
or seems to be separate from its consumption. However, most
consumers are also producers as well. Groups of people might
be involved in the production of a particular good or service
which they also consume. People who work for local author-
ities in a town or city are also the consumers of the service if
they live in the same town. Similarly, the production of pol-
lution (via the burning of fossil fuels, for instance) occurs in
relation to the use of cars, central heating and other forms of
consumption. In that sense, the terms ‘production’ and ‘con-
sumption’, which take some of their meaning from Marxist
analysis, are terms which can seem to hide the economic as
well as the ideological conditions in which people are con-
structed as producers and not consumers, and vice versa.

Consumption-based models and the making
of meaning

But production and consumption also concern other critical
questions and debates in media and cultural studies. In some
traditions of media and cultural theory, the emphasis on the
audience’s interpretation of the product or text is paramount.
All texts circulate in the culture, and, whilst the writer’s or
author’s or producer’s intentions might be clear or important,
there is no reason why these intentions should impact on
the audience at the moment of consumption. The stress on
consumption or interpretation is also a way of suggesting
that the acts of interpretation are what matter in media analy-
sis. Consumption, allied as it is to the verb ‘consume’ and the
noun ‘consumer’, suggests that the text or cultural product is

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA

something which audiences actively use in the way that con-
sumer goods are used. Consumption is understood to be an
active process, something which readers or viewers choose to
do. Consumption is thus a reflection of human agency and
selection. A consumption-based model of cultural analysis
will see audiences as active agents in the construction of the
meaning of the text. In the recent past, critical perspectives,
particularly in literary studies but also in some traditions in
cultural studies, placed emphasis on the role of the author in
the construction of meaning. An ‘authorial’ model will view
the text’s aims and intentions as solely those of the author.
Thus, a play by Shakespeare or a novel by Jane Austen are
thought to have the authorial imprint of the writer. Not only
is the writer’s style unique and identifiable, but so also is her
or his intention.

There is little doubt that the writer of any text has an inten-

tion or intentions. These and similar literary works are written
with a particular aim or objective in mind (for example, to
entertain, to instruct), and critical analysis will want to under-
stand the author’s and the text’s intentions. This can be an
important task, especially in the editing of canonical literature
and the compilation of definitive editions (for example, the
works of James Joyce and George Eliot have proved interest-
ing in this regard) or in the staging of plays (for example,
Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht leave fairly precise notes
about how the works will be performed). However, a number
of problems emerge if the text is understood simply in terms of
its authorial or uniquely textual intentions. Films and televi-
sion dramas, for example, involve many people, and so a single
intention or meaning is never straightforward. Moreover, his-
torical contexts complicate matters further.

If texts are to be understood in relation to the historical

contexts of their production, then material ‘outside’ the text,
particularly specific historical circumstances or events, will
clearly have some bearing on the production of what goes on
‘in’ the text or on how it is decoded. On the one hand, it will
be important to consider whether the text reflects the history
in which it is produced, and on the other hand it might also

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be important to consider the degree to which the text chal-
lenges this history. We can consider, for instance, the work
of Mary Shelley. Her novel Frankenstein might not seem a
particularly feminist novel. We know, for instance, that it
emerged from spoken accounts which were told in the pres-
ence of others, and that the story was subsequently made into
the novel we read today. But an examination of the novel’s
own historicity would suggest that it is not simply a story
about a doctor who creates a monster. Rather, it is equally
concerned with the rights of women in the early nineteenth
century, as well as the spread and force of capitalism and
industrialisation. How far do readers of the novel need to
know this kind of information? Does lack of this kind of
knowledge generate a limited interpretation? Following a
consumption-based model of cultural analysis, then texts are
made to mean what they do mean in the circumstances not
just of the writer but also of the reader. Thus, meaning is
always a dual process of production and consumption, not
something wholly controlled by the producer.

Other factors, however, impact on how texts are read and

interpreted. For example, all texts have implied and actual
readers or audiences. The implied reader is the one who
emerges from the text itself, the one who, in effect, is created
by the text. It is the implied reader whose support is enlisted
in the unfolding of the story, a reader who is imagined via the
text’s way of addressing its audience. The actual reader is the
one who, in reading, also brings to bear her or his own wealth
of experience. So meaning is not simply something which is
imposed but is rather, on the consumption-centred model,
that which emerges on the basis of an oscillation which impli-
cates readers, texts and contexts. In the activity of reading,
readers concretise the text in relation to their own experience
of reality as well as the experiences of other readers.

If textual meaning is fixed, either in relation to the text

itself or in relation to the author, then meaning, although
embedded in text and/or author, is able to transcend the
bounds of history and require no interpretation. In some tra-
ditions of critical and literary inquiry, certain texts are thought

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA

to possess such transcendental or eternal qualities. This is of
course an extreme version of the author model, but one which
nonetheless is worth bearing in mind in any arguments on
undergraduate programmes which deal with tradition, cul-
tural heritage and history.

Production-based models and the making of meaning

Degree courses in cultural studies will address issues of pro-
duction and consumption in relation to a range of topics.
Production degrees are those which deal mainly with training
students in the critical and practical skills of working in the
media production industries. So production in a very basic
sense means working in fields such as video and radio produc-
tion, sound and recording, journalism, digital media and web-
based media. You will find that media production modules
require students to work in teams, so that more than one
person is always involved in the production of meaning.
However, advertising, shopping, fashion, youth cultures and
subcultures, and popular music are some of the topics and con-
cepts which concern production and consumption. Modules in
these areas will make direct reference to specific theories and
encourage students to discuss and debate the politics of culture
in relation to the forces of production and consumption.

At first sight, this might seem a strange way to consider pro-

duction and consumption. For example, films, television pro-
grammes, CDs, videos, DVDs and games do not have one sole
author or producer. A film has a producer but it often has hun-
dreds of other people who will contribute to the making of the
piece. Doctor Who is a popular sci-fi series which has run inter-
mittently on BBC television since the early 1960s. A number of
writers have been involved in the series, an even larger number
of people have worked on the production of the series, and an
equally large number of characters have acted in the popular
drama. To imagine, however, that there is a final meaning to
any single episode is to limit how the programme is understood
or used in the culture. On one level, the series is understood

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within the genres of sci-fi as well as ‘children’s’ television. These
genre boundaries, therefore, serve to limit the range of mean-
ings any programme will have. And to the extent that genre is
determined in relation to the making of the programme, then
clearly the production side of meaning is important. Genres not
only package the meanings of the text (for example, sci-fi,
romance or horror), but also make assumptions about how
human experience is or is not subject to packaging.

One way of understanding the role of the production-side in

the twofold determination of meanings is to consider film,
cinema and the Hollywood system which typified production
practices during the early part of the twentieth century. During
this period, the corporations (for example, MGM, Paramount,
Warner Bros.), closely allied with the studio system, integrated
fully all aspects of production, distribution and exhibition.
‘Universal’ and ‘Columbia’ focused on production and distrib-
ution, and United Artists saw mainly to distribution. This
system operated to keep competitors out of the film and cinema
industry. Moreover, the studio system itself meant high degrees
of both specialisation and the division of labour. Film produc-
tion was thus shared across teams of highly specialist workers.
Although the finished product, the film, is always open to
various meanings and interpretations, the realities of produc-
tion meant that cultural production occurred for reasons of
ongoing reproduction and profit. Specialisation and the divi-
sion of labour, therefore, frequently ensured that workers’ own
creativity and potential was always harnessed to the demands
of a system whose logic was profit and the ever-increasing effi-
ciency of the system. These production frameworks, and the
refinement of popular genres, also meant that films were pro-
duced in very familiar ways. Predictable camera movement and
editing, and equally predictable plots, sequences, scripts and
endings ensured that the meanings of films seemed wholly
determined in relation to the term ‘Hollywood’, a description
which was increasingly used to define a highly structured
system of cultural production.

Of course, media and cultural studies degree programmes

will complicate the above details, showing how the drive for

PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF MEDIA

profit does not necessarily frustrate those in culture who would
seek to subvert its powerful force. Moreover, the obligation to
make profit is not something without its own contradictions.
Indeed, throughout the history of culture and popular culture,
it can be seen that the latter version, especially during the eight-
eenth and nineteenth centuries, is something which emerges
in opposition to a culture whose economic conditions could
not ultimately control cultural and social antagonism. Thus,
studies of production and consumption on cultural and media
degree programmes will cover historical as well as contempo-
rary examples in the analysis of how meanings are made and
remade in social life.

FURTHER READING

Storey, J. (1999), Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life, London:

Arnold.

Strinati, D. (2000), An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture, London

and New York: Routledge.

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SUBCULTURES

DOMINANCE AND RESISTANCE IN CULTURE

If culture means ‘way of life’, is there a dominant way of life
in all societies? If ‘yes’, then are there subordinate or subcul-
tures in all societies? How might groups challenge the dom-
inant culture, and why might it be challenged? How is political
protest or resistance expressed in culture? Is culture, a way
of life, something which is fixed by a dominant group and
which other groups have to endorse? Or is culture always in
processes of change? Are some cultures more privileged than
others? Do some groups seem to have more power over culture
than others? How are subcultures identified? Do clothes, facial
makeup, tattoos or hairstyles matter in the culture? How
do cultures change? These questions are not new, but they
remain important on cultural and media studies degrees to the
extent that culture is ‘political’, with a lower-case as well as a
capital ‘P’.

Variations on these questions – in relation to political and

social change – were being asked long before media and cul-
tural studies began to examine what are now known as sub-
cultures. Political and social thinkers, activists on the left,
philosophers and historians have always been interested in
change and conflict in society. Some critical and theoretical
traditions are interested simply in the very processes of
change. Other groups and traditions are committed to revo-
lutionary social change. These different traditions and con-
stituencies offer competing solutions as to how change might
come about. During the nineteenth century, philosopher and
social theorist Karl Marx based an entire economic and polit-
ical philosophy on the absolute necessity of changing capital-
ist modes of production. Indeed, Marxist theory and criticism

remains an important and powerful critical tradition in cul-
tural analysis, and it is one which continues to underpin very
powerful and convincing analyses of culture, society and the
media.

During the early part of the twentieth century, Italian

Marxist-activist Antonio Gramsci sought to explain how
Marx’s theory of revolution might be understood not just in
economic and structural terms, but in terms of what can be
referred to as ‘Cultural Politics’. A Gramscian approach to
cultural studies can be formulated in terms of questions such
as the following. How is conflict measured in culture? Does
cultural conflict imply a need to change the culture? Who
brings about such change? Who stands in a position of lead-
ership in culture, and are these leaders the ones who inaug-
urate change? In a way, his questions and his discussions
represent an attempt to understand how culture – a way of
life – is composed of elements which reflect the conflicts and
divisions of the economy. Simply stated, a way of life is con-
stituted in terms of a dominant (and thus a potentially
‘leading’ group) and a subordinate (and thus a potentially
dominated) group. On a media and cultural studies degree,
his arguments and the refinements to them, will be subject to
important scrutiny, complication and debate. But Gramsci is
mentioned at the outset of this short section on subcultures
because of his formulation of the notion of ‘hegemony’ or
leadership in culture. Gramsci’s questions are important, and
they are not solely related to subcultures. However, one way
of understanding something of hegemony is in the field of sub-
cultural studies.

Culture, tradition, history

The preceding questions, and their many answers, will be
considered in any undergraduate module dealing with a branch
of media and cultural studies referred to as ‘subcultures’. The
study of subcultures is not the same as, but often includes, the
investigation of youth cultures, club cultures, fashion, style,

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popular fiction and reading, and popular music. In some
theoretical perspectives, the analysis of media and culture is,
either by default or by intention, the analysis of subcultures.
During the 1970s, Birmingham University’s Centre for
Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) undertook a range of
research projects which investigated the relations between
social class, everyday rituals and subcultures. From this
research, subcultures can be defined as groups of people whose
views and values are in conflict with, deviate from or actively
distort the dominant practices of the leading group in the
culture.

One way of understanding subcultures is via the CCCS’s

own emphasis on the importance of ethnographic research
into subcultures. The research of the CCCS did not discover
a harmonious, cohesive British culture, but one which was
composed of various groups engaged in cultural ‘struggle’ and
‘resistance’ (the terms are always relative to the context).
Subcultures during the period circa 1955 to 1980 are thought
to reflect various forms of resistance and subversion, evi-
denced in cultural practices which link dress, fashion and
particular styles to identity formations and subcultural
communities. These subcultural identities (skinhead and punk
subcultures are among the most frequently cited) are thus
reflections of cultural and social contradictions in the domi-
nant culture. In subcultural studies, symbolic resistance and
refusal are as much expressive of the subculture as they are an
articulation of much wider cultural and political conflicts. But
subculture study raises more questions about the study of the
media and culture.

Who asks the questions?

The terms ‘culture’, ‘Culture’, ‘cultures’ and ‘cultural’ have
been used throughout this book in order to provide a sense of
how, in describing and analysing social experience, certain
words serve to frame how we understand the world of that
experience. Popular culture does not describe a separate

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101

domain to the one signified in the term ‘high culture’ so much
as it can often serve to create the very distinction it seems to
describe. Words such as the ‘economy’ or ‘society’ are deployed
not to depict a different world, one which is somehow not cul-
tural, so much as they are the technical words which are
mobilised in order to perceive and to visualise the world in dif-
ferent terms.

Moreover, it has been stressed that ‘culture’ can signify in

singular and plural ways. In its singular usage, culture can
mean a whole way of life. But once a specific way of life is
analysed or discussed, then it fast becomes a concern about
plural, multiple and competing cultures. Cultural difference,
then, is not simply that which emerges when two apparently
different cultures are contrasted one with the other. Medieval
European cultures inevitably do seem different to the cultures
which are articulated and expressed today. Moreover, accounts
of twentieth-century Western European cultures are not the
same as, and are motivated by a research logic which might
be distinctly different to, those documented by anthropolo-
gists working in (so-called) ‘developing’ countries. So cultural
difference, then, can be understood in terms of historical as
well as cultural-geographical and spatial contrast. In the case
of historical comparison, then, it may well be that European
cultures of the present are seen to be continuous with those of
the past.

In the case of cross-cultural comparisons, then, difference

has traditionally been understood and measured on the basis
of ethnographic and anthropological inquiry. A key area
which degree programmes might develop will relate to research
methodology. The method which is used in the analysis of
culture will always attend to questions of ownership and
control. Who, for instance, is in a position to ask questions
about culture in the first instance, and how are they in the posi-
tion to frame and ask the questions they do? Why are the ques-
tions being asked, and how are the findings being used? Being
in a position to do research or to ask questions in this way
implies a position of dominance. Some traditions of research
were grounded in colonialist models of social inquiry. This

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meant that the researchers who went into the culture often
assumed the host culture was the alien one, whereas the culture
of the researchers was somehow superior.

However, whenever cultures and subcultures are subjected

to detailed analysis, it becomes difficult to posit a dominant
culture in any simple sense and, by extension, to posit a
subculture or subordinate culture. The ‘culture’ is not some-
thing which is fixed to or contained in an object or a group
so much as it is associated with discourses which combine
to construct culture at any one moment. One of the most
intriguing aspects of cultural studies is that it is the study of
an entity (way of life) which, in practice, is also the study of
the processes of living according to sets of conventions (how
to dress, where to shop, how to speak, what to read, who to
socialise with and so on). But because the historical analysis
of culture seems to suggest that these conventions are not
easily agreed, then the study of a way of life is also the study
of the politics and the conflicts of culture. Hence, the ques-
tions asked on degree programmes are deeply relevant to
the understanding of social relationships and the kinds of
political constraints which structure these relationships on an
everyday basis.

Inbuilt conﬂicts

Cross-cultural and subcultural research raises important ques-
tions. For instance, why is cultural difference being measured,
and how is the data being used? Are questions raised about
cultural sameness? How are questions about cultural differ-
ence or sameness framed, and from whose perspective are two
cultures measured? What is the motivation which propels
cross-cultural research in the first instance? Media and cultural
studies courses emerge out of predominantly Western dis-
courses and Western universities. In that sense, media and
cultural studies will inevitably use a language which makes
sense to its own audiences in the West. This form of inbuilt
‘bias’ or positionality is in certain respects unavoidable, but it

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103

is one which nonetheless will always underpin how research
questions are framed at the start of any project. But media
and cultural studies, from the beginnings of their formations
as academic disciplines, have undertaken research which has
been underpinned by the premise that what seems to unite cul-
tures is as interesting as what seems to separate cultures. These
unities and separations are, in a sense, evident in the interdis-
ciplinary nature of media and cultural studies degrees as well
as cultural and media research.

What these preceding observations hopefully indicate is

that Culture with a capital ‘C’ is not something which exists
outside its own historical formation. Culture, still with a
capital letter, is an object of inquiry that is both constructed
(determined by methods) and yet seemingly essential (it is pos-
sible to identify the cultural history of all societies). But cul-
tural history seems to suggest that all ways of life are marked
by conflict and division. Subcultures, then, are those forma-
tions which rely on the dominant culture at the same time as
they contest its hegemony and power, often in acts which
express conflict.

In many ways it is through Raymond Williams’s work that

the study of Antonio Gramsci was introduced into British cul-
tural studies. In Williams’s reading of this history of Western
culture, the dominant culture consists of the central as well as
the dominant systems of making meaning. The dominant
culture, though constructed, is not an abstract idea but is
expressed in relation to the culture’s values. But Williams,
carefully following Gramsci’s lead, shows how all dominant
cultures are composed of competing forces. The dominant
culture is always threatened by alternative, emergent or oppo-
sitional cultures. The dominant culture may tolerate oppos-
ition, but it may equally suppress, stifle or incorporate the
competing cultural formations. But for the dominant culture
to sustain itself, it has to exercise a hegemony or leadership
which is without any apparent fractures or breaks. In other
words, the dominant culture has always to justify itself by
redefining and defending itself. But this is both a strenuous
and an almost impossible task.

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Some meanings of style

One way of understanding the dynamics of dominant, residual,
resistant and emergent cultures is via the study of subcultures.
One of the first and most interesting accounts of youth sub-
cultures is Phil Cohen’s study of a working-class district in
the East End of London. Using metaphors to describe the activ-
ities of parent and youth cultures, Cohen’s is an account which
explores the relationship between class and social change.
During the 1950s, working-class communities had to face
two challenges. First, Britain’s political leaders promoted the
UK as an affluent, progressive, capitalist economy. The new
affluence was represented in terms of consumption and spend-
ing power. Secondly, structural changes in the economy, along-
side the move to new housing developments destabilised
working-class life. One way in which young people responded
to these competing ideologies of progress and affluence on the
one hand, and the traditions of working-class family life on
the other, was via the subculture. Cohen cites as his examples
the ‘mods’, ‘parkas’, ‘skinheads’ and ‘crombies’, all of whom
took from the parent culture those elements which sustained,
for the subculture, a sense of community and tradition. But
these same subcultures appropriated elements of the affluent
society, signalling a symbolic engagement with the emerging
discourse of the consumer.

A later study, Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of

Style (1979) draws on a range of work in semiotics, sociology
and literary studies to provide another theorisation of subcul-
tures. Hebdige suggests that a key activity of subcultures is the
group’s use and appropriation of commodities, and its rework-
ing of contemporary fashions and styles which marks the sub-
culture off from the parent or dominant culture. He shows
how, in the subculture’s acts of ‘bricolage’, individual objects
(for example, items of clothing or other products) are removed
from their original contexts and appropriated by the subculture
for other purposes and in different – subcultural – contexts.

More recent work on fan cultures makes links with sub-

cultural analysis, showing how fandom can operate in

SUBCULTURES

105

oppositional ways. If societies, particularly in the West, con-
struct audiences on the basis of mass spectatorship (for
example, the televisual event), then fan cultures serve to
contest this (apparent) passivity of the spectator by using
texts, not to venerate them but in the ongoing reformation of
culture. But fandom’s appropriation of the media in this way
also suggests that it is the mass media which help to shape the
fan subculture. Subcultures, while they might make claims
about identity and authenticity, are derived from the mixing
and blending of consumer products. The claims to authentic-
ity are, nonetheless, important. Although the subculture is no
more or less authentic than the dominant culture, the claim to
authenticity is a way of registering the group’s attachment to
particular identities and identifications. These alliances allow
subjects to negotiate and affirm varying degrees of cultural
and social difference.

The study of fandom is something most media and cultural

studies degrees will encourage, and level III students are able
to develop an interest in detailed ways via the dissertation.
Similarly, dissertations which carry out research into subcul-
tures often demonstrate really interesting links between cul-
tural politics, theory and the subculture itself. Alternatively,
media production students might want to consider making a
radio or television programme which examines the visual and
musical aspects of youth subcultures in the university town.
Level III projects often expose some of the internal differences
which mark subcultures, exploring the details of a subculture’s
specific history and identity. Undergraduate studies might also
want to ask whether subcultures feature in contemporary cul-
tures in the way that they did in the recent past. Questions
about what is mainstream, marginal, dominant or subordinate
in the culture are far from straightforward, and it might well
be that cultural formations are better understood using other
analytic frameworks. Finally, it may be the case that all sub-
jects, for different reasons, are marginal and mainstream in
different ways at any one time. In which case, then media and
cultural studies degrees still have much to contribute to the
ongoing debates surrounding subcultures.

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FURTHER READING

Hebidge, D. (1979), Subculture: The Meaning of Style, London: Methuen.
Willis, P. (1990), Common Culture, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

SUBCULTURES

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MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

WHY MEDIA ANALYSIS?

We have seen throughout Part II of this book that media
analysis is interested in understanding advertising and con-
sumption, audiences, communication technologies, broad-
casting, globalisation, institutions and values, and ideologies
and representations. How, then, are these areas analysed?
What strategies might be adopted in understanding and mea-
suring the mass media? In any discipline studied at university,
there are a number of competing theories which can be used
in the analysis of the field, and a short introduction such as
this will only outline some of the general trends and directions
in media analysis. However, the rationale which underpins the
Get Set series of book is one which seeks to prepare students
for the specific demands of the degree programme and, in the
process, to highlight good practice in study and research skills
in media and culture. This particular chapter, then, seeks to
underline the importance of media analysis at the same time
as encouraging students to use general and specific sources of
data in the production of essays.

Later in this chapter, references are made to a recent journal

article dealing with media analysis. Journal articles can be
accessed in libraries as well as electronically. Of course, the
media and cultural studies shelves in libraries house many
sources, including books, newspapers, journals, abstracts and
indexes. Computers are also vital to media analysis, provid-
ing access to databases, electronic journals and other useful
sources. It is important that these sources are used to the full.
However, this part of the book aims to show how journal arti-
cles are potentially very accessible and useful sources of infor-
mation. Journals might appear intimidating if you have never

108

used them before, but they can be vital in work produced at
levels II and III as well as in a dissertation. The specialist
nature of the journal or the journal article means that you
can structure your work in relation to the details of recent
research rather than simply on the basis of textbook sum-
maries, important though the latter sources are. Accessing
journal articles, moreover, is becoming much easier in univer-
sity libraries. Many journals are available electronically as
‘e-journals’. Each university library will have different
systems in place, though data access is fairly straightforward
(via computers), and can be managed using keyword searches
or searching the A–Z catalogue of e-journals (also available
on the library computers). In addition, databases in the arts,
humanities and social sciences prove invaluable in undertak-
ing similar searches. Be encouraged, therefore, to pursue these
activities as soon as you are introduced to library information
systems.

The importance of media analysis, alongside a brief

summary of qualitative and quantitative research methods,
was outlined in Chapter 1, ‘What Are the Media? What Is
Media Studies?’ But why is media analysis undertaken, and
what sorts of questions are asked? Throughout much of the
twentieth century, media analysis was concerned with the
effects of the media on behaviour, and, with the arrival of tele-
vision, research often focused on representations of violence.
But will the analysis of violence on television tell us about pro-
grammes, about audiences or about the complex interopera-
tion of media output on the audience? Media analysis examines
issues which include the effects of the media on behaviour, on
decision making and on voting intentions. But what does media
analysis tell us about the impact of the media on human rela-
tionships and how these relationships are perceived? Is the
media so all powerful and all pervasive that it is indifferent to
critical and theoretical analysis, and potentially indifferent to
reform or change?

These last questions surely indicate that media literacy

and media analysis are vital to the understanding of human
relationships in contemporary societies. This is why media

MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

109

analysis will form a key part of all degree programmes.
Modules with titles such as ‘Politics, Representation and
the Mass Media’, ‘Alternative Media’, ‘Media Ethics’ or
‘Globalisation and the Media’ will probably address the
pressing issues which surround the media today. More general
media studies courses will introduce topics such as content
analysis, frame analysis, effects models, active audience
research and ethnography. But media content analysis, for
instance, can also be undertaken in relation to audience
studies as much as it can be undertaken in relation to semi-
otics. Feminist research, sexuality studies and postcolonial
studies will also play a part in shaping how media is both
selected for analysis and how it is analysed.

Contexts for/of media analysis

Before looking in detail at the journal article concerned with
media research methods, we can usefully gain some insight
into the breadth and dimensions of research by looking at a
more general study. Often, quantitative media research is
undertaken for specific organisations and groups, or is com-
missioned by governments, funding councils and research
bodies. For example, the American Psychological Association
in 1986 appointed a research committee to investigate and
review the relationship between television and society, partic-
ularly the ‘psychosocial effects’ of television. The study’s find-
ings were published with the University of Nebraska under
the title Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in
American Society (Huston, 1992). This research is referred
to here in order that students of media studies are able to gain
a sense of some of the key issues involved in quantitative
media research. It is also a research project which draws on a
range of other disciplines and theories (for example, psychol-
ogy, discourse studies) in order to undertake the research and
present its findings.

Alongside the exploration of television’s deployment of

stereotypes, and the ‘impact of television’ on specific social

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groups, members of the research panel were required to
review and assess how television influences social and per-
sonal relationships, intellectual and cognitive functioning,
emotional development, and feelings and attitudes towards
family, gender and sexuality. Regardless of how the research
findings are phrased or ultimately assessed, vital though such
questions are, the study is useful for students because it pro-
vides a sense of the principal themes and social and theoreti-
cal contexts of quantitative and qualitative media analysis.

‘Impure’ media theory
Students of media studies will also be interested in how this and
similar research underlines media analysis’s indebtedness to the
fields of sociology, psychology, linguistics and psycholinguis-
tics, and anthropology. Students taking a media studies degree
will often move outside the specific field of media studies and
confront ideas from other subject disciplines. But what the
study also reveals is how these fields have informed and shaped
media theory’s own specific frames of reference and analysis.
Whilst, then, the findings of the research panel are certainly
open to further question, and students would be encouraged to
discuss and appraise the research itself critically, the methods
to which the research refers typify how media analysis can be
undertaken.

Throughout the study, fairly direct reference is made to

research methods and media analyses, and these may be listed
as: agenda setting, audience measurement, effects research,
content analysis, cultivation analysis, demographic analysis,
uses and gratifications, ethnography, participant observa-
tion, media literacy analysis, mass observation and large-
scale correlation studies. Reference is made to television and
consumption behaviour, discourse analysis, evaluative asser-
tion analysis, frame analysis, genre theory and narratology.
Alongside the approaches mentioned above however, it is to
be underlined that many in media studies would adopt other
approaches to media analysis, and so students should be pre-
pared to confront a range of traditions and perspectives in the
first year of study.

MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

111

The list of research methods above is fairly extensive and it

represents a tradition of media analysis which is interested in
defining with some objectivity (the term and the aim is always
problematic) what is thought to happen (in terms of behav-
iour, perceptions and intentions) when ‘people’ watch televi-
sion. The study makes reference to the specific economic
and social conditions of the audience as well as to other
aspects of identity (for example, gender, ethnicity). This kind
of approach to media analysis is broadly linked to effects
research, a tradition which perceives the media in terms of its
impact and influence over audiences. Effects research is also
underpinned by specific traditions in psychology and soci-
ology in which the individual and the audience are viewed in
terms of their susceptibility or responsiveness to representa-
tions of violence and aggression. The effects tradition is quite
different to some of the analytic trajectories in media studies
which draw on cultural studies or interpretive methods. These
last approaches to the media (see the work of Ien Ang, Joke
Hermes and David Morley) tend to stress an individual’s or
group’s agency or power in a model of the media which
emphasises the audience’s negotiation and interpretation of
output, particularly in the spheres of representation and
media consumption.

Media analysis, whichever method is used, is never objective

in any straightforward or non-subjective sense. Your degree
course will surely make arguments for and against ‘objectivity’,
and so it is important to confront the issue early in the course.
Moreover, courses will also argue that perhaps the old divisions
between quantitative and qualitative methodologies are no
longer tenable. These are important debates, and will be dis-
cussed in detail at level II or III. However, analytic methods
associated with content analysis, texts, ethnography, uses
and gratifications, or agenda setting can produce different find-
ings using the same data. Equally, ethnography and audience
studies, whilst they might seem to be eliciting the views of audi-
ences on the basis of some investigative disinterestedness, must
first of all establish a research agenda where specific interview
questions are formulated, overarching theories endorsed and

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specific audiences sought. In addition, for every method of
media analysis, assumptions are made about audiences or the
group being identified for research purposes. Media analysis,
far from discovering a truth, is itself engaged in the construc-
tion or framing of truths on the basis of the analytic methods
and theoretical perspectives it adopts. The reporting and por-
trayal of the news ‘as it happens’ is impossible. The Glasgow
Media Group have spent much time analysing how editing,
selection, perspective, technology and government regulations
all position the news long before it is transmitted. A chapter
such as this, however, can only briefly assess some of the
methods that have proved useful for past and ongoing media
research. Needless to say, broad coverage is provided, and stu-
dents are encouraged to extend and develop initial analyses and
interests on the basis of further reading, research and critical
application.

CONTENT AND FRAME ANALYSIS

This part of the chapter summarises how a journal article has
discussed ‘content analysis’. The article on content analysis is
interesting because it shows how computers, ICT and data-
bases are both very useful and increasingly essential in media
analysis. The second part of this section introduces some of
the key ways of using frame analysis.

Content analysis

Content analysis in media studies is deployed in order to deter-
mine ‘how much of what sort of content is sent and how much
of what sort is received by whom’ (McQuail, 1992: 177).
Content analysis is thought to inform media researchers and
analysts of how much of a particular representation (for
example, violence, stereotyping, pornography) is in a sample
of programmes. On a more complex level, content analysis has
to be understood in relation to the responses, readings and

MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

113

interpretations of media audiences. In the case of the Glasgow
University Media Group, content is analysed in order to
expose surface or obvious content as well as in-depth or hidden
content. Output is subsequently examined and its impact
assessed in relation to variables such as audiences, industrial
relations, policy and media power. The stress in quantitative
content analysis is broadly positivistic, an approach which
measures or counts the quantity of media communication
in relation to types or series of responses. The underlying
premise of content analysis is that an exploration and analysis
of media communications and messages can provide informa-
tion about the audiences who receive and use the messages.

While quantitative content analysis will always be used in

conjunction with other analytic approaches, the procedure
for content analysis is usefully summarised by McQuail:

(1) choose a universe or sample of content; (2) establish a category
frame of external referents relevant to the purpose of the inquiry
. . . (3) choose a ‘unit of analysis’ from the content . . . (4) match
content to category frame, per chosen unit of content; (5) express
the result as an overall distribution of the total universe of
sample in terms of the frequency of occurrence of the sought-
for-referents. (183)

The approach outlined by McQuail is the method adopted in
many analyses, though different research aims will define how
the content analysis is undertaken. The broadly empiricist
approach summarised by McQuail has been supplemented in
a number of ways, particularly by cultural analyses of media
output. However, since the 1970s, Glasgow University Media
Group has undertaken quantitative with qualitative analyses
of the reporting of British and international conflict. Their
findings underline the mass media’s continuing power in the
mobilisation of public opinion.

But content analysis continues to be used in wide-ranging

ways. A research project, undertaken by David Bengston and
David Fan, examined conflict over natural resource manage-
ment using ‘computer-coded content analysis of news media

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stories to measure the relative level of conflict related to policy
and management of the U.S. national forests from 1992
through 1996’ (Bengston and Fan, 1998: 494). The article by
Bengston and Fan has been chosen in order to encourage
students to access journal articles and electronic resources.
Content analysis in their study was developed in order to iden-
tify evidence of conflict in a database of news media text. The
researchers’ analyses of changes in the quantity of media dis-
cussion surrounding conflict were logged over a specific period
of time so that comparisons could be made.

Their procedure for data collection entailed the following six

stages and it usefully illustrates strategies for content analysis:

1. news media stories concerning natural resource manage-

ment were collected over a five-year period;

2. news media stories were downloaded from key commer-

cial databases;

3. key reference sources were used in the identification of all

news sources;

4. the researchers identified thirty-three news sources which

included US national newspapers, news wires and televi-
sion and radio news transcripts;

5. the news sources were searched using keywords and com-

mands such as ‘[(Forest Service) or (national forest)]’; and

6. the searches were encoded so as to eliminate irrelevant

stories so that only text within the parameters of the
phrases was downloaded.

The aims of this research, and of content analysis in general,
are not simply to amass data. Rather, Bengston and Fan iden-
tified first of all three key objectives surrounding the content
analysis. First, they seek to assess the success or otherwise of
new policies which are supposed to conflict. In addition, their
work monitors the levels of conflict associated with specific
issues. And, finally, they warn policymakers about issues newly

MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

115

emerging in relation to forest conflict. In order to achieve these
aims, the collection and subsequent analysis of content was
undertaken in relation to a list of key terms, words and phrases.
This meant the researchers had to produce a series of computer
rules which were used in order to identify words and expres-
sions specifically concerned with forest conflict. The develop-
ment of this dictionary involved an ‘iterative’ process. The
initial dictionary of terms, phrases and coding rules was later
refined in order to exclude as far as possible any ambiguity in
the collection and analysis of key data. Phrases and expressions
that were discovered to be used in ambiguous or incorrect ways
for the purposes of the research were abandoned. The final dic-
tionary contained seven key conflict terms. However, the dic-
tionary and its application in the analysis of conflict was
continuously refined so that a greater-than 80 per cent degree
of accuracy was achieved.

The research of Bengston and Fan shows how content

analysis of media discourse can be broken down into indi-
vidual issues, thus making it possible to monitor the level of
conflict in a specific field. Simply recording the amount of
times search terms generate positive results makes no sense
outside the analytic frame in which the content is collected.
In measuring data of the kind they did, the researchers were
clear that they were also working with news media in rela-
tion to agenda setting, policy evaluation, social conflict and
the management of space and natural resources in a major
global economy. Here, we can see the importance of media
analysis, not just to the understanding of the impact of news
media, but in terms of the impact of the news in relation to
globalisation.

Frame analysis

Bengston and Fan’s research is concerned with the analysis of
news media. Similarly, the Glasgow Media Group is associated
with the analysis of news, current affairs and documentary
programmes. Programmes within this genre have also been

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analysed in relation to frame analysis, a method (also used in
visual as well as conversation analysis) which sets out to
understand media representations in relation to the structur-
ing, sequencing and narrativisation of the news. The starting
question for frame analysis is, at the initial stage of analysis,
fairly obvious: how is media output made to represent and
construct reality? The terms which phrase this question also
indicate its potential complexity. ‘Represent’, ‘construct’ and
‘reality’ are always contentious and far from obvious. While
frame analysis, therefore, deals with the narrative construction
of the ‘news’, what makes the news is always subject to insti-
tutional and ideological regulation.

Frame analysis, frequently used for television and visual

analysis, can be understood in relation to the beginning and
end of a news broadcast, the sequencing of items within the
news broadcast, and overall thematic stresses within the
broadcast. Consider the following analytic progression:

1. How long is the news broadcast (for example, fifteen

minutes, thirty minutes)?

2. How is the news opened, developed and closed (for

example, images, pictures, titles, sound, etc.)?

3. How do the newsreaders, the opening pictures, the images

and all the material used prior to the opening of the first
report establish and sequence the news agenda for that
broadcast?

4. Are individual reports (for example, first news report,

second news report, etc.) established inside studio, pre-
sented as ‘live’, arranged around or with reporters, inter-
views, etc.?

5. Consider the use of represented groups, individuals, per-

sonal narratives, dramatic effects, tone of voice, etc., in the
construction and framing of news.

6. What other material is used in the report that might link

with other themes or issues in the news?

MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

117

Using this introductory model, we can see that to ‘frame’ some-
thing for analysis is, as the term suggests, to choose some aspect
of reality and isolate it in a particular way or casing. Frame
analysis, then, provides a sense of how a particular reality is put
together in relation to a fourfold equation which:

1. provides an the outline of problem;

2. presents the findings on the basis of investigations;

3. conducts further analyses, observations and scrutiny of

initial findings;

4. makes a judgement on the findings of the frame analysis

and suggests provisional conclusions.

A principal objective in frame analysis is to understand the
relationship between the media organisation (for example,
BBC), the news and the values which link these alignments in
the selection of news items and the construction of an agenda.
A detailed analysis of media frames can shed light on the
exact ways information and communication systems, and
messages, impact on human behaviour and relationships. By
comparing one TV news broadcast with another, and by sub-
sequently comparing both these with, for example, a radio
news broadcast or the treatment of the same item of news in
another medium, it is possible to observe how the above equa-
tion is worked out – transferred or communicated – in news
productions. This will allow the frames to be seen in relation
to agenda-setting and organisations or networks. In addition,
agendas can be considered and questions asked about why they
are framed and set in the respective media. This kind of analy-
sis can provide insights into the policies of the organisation as
much as the ways in which the news is framed. Finally, frame
analysis of the kind outlined above will begin to expose the
extent to which all news and indeed all media output is subject
to ‘ideological framing’ of some kind. All media messages
‘interpellate’ or address audiences on the basis of the images
and voices of the personal frame, and frame analysis is one way

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of examining which subjects are in and out of the frame at any
one point.

The importance of media analysis

All media analysis has a context and a purpose. And all media
analysis attempts to measure the media, its forms and its
messages in relation to the public and personal spheres of
audiences. However, media analysis is also concerned with
representations, and with the political and ideological dimen-
sions of all media messages. In discussions of television images
or radio news reports, for instance, media analysis will seek to
investigate how representations in all media also operate to
symbolise power. Media analysis is interested in how subjects
and groups are represented and valued in the text or medium.
Thus, media analysis is not simply about how to examine the
media. It is equally about understanding the media’s power in
the shaping of social reality. Media analysis seeks to under-
stand who is involved in the production and representation of
social life. Analysis of news reports, television output or radio,
for instance, is important because of the specific ways in which
people are depicted. A degree programme in media and cul-
tural studies, then, will acquaint students with knowledge of
how to conduct analysis of texts at the same time as assisting
students in understanding the ways in which media texts relate
to the societies in which they are received.

FURTHER READING

Ang, I. (1985), Watching Dallas, London: Methuen.
Bengston, D. N. and Fan, D. P. (1999), ‘Conflict over Natural Resource

management: A Social Indicator on Analysis of Online News Media
Text’, Society and Natural Resources, 12: 493–500.

Berger, A. A. (1982), Media Analysis Techniques, London: Sage.
Chomsky, N. (1991), Deterring Democracy, London and New York: Verso.
Chomsky, N. and Herman, E. S. (1988), Manufacturing Consent: The

Political Economy of the Mass Media, New York: Pantheon.

MEDIA: METHODS OF ANALYSIS

119

Entman, R. M. (1993), ‘Framing: Towards Clarification of a Fractured

Paradigm’, Journal of Communication, 43(4): 51–8.

Garnham, N. (1979), ‘Contribution to a Political Economy of Mass

Communication’, Media, Culture and Society, 1 (2): 123–46.

Glasgow Media Group (1985), War and Peace News, London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul.

Gripsrud, J. (2000), Understanding Media Culture, London: Hodder

Arnold.

Huston, A. C. (1992), Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in

American Society, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.

Iyengar, S. (1991), Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political

Issues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

McCullagh, C. (2002), Media Power: A Sociological Introduction,

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

McQuail, D. (1992 (1983)), Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction,

2nd edn, London: Sage.

Watson, J. (1998), Media Communication: An Introduction to Theory and

Process, Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, now Palgrave Macmillan.

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THEORIES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS

DEVELOPING THEORIES

‘Theory’ means many things. However, the term to which it is
often opposed – practice – does not provide a sense of how
theory is constructed and operates in cultural studies. In addi-
tion, practice is not something which is outside, or beyond,
theory and vice versa. Theories (for example, of culture, of
art, of knowledge, of the economy) are used to explain phe-
nomena; theory is a way of accounting for an object in dif-
ferent terms (for example, a Marxist theory of culture
compared to a psychoanalytic account); and theory is a way
of intervening in culture at the same time as it is a way of
metaphorically standing outside culture (seeing it in one way
and not another). With theory, for instance, a way of life – a
culture – is made more intelligible than if theory was not used
at all. Theory is used in cultural studies, then, to construct and
understand the world rather than establish facts about the
world. ‘Truth’ is central to all theorisation, but theory does
not point in the direction of one truth or fact. Theory in cul-
tural studies frames and structures how the world is perceived
and conceptualised. Frameworks such as Marxism, struc-
turalism, political economy, feminism, deconstruction and
discourse theory ensure that ‘facts’ are not presented as the
truth of something, but as one way of understanding the con-
struction of truths and facts.

The range of theories which are used in cultural studies is

vast, so much so that it is likely that the degree programme you
study will have at least one module devoted to the study of cul-
tural theory. Some of the theories and theorists have already
been referred to in this book. The work of Roland Barthes,
Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, Antonio Gramsci, Karl

121

Marx, Ferdinand de Saussure and others can be described as
cultural theory. However, work which is referred to as cultural
theory was not necessarily written as that. Moreover, the
people who are referred to as ‘theorists’ did not set out to write
theory in the way that the label ‘cultural theory’ might imply.
Marx was a philosopher who theorised the workings of the
economy in capitalist societies. Williams, for instance, who
was influenced by Marx’s work, combines other theories
besides those of Marx in his writings. Similarly, Stuart Hall
takes from Williams, Marx and Gramsci and blends their
work with the structuralist theories of de Saussure.

Thus, there is not ‘one’ theory in cultural theory. There

are, however, key positions or trajectories, some of which
have already been mentioned. For instance, the work of de
Saussure is broadly associated with a structuralist analysis
of culture. It was structuralist theory which influenced
Barthes’s work in semiotics, although it is also clear that
Barthes is alert to other traditions in his writings. He draws
on notions of ideology which are taken from Marxist analy-
ses of culture, but he also works with themes which typify
psychoanalytic readings of culture, especially the work of
Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. In addition, feminist
activism and criticism has added to how theory is under-
stood so that questions of gender in human relations are
central to how culture and society are theorised. Moreover,
ethnicity, sexuality and social class impact on how theory
formulates its questions. However, to list here all the theo-
ries studied on degree programmes would not necessarily
provide an insight into how theory functions in cultural
studies. The best way to work with theory is perhaps to bring
together some of the points which have been made in earlier
parts of the book. This will allow us to develop some key
points about the usefulness of theory in cultural studies, and
to sense the impact of theory in enriching all critical work in
cultural studies.

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CULTURE AND SIGN SYSTEMS: BACK TO
THE BEGINNING

The analysis of media and cultural practices in traditions asso-
ciated with cultural studies is alert to the need for quantitative
and qualitative measurements along lines suggested in the pre-
ceding chapter, ‘Media: Methods of Analysis’. However, in
cultural studies, theoretical work has been interested in inter-
preting texts and audiences, in understanding how signs
impact on the meanings which are given to everyday life, and
in deciphering how mundane activities such as reading and
eating are bound up with issues which concern nationhood,
identity and conflict. It is to be recalled that in the work of
Roland Barthes, cultural analysis is not solely concerned with
texts, signs and content. In addition, Barthes seeks to under-
stand the construction of a way of life via the structuring and
interpretation of meanings. In the meanings of texts and prac-
tices, and in the reproduction of meanings undertaken by audi-
ences, individuals and groups can be understood to negotiate
identities. In Barthes’s work, cultural theory is concerned to
ask questions about those conflicts and ideologies which shape
a way of life but which often go unnoticed or unanalysed.
Media and cultural signs, then, are not to be taken for granted.

We can develop Barthes’s work a little further in relation to

how signs work. For instance, when the news media use shots
of the White House to depict the United States, or transmit
pictures of the Union Flag flying over Buckingham Palace in
order to signify Britain, these image concentrations can often
paper over political and cultural conflicts. Thus, an image
powerfully contains and homogenises what in reality is far
more disparate than the single image implies. Barthes’s analy-
sis of culture is one which focuses on the placing and struc-
ture of signs in cultural life and media output. Barthes uses
examples from the field of visual media and visual cultures,
but he also works with language. Drawing on and expanding
work in the field of de Saussure and structuralism, Barthes
examines popular media through the theoretical perspective
of semiotics (theory of signs and sign systems). He shows how

THEORIES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS

123

a sign operates at the level of denotation (primary significa-
tion) and connotation (secondary signification). For instance,
the signiﬁer ‘cat’, operating at the level of denotation, signi-
fies a feline mammal. However, this sign, now working at the
level of connotation, produces a secondary signification ‘cat’.
This second meaning can be used to signify ‘slinky’, ‘subtle’,
‘graceful’ or ‘person regarded as sly or stealthy’.

In terms of cultural analysis, Barthes’s work is very useful

indeed. First, he argues that all signs in culture work on two
levels: denotation and connotation. Secondly, all culture, in
Barthes’s account, is composed of sign systems which are ‘pol-
ysemic’. By this, he means that all signs contain far more than
the meaning which operates at the level of denotation (as in the
example ‘cat’ above). Thirdly, media output, because it draws
on and exploits this plurality of meaning, is necessarily
involved in activities which are never far from a society’s myths
and ideologies. For Barthes, cultural theory and analysis are the
means of laying bare or exposing that body of ideas and beliefs
which seems to operate in the interests of the dominant cultural
group. Here is an extract from one of his most well-cited dis-
cussions of the popular French magazine Paris Match.

I am at the barber’s, and a copy of Paris Match is offered to me.
On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with
his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on the . . . tricolour [French flag].
But . . . I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great
Empire, that all her sons, without colour discrimination, faithfully
serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the
detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this
Negro in serving his so-called oppressors. I am therefore faced
with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier. . . (a black
solider giving the French salute); [and] there is a signified (it is a
purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness). (125–6)

Barthes’s work enables us to see that cultural theory and
analysis entails:

1. Watching, looking at, listening to and reading media

output in terms of its signs, words, images, etc.

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2. Barthes’s model contends that the critical examination and

textual analysis of culture will be concerned on one level
with its representations (what we see or hear) and the ways
in which something is represented (how the sound or
image is put together for consumption). Barthes writes
much about the cultural production of the voice, the body
and the face. In an essay on the faces of celebrities and
gender, he analyses facial expressions, the significance of
skin colour, the subject’s way of looking and gazing, and
the social context in which the subject is situated.

3. Barthes draws attention to media sign systems and

common-sense discussions about cultural meaning. For
example, what does ‘solider’ mean in the light of French
history and imperialism? What does the picture of a black
soldier on the front of a popular magazine suggest about
cultural change in France during the 1950s? For Barthes,
cultural analysis aims to uncover the relations between
political ideology, power (represented (in the magazine) in
terms of French colonialism) and nationhood (or the
media’s construction of ‘Frenchness’). Frenchness is not
something which pre-exists its representation, but is pro-
duced and consumed in relation to the magazine.

ENCODING – PROGRAMME DISCOURSE – DECODING:
STUART HALL

Earlier chapters in Part II have stressed the importance of pro-
duction and consumption in the theory and study of culture.
The relations between production, output, consumption and
identity have been central to the research and analysis of the
media and culture industries over the last twenty years. In
many ways, Hall’s ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television
Discourse’ (Hall, Hobson, Lowe and Willis, 1992) contains
many of the principal elements which were later enlarged and
expanded on in the work of media theorist David Morley in the
1970s and 1980s, and more recent work. Two key textbooks

THEORIES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS

125

which will be on most reading lists in cultural theory
modules are Representation: Cultural Representations and
Signifying Practices (1997; ed. Stuart Hall) and Doing Cultural
Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman (1997; eds du Gay,
Hall, Janes, Mackay and Negus). They are particularly useful
in the theorisation and analysis of cultural production and
consumption.

However, Hall’s earlier encoding and decoding model con-

tinues to prove useful when undertaking cultural analysis. His
essay shows how television programmes (for example, the
news) can be understood initially in terms of two axes: ‘encod-
ing and meaning structures A’; and ‘decoding and meaning
structures B’. It can be presented as follows:

TV programme made into discourse

Production/encoding Consumption/decoding

Encoding: meaning structures A Encoding: meaning structures B

Domains of knowledge

Domains of production

Domains of technical

Consider the situation of a TV news journalist whose job it is
to (re)present and report a political crisis or major event. The
first element to note in a cultural analysis pursuing Hall’s
model is that no event (for example, death of world leader, or
anti-globalisation rally) happens ‘raw’ or untouched by the
forms, systems and technologies of media representation.
While the report might seem transparent, or free of discourses
and ideology, closer analysis exposes its mediated and con-
structed status.

To produce a meaningful piece of news or an intelligible

report, the production teams work on the basis of existing
meanings and ideas, both about how to make news and how
news is decoded by viewers. Media production (encoding) is
framed by ‘knowledge-in-use concerning the routines of pro-
duction, historically defined technical skills, professional

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ideologies, institutional knowledges, definitions and assump-
tions, [and] assumptions about the audience’ (Hall et al., 1992:
129). For Hall, no event makes sense outside the terms which
manufacture or encode the event into a meaningful discourse.
This ‘making’ of the news, alongside its ‘re-presentation’
makes the task of media analysis all the more important.

A number of critical questions has been raised about the

extent of the media’s influence in determining how audiences
think in relation to the events being represented. Critics and
cultural theorists have pointed to the effects of the media in
relation to group behaviour, cross-cultural relations, globali-
sation and political power. Does the news, then, determine
how audiences think about a specific situation? In addition,
how does decoding operate, and are audiences in a position
to decode the media as they choose? In like manner to
Barthes, so Hall draws attention to the ideological, political
and contextual dimensions of the encoded text.

Encoded texts are ultimately decoded by audiences. But

Hall shows how an event is made into a discourse, given a
particular meaning, framed within a televisual shape and
subjected to frequent editing. Thus, although the moment of
audience decoding is the third part of the model, a second
element of Hall’s model is the programme discourse itself.
In a sense, this is the point at which mediation takes place.
Although an event has its own three-dimensional and
‘factual’ reality, another discursive fact – Hall’s second part
of the model – has to be taken into account. In the work of
Hall and others, reality exists regardless of language, but
reality is nonetheless mediated by and through language as
well as the discourses of language. What Hall means by dis-
course is the way language invariably makes sense in relation
to cultural and social codes such as, for instance, the dis-
courses of gender, race and ethnicity or social class. It is the
TV programme and its status as mediated meaningful dis-
course which is the object of the audience’s decoding. But it
is the tripartite alliance of encoding, TV discourse and decod-
ing which is the key element in Hall’s model and in cultural
analysis.

THEORIES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS

127

Dominant, negotiated and resistant cultures

Hall’s own complication of the above model makes it useful
for media analysis today. He discusses how each element in the
encoding/decoding process is beset by other factors. What pro-
gramme makers intend to say or represent, for instance, is not
necessarily obvious to audiences. Moreover, audiences differ
as to the decoding and meaning of the same programme, some-
thing brought to light in David Morley’s analysis of the media.
Hall suggests that at least three positions of decoding can
be adopted by audiences. The first, known as the ‘dominant-
hegemonic position’, is one in which audiences operate within
society’s dominant code. David Morley (1980) shows how
audiences decoded the reporting of the release of a prisoner in
terms of ‘personal drama’ rather than in terms of ‘the political
background’ or the wider ‘political implications’ of the case.

The second decoding position is one which is negotiated –

one which Hall thinks is adopted by the majority. This kind of
media analysis will examine how audiences work with a
mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements. The position
of negotiation is fraught with contradictions in that the televi-
sion discourse does and does not provide an accurate encod-
ing of the event or situation. In a sense, Hall is pointing out
how all decoding of media discourse is fraught with ambigui-
ties of which the media text is itself never immune. However,
when decoding takes place on the basis of Hall’s third position,
the ‘oppositional’ perspective, then the media message is being
subjected to decodings which attempt to close down the text’s
plural meanings. Hall uses the example of a viewer who listens
to a discussion which proposes the need to limit wages. Every
mention of ‘national interest’ during the broadcast is read or
decoded as ‘class interest’.

Circuit of culture

Pivotal in the work of Barthes, Hall and a number of other cul-
tural theorists is language, and the key feature of language is

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its function as a ‘representational system’. Language and
the work of representation are central in the final framework
we will examine in this section. In many senses it is a fairly
straightforward model, and it is a key part of the Open
University’s series of introductory textbooks in cultural and
media studies. The circuit of culture applies five key terms in its
mapping and analysis of the relations between culture and the
economy. A useful way of outlining this model is to summarise
the key propositions put forward in Doing Cultural Studies:
The Story of the Sony Walkman (Du Gay et al., 1997). In dis-
cussing the production and consumption of the Walkman, the
editors show how this cultural artefact can be understood in
relation to the five interrelated concepts of the circuit:

1. Representation: all cultural artefacts, whilst they have to

be ‘produced’, have, in capitalist economies, also to be rep-
resented. Although the argument is more complex than is
summarised here, we can see that the Sony Walkman had
to be represented or advertised in order to be sold. Thus,
representation is one of the key elements in understanding
all cultures in that people are forced to use systems of rep-
resentation in order to communicate with each other.

2. Identity: representations make sense in relation to people

and identities. The Sony Walkman is a device whose prin-
cipal function concerns the playing of and listening to
music. Using earphones, the Walkman can be listened to in
very public and private ways at the same time. However,
the Walkman was advertised and marketed as an artefact
associated with youth, ‘rebelliousness’ and independence.
The Walkman device can, of course, be purchased and
used by anyone. However, by linking the Walkman to a
particular identity, Sony is able to consolidate its own
identity as one which is up to date and forward looking.

3. Production: here, production means not only the materi-

als and technology which combine to make the Walkman.
Rather, the Walkman also has to be culturally produced,
or made to mean something in relation to the identity of

THEORIES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS

129

the target group of consumers. The users of the Walkman,
then, produce particular forms of identification which
confirm and exceed Sony’s expectations.

4. Consumption: in making the Walkman signify initially in

relation to youth identities, so the Sony Corporation estab-
lish a link between the object and its intended consumers.
However, the consumption of the object happens in at least
two ways. First, the Walkman is bought to be consumed as
a personal stereo device. Secondly, it is consumed in rela-
tion to social and cultural identity. Alternatively phrased,
the Walkman has a ‘use’ value which serves a specific
purpose, and it has an ‘exchange’ value whose meanings
exceed those articulated at the level of actual use.

5. Regulation: not long after the Walkman was introduced,

marketed and sold to capitalist economies in the West, it
became increasingly clear that it was something which was
being marketed in relation to the articulation of specific
identities. However, the device was used in ways which
challenged the distinctions between public and private
space. This blurring of boundaries meant that the
Walkman had to be regulated (for example, it can only be
used according to certain conventions or in controlled sit-
uations). There is nothing unusual about the regulation of
cultural artefacts. However, the theoretical framework
links regulation to all the other elements in the circuit of
culture. Regulation, then, is concerned with the regulation
of behaviours and identities, and not simply the activity of
listening to music using a personal stereo.

We have seen that language and representation are under-
stood in relation to the notion of texts and cultural artefacts.
It is to be recalled, however, that Barthes’s discussion of the
myths which structure contemporary mass culture proposes
that textual representations are neither natural nor neutral.
His work demonstrates how signs and texts are caught up in
a history whose apparent inevitability is attributable not to an
uncontrollable nature but to the force fields of myth and

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ideology. Analyses which attend to the political economy of
media and culture, alongside those which attend to issues
such as cultural consumption and meaning, demonstrate the
continuing importance of quantitative and qualitative inves-
tigations in cultural research. But all theories and frameworks
in the analysis of the construction and representation of
culture make more complete sense when set against the back-
drop of the political and economic contexts in which all media
output is produced.

FURTHER READING

Barthes, R. (1973), Mythologies, London: Jonathan Cape.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. (1997), Doing

Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, London: Sage.

Hall, S. (ed.) (1997), Representation: Cultural Representations and

Signifying Practices, London: Sage.

Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (1992 (1980)), Culture, Media,

Language, London: Routledge.

Hermes, J. (1995), Reading Women’s Magazines, Cambridge: Polity.
Jenkins, H. (1992), Textual Poachers, New York: Routledge.
Morley, D. (1980), The ‘Nationwide’ Audience, London: BFI.
Radway, J. (1987), Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular

literature, London: Verso.

Thornham, S. and Purvis, T. (2004), Television Drama: Theories and

Identities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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131

PART III

Study Skills

WEEK ONE, SEMESTER I, LEVEL I

STRUCTURES OF SUPPORT

Modules, module outlines and module guides

In the first few weeks of university, it is vital to know what you
are doing, whom to contact if in doubt, and to establish good
study and research habits from the start. This section of the
book, then, is concerned with helping you to ‘learn how to
learn’. University degree programmes are all the more interest-
ing and enjoyable if you are prepared to ask questions, engage
with the reading and research, and adopt a critical and inter-
rogative approach to learning. In many ways, this section of the
book cannot underline enough the importance of critique and
critical inquiry.

In order to facilitate processes more smoothly, universities

have in place all sorts of support systems and structures. In
the first few weeks, and especially during the induction ses-
sions, it is important that you:

1. Get a copy of the module outline forms or module guide-

books (see below) and/or the degree handbook. The
handbook is very general and provides key details of
options you can choose over three years. The module
handbook is more detailed and plays a much more sig-
nificant role in your research and studies on a day-to-day
basis. These are vital sources of information and are
sometimes available on faculty websites or issued as hard
copies in induction meetings.

2. Find out where the faculty or departmental notice board

is located. Key details about changes to the programme or

135

names of tutors are often listed here. Online notice boards
are also common, as are the posting of details via emails.

3. Sort an email account (either one you use already or a

university account).

4. Make sure you know where the school office is, who your

personal tutor is, and what the procedures are for tutor-
ial meetings.

5. Join the library!

6. Find out where the learning resource centre is located

(often referred to as LRC). This is the place where stu-
dents often submit essays and receive receipts for sub-
mitted work.

7. Find out if there are any charges for modules (for example,

some media production modules ask students to pay a
small fee for use of materials and some equipment).

8. Make sure you know about computing facilities.

9. Get to know other people on the course.

10. Have at least one meeting with your personal tutor

within the first month of being at university.

Modules
Part I of this book provides an account of how modules con-
tribute to the degree programme. To summarise briefly:

1. Most degree programmes will take three or four years to

complete.

2. Each year, you will usually study modules of 10, 20 or

30 credits.

3. Each year the credits will amount to 120 credits (a total of

360 for three years).

In the first year of study, students are often confused about
where classes take place, how often seminars occur, whom to

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ask for an extension to an essay deadline, what the key
reading is and so on. The module itself will be arranged round
lecturers and seminars, production classes and workshops,
one-to-one meetings and independent study. The module will
always be accompanied by TWO documents, the module
outline form, and the module guide or handbook. They are
worth reading in some detail.

Module outline forms
A module outline or module summary provides students with
key information about the module. Sometimes the inform-
ation is online, part of the module guide or issued in the first
taught session.

Module outlines provide key data for students and the

faculty (school or department) in which the module is taught.
This kind of information is included on front covers of assign-
ments so that it is clear to administration staff which essay is
being assessed, by whom and for which module. The learning
outcomes indicate what the module hopes to achieve in rela-
tion to teaching and learning.

Example: module outline

Module Title: Recent Television Genres

MODULE CODE

MED 147

CREDITS

LEVEL

FACULTY

Humanities and Social Sciences

MODULE BOARD

Media

PREREQUISITES

None

CO-REQUISITES

None

TEACHING HOURS

200 of which 80 are contact based
around lectures and seminars.

Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of this module, students will:
1. Show knowledge of a wide range of television genres and

working practices.

WEEK ONE, SEMESTER I, LEVEL I

137

2. Demonstrate a critical knowledge of genre and media theory

in television studies.

3. Use and apply this knowledge in evaluative ways in the analy-

sis of television output and texts.

4. Present arguments about television in written and spoken forms.
5. Demonstrate skills of written and spoken presentation.

Module synopsis
This module investigates television and television output. It focuses
on the analysis of recent television genres. During the course of this
module you will be encouraged additionally to consider a variety of
different approaches to analysing popular television programmes.
It is important while taking this module that you watch television,
read about television, question television and consider its relation
to other media. Examples of British, Asian and European output
will be studied.

Approaches to learning and teaching
Lectures, seminars, group discussions, presentations, question–
answer
Lectures: 12 @ 1-hour lectures; 12 @ 2-hour seminars.
Assessment methods
Essay: 2k words 80%
Presentation: 15 minutes: 20%
All learning outcomes are assessed.

Indicative Reading
Books and sources will be listed here.
Staff
The tutors for this module will be listed here.

You can see why the module outline form provides important
data. The outline provided here is a very simplified, student-
friendly version of what can sometimes be quite a complex
document. All degree programmes will have copies of module
outlines for every module and if you want to know more
about a module before starting the course, then perhaps ask if
they are available. Some universities will provide ‘student’ syn-
opses or have material available on web pages. The learning

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outcomes are always worth thinking about because they indi-
cate how students are being assessed. Essays or examinations
will be assessed in relation to learning outcomes, and so always
have them in view when researching for an assignment. The
reading list similarly provides key information serving as a
general guide as to who is publishing and researching in the
field of study. And the content synopsis provides in summary
form the rationale of the module.

Module guides and handbooks
The module guide is one of the key documents of any module.
The example used here intentionally reiterates some of the
topics and study skills discussed in this book and reflects fairly
accurately how study skills are taught on the first year of a
degree programme in media and cultural studies.

The importance of the module guide cannot be underesti-

mated.

1. It provides key data about the module.

2. It is often available on web pages.

3. It lists how students are assessed.

4. It contains details of assessment criteria and dates for

submissions.

TIME MANAGEMENT

Time management is never straightforward. It is not easy in
the first year of study to work out exactly how much time is
needed for production projects, essays, seminar presentations,
group work or diaries and portfolios. Moreover, students
come from different contexts, have different needs and
demands. However, a number of points can be made about
the importance of managing time and responsibilities.

WEEK ONE, SEMESTER I, LEVEL I

139

Table 12.1 Example of a module guide

Degree Programme: Media and Cultural Studies
Module Title: Study and Research Methods
Module Code: 135
Credit Value: 20
Session: 2004–2005
Class Time: Mondays 14.00–16.00hrs
Module Leader: Name

Programme

Week

Themes and Issues

Introduction: why ‘study skills’; audit of existing skills; setting
goals; reviewing progress: general introductions. Valuing the
contributions of other group members. Reviewing what you do
each week: end-of-session review introduced.
Reading for week 1: listed here.

Organisation and time management: organisation of
day/week/month; working to deadlines; structuring study and
reading; structuring study for work and leisure. Action plans
and progress files.
Reading for week 2: listed here.

What is research? Research skills and note-taking. Keeping
notes; using notes; using PC/WP for notes. Experience so far
of research. What individuals have done in relation to research
demands of current modules. Using resources for research.
Qualitative and quantitative research.
Reading for week 3: listed here.

Reading and structuring reading. Making notes from reading.
Records/log of reading activities. What we do with reading; no
writing essays without reading texts. How to record
bibliographic details: some conventions and practices. Primary
and secondary sources: key works in subject field alongside
student textbooks and guidebooks about primary research.
Adopting critical approaches to reading and study.
Reading for week 4: listed here

5/6

Conventions of academic writing: structuring the academic
essay; writing and form (for example, evaluative, descriptive,
critical, etc.); comparing different types of texts (for example,
essays compared to newspaper reports; sports reports as
opposed to writing about sports; etc.). Plagiarism.
Reading for week 5/6: listed here
Reading Week

Practical modules: report writing and working with audiences:

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and follow-up exercises for later seminars: joint session with all
135 seminar groups; details of venue and time to follow.
Reading for week 7: listed here

Introducing spoken/group presentation skills: working on group
presentations; team working; key points when doing short
spoken presentations.
Reading for week 8: listed here.

Library skills, literature searches and information retrieval:
(in library) details to be announced in each seminar group.
Feel free to ask library staff questions or raise issues on the
basis of your experience of using the library so far in your
degree studies.
Reading for week 9: listed here.

Assessment and analysis: examining previous work for 135;
(2) action plan (using either your own report from practical
module or your own essay from any module). In reviews for this
week, list ALL the strengths and weaknesses of your own chosen
piece of work (for example, essay from last semester) and
outline a short action plan on improvements. These can be listed
in progress files.
Reading for week 10: listed here.

Working in media production: skills and abilities in the use of
media equipment, working according to industry codes and
regulations, and working in teams where decisions reflect
individual initiative as well as group efforts.
Media ethics, equal opportunities, and media policy and law.
Reading for week 11: listed here.

Presentations. Brief: Audience: prospective students of media
and cultural studies. Task: you will present a discussion
accompanied by a short group report which outlines the value of
media and cultural studies degrees to the wider society. Work in
groups of 4 and present issues to rest of the group. Your
presentation notes to be used in review for this week.

One-to-one essay tutorials as required. Brief: how have study and
research skills been incorporated into your studies for degree
modules this semester? You are encouraged to use key headings
from media employability documents to structure your discussion.

Reviews and evaluations: summary of what to expect in Level II
Research Methods.

Assessment schedule
All coursework should be submitted to the office in the Faculty of
Media. Assignments submitted after the deadline of DATE will be
awarded zero except in mitigating circumstances supported by relevant

WEEK ONE, SEMESTER I, LEVEL I

141

documentation (such as a GP’s letter or note from your personal tutor).

If you think you might have problems completing or submitting an

assignment please contact me, the Module Leader, to discuss the situation.

Assessment Components
Essay (written): 35%
Question: how have study and research skills been incorporated into your
degree modules this semester? You are encouraged to use key headings
from media employability documents to structure your discussion.

The essay should be 2k words and written according to academic

conventions addressed in the module. TWO copies of the essay should be
submitted. The criteria for the assessment of the essay can be found
on-line on the school web page.

Group Presentation (spoken presentation): 35%
Audience: prospective students of media and cultural studies. Task: you
will present a discussion accompanied by a short group report which
outlines the value of media and cultural studies degrees to the wider
society. Each group will present their findings to all members of the
module. The presentation should be based on your research, your findings
and recommendations. The group presentation should allow students to
reflect critically on experiences of media practices, media theory and
criticism, and media working environments.

Progress File: 30%
Using the format provided (a copy in module guides and also on web
pages) you should log and discuss details of skills and your personal
development and progress during this module. This should be completed
on a weekly basis and the Peer Assessment for Group Work must be
completed at the end of the module and submitted with the Progress File.
Templates for the Progress File and copies of the Peer Assessment for
Group Work are available from the office.

Practical measures

1. Work out the best time for study. If there is one period in

the day when output is greater, then this is worth exploit-
ing to the full.

2. Decide on places for study. Production projects are not

usually undertaken in libraries, whereas essay and seminar
preparation may be centred around the library. Some

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Table 12.1 Continued

students find it easier to work from home, or in parts of
the library which are not silent-study areas. Some students
work better with others around, and prefer to talk through
the drafting process or as ideas crystallise.

3. In addition, write out a weekly or monthly schedule, based

around the timetable for the semester. Note down when
taught sessions are and plan time around them for study,
research, leisure, etc. A monthly schedule is a great way of
establishing good time management practices at the start
of the degree.

4. It is sensible if not essential to keep the weekend free if this

is the least productive time of the week for reading and
research.

5. Time spent reading through lecture notes after lectures

means key ideas can be recalled with ease. Some students
word process lecture notes as an additional way of estab-
lishing a knowledge base which can be added to with rel-
ative ease.

6. Be realistic about how much can be achieved in a set time

period.

7. A really productive use of time is to identify at the outset

what it is that will be achieved.

8. The credit size of the module (for example, 10, 20 or 30

credits) will determine how much time you will want to
allocate to study and research.

Critical frames

Attitudes and approaches to study are important in the early
stages of studying for a degree. It is vital to approach the task
in hand critically. ALL work is important at university and so
time is never wasted in the long term. Adopting a critical frame
of mind, alongside a belief in the value of the work you do,
always makes the time spent on assignments seem worthwhile.

WEEK ONE, SEMESTER I, LEVEL I

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Preparations

For some pieces of work it seems that much time is spent
achieving very little. This is an experience which all students
have at some point, and not just those starting degree courses.
It is really important, therefore, to start all work well in
advance of the deadline date for submission, and, if others
are involved, make sure agreement is reached as to dates for
completion.

Drafting

Drafting work in the early stages of a degree can take more
time than in second or third years. However, the time it takes
to draft and redraft (whether this is essays or production pro-
jects) is time that is well spent and it is a skill that is usefully
deployed in other situations.

Long-term and short-term goals

Thinking of time management in terms of goals is one way of
maximising output. Some work requires much greater input
and effort (for example, the dissertation or extended produc-
tion project). Establish the short-term goals of the project and
the long-term goals, and stick to the schedule.

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READING, WRITING AND ESSAYS

This chapter deals in detail with academic writing. Essays,
extended pieces of writing, dissertations, reports and executive
summaries for production projects are among the most
common ways of being assessed at university. Many media and
cultural studies degree courses use essays as part of the continu-
ous assessment of the student. On a number of degree pro-
grammes, essays are in fact the principal method of assessing
students’ work. Often the essay is attached to module credits
as follows:

10 credit module: 2.5k word essay.

20 credit module: 3.5–4.5k word essay.

20 credit module: 2k word essay (50%) and seminar pre-

sentation (50%).

30 credit or dissertation module: 8–10k words.

Clearly, other methods of assessment are used (examinations,
presentations, production-based work, etc.), though the
summary above is one which reflects many of the assessment
practices in UK universities.

WHAT IS AN ESSAY?

An essay presents an argument and systematically discusses
a series of connected points specifically in relation to a ques-
tion. The essay, in responding to the question, will present
and argue its position in a continuous and coherent way.
Structured around key paragraphs, each of which introduces,

145

develops and anticipates the following point, the essay should
always cohere around the question being answered. The main
body of the essay should be introduced appropriately and
should be followed by paragraphs which regularly signal to
the reader the essay’s direction, its underpinning logic and
its use of evidence and/or theory. The essay should be con-
cluded by paragraphs which amplify the points already raised.
Introductions should only introduce what is in the essay, and
conclusions should not introduce substantially new material.
Finally, the essay should conform to agreed standards and
academic conventions. The essay, which should be word-
processed, should always be referenced according to biblio-
graphic conventions.

Important points

1. In the introduction refer only to what is in the body of the

essay or raise points which might be relevant to the body
of the essay.

2. Structure the essay around a body of paragraphs which

introduce a key point, discuss the key point, provisionally
conclude the key point and signal what to expect in the
succeeding paragraph.

3. Adopt a specific approach in your arguments (for example,

for and against, compare and contrast, on the one hand, on
the other hand, thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and so on).

4. Conclude your essay only on the basis of what has been

raised in the essay and only amplify what has been already
discussed.

Critical reﬂection

The chances are that most of you will be familiar with the
above structure. In many ways, the most demanding part of

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writing an essay is the preparation and critical reflection.
A number of stages is involved in writing the essay (or disser-
tation). Among the most important initial stages are selecting
the question, followed by the extensive reading (depending on
the type of question you are answering) and critical thinking.
In this context, ‘thinking’ means understanding the question
and making sure you have considered the angles from which
the question can be approached. Thinking is also concerned
with trying to adopt critical and reflective perspectives. If you
manage your time, there is no need to rush into the writing
of the essay. Strike a balance in an ongoing process which
involves writing, thinking, revising and rewriting, and then
rethinking, reviewing and so on until the piece is ready.

Reading and research
There are lots of short guides which tell students how to write
essays, and these are valuable in any student’s library. However,
one of the most important tasks is reading, both widely and
critically. Students who repeatedly perform well in essays
will have read round the topic, and this reading is evidenced
in a well-researched and informed argument. But good essays
always show the extent to which the student has engaged
critically with the material, demonstrating awareness of differ-
ent points of view, and possibly coming down on one side of a
problem more than others.

Whilst it is important to write an essay which is balanced,

this does not mean that the essay cannot finally establish
which position is the preferred one. This is especially the case
for extended essays, dissertations and work undertaken at
level II and level III. However, essays which are able to discuss
issues in reflective, evaluative and critical ways are essays
which were started well in advance of the deadline for sub-
mission. Such essays will also demonstrate the time the
student has spent reading, researching, thinking, grasping,
deciding upon and finally arguing a particular position.
Always remember that what you write is valuable: it is some-
thing you have spent time doing, and it is valuable because, in
its own way, it contributes to the increasingly refined and

READING, WRITING AND ESSAYS

147

interesting ways undergraduate essays make comments on the
media, culture and society.

Preparing and drafting and writing: ten-point plan

Plans only work if you are prepared to make them work! But
plans can also be revised on the basis of good practice and
reflection. Here is one which might work for you.

1. Look at the questions, and choose one which best suits

your interests and strengths.

2. Make sure the question is chosen well in advance of the

time for submission.

3. Make sure adequate research time and drafting time is

built into each day or every two to three days.

4. Begin amassing ideas, books, sources, evidence and mate-

rial which will contribute to a good essay. Put photo-
copied material, drafts and cuttings into an essay folder
and gradually select material which is most relevant to
the essay.

5. Start writing whenever key ideas emerge or when argu-

ments are beginning to form. When note-making from
books or articles, make sure you word-process from the
start, adding your own critical comments as you write.

6. Begin to order notes and ideas, and try to imagine the

structure of the essay.

7. Review notes and begin to structure key parts of the essay

into paragraphs, and try to gauge the overall structure of
the essay.

8. Paragraphs should present a key point or idea, should

support the idea with evidence (for example, for and
against), should make the point and begin to introduce
the point which is to be discussed in the next paragraph.

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9. Begin to put these paragraphs together into a structure

which has a strong sense of the body of the essay. The
body of the essay should be about 65–75 per cent of the
essay with the remaining 25–35 per cent given over to
introduction and conclusion. The introduction and con-
clusion are the last things to write. An essay can only be
concluded on the basis of what has been said, and an
introduction cannot introduce something which does not
exist already.

10. Write the final draft of the essay at least three days before

submission, and read the essay again two days before
submission and consider any changes or improvements.

The above plan for writing essays will work for some students
and not others. In a sense, each student finds her or his own
way and usually sticks with that method until another one
supersedes it.

Essay writing: further details

The writing of the essay or dissertation does not start with the
introduction. That might seem odd. The essay has to start
somewhere, and the essay or dissertation has to have an intro-
duction. However, an introduction can’t be written until the
essay writer finally knows what to introduce. Moreover,
introductions are not to be confused with the aims and object-
ives of the essay. It is possible to start writing the essay or dis-
sertation with a very clear sense of focus, and with a very clear
sense of aim, yet still leave the introduction till the final stages.
Introductions, then, are probably the last part of the essay to
be written. This does not mean that an introduction is not
imagined from the outset of writing the essay. And it does not
mean that the drafting and planning is without structure, aim
or purpose. Key ideas need to be thought through from the
start. But an essay takes shape before an introduction does.
Collect the evidence and think through the ideas; comment on

READING, WRITING AND ESSAYS

149

the evidence, in critical and reflective ways; make evaluations
and judgements where you can; and begin to get a sense of the
body of the essay. These kinds of activities precede the writing
of the introduction and conclusion.

Tackling the question: critical approaches

Below is an essay in ‘note’ form. The essay question is in italics
and underlined.

1. Read the essay title.

2. Consider some of the issues that emerge as you think

through the question – whether you are familiar with the
topic or not. If it helps, jot down your own thoughts and
compare them with the suggestions here.

3. Then read through the points raised below the essay

question.

With reference to contemporary examples, critically discuss
how far advertising and advertisements allow consumers to
‘identity shop’.

It is important to think critically about the question in order
to provide a judicious and informed argument. We can con-
sider some of the ways of tackling this question in relation to
criticality.

1. The first activity is to read the question quite a few times

in order to get a sense of its nuances and its different ways
of being interpreted. Consider discussing the question with
a fellow student.

2. Begin to note the wording. ‘With reference to . . .’ means

that the question expects students to give examples, and so
essays which don’t respond in that way are limited from
the start.

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3. The question asks students to ‘critically discuss’. The word

‘discuss’ is fairly broad and leaves open a range of
responses: there is more than one way to discuss some-
thing (see later discussion of examinations). The use of the
word ‘critically’, however, is important and it is the essay’s
way of encouraging students to engage in some of the con-
troversial issues which the question might raise. Other
words could be used in questions. Assess, consider and
examine are some of the typical ways of asking students
questions in essays. Note that these words are very differ-
ent to describe, outline, summarise. The latter set includes
words which require different kinds of responses, and do
not usually require vast amounts of detail. But they may
precede the key stem of the question (as in ‘Outline what
is meant by identity and critically examine . . . ’).
(See Chapter 15, ‘Examinations’).

4. When questions ask ‘how far’ or ‘to what extent’, it implies

that the question can be answered in at least TWO ways.
Advertisements either do not allow consumers to identity
shop, or advertisements do allow consumers to identity
shop. Within these two extremes, there are clearly a range
of other possibilities and the essay is asking students to
address those extremes. Essays will give examples of how
far advertising does what the question suggests (a lot, not
very much, equally balanced, or more ambiguous (in some
cases ‘yes’ but in other cases ‘no’)).

5. ‘Consumers’ is a fairly specific (and, for some, a fairly con-

tentious) term, and answers will initially make direct refer-
ences to the identity of the consumer. It may be that answers
seek to specify in more exact ways what sort of consumers
the essay writer will focus on in the response. The term is
also contentious in that ‘consumers’ assumes much about
the society in which consumer identities matter. The terms
which the essay uses will always be referred to in answers.

6. ‘Identity shop’ is surrounded by inverted commas. This is

the question’s way of making students aware of a specific

READING, WRITING AND ESSAYS

151

language and discourse. Essays which don’t address this
key phrase might be more limited than those which directly
confront the key words.

Criticality and critique

Critical thinking is not to be confused with being negative or
pessimistic. Two other words associated with critical are ‘critic’
and ‘criticise’, both of which suggest a tradition where criticism
is either unconstructive and unhelpful, or deeply personal and
subjective. Another word associated with critical – ‘critique’ –
provides a sharper sense of what it means to act critically in
relation to reading and writing. Critique and critical thinking
occur when – on the basis of reading, reflection, evaluation and
discussion – students are able to make judgements about ideas
in analytic and measured ways. An approach to study and
reading which is marked by a sense of critique or critical analy-
sis takes time to develop and so don’t be disheartened or dis-
couraged, and always value the work you do.

Don’t think that being analytical means essays are dispas-

sionate. Similarly, a ‘measured’ response does not mean essays
have to steer a middle ground or sit on the fence. It might
mean, however, that you adopt a specific method, theory or
approach which allows a topic or object to be viewed in one
light more than another. This kind of thinking and writing is
to be encouraged as it usually means some engagement with
the material has taken place. Critical thinking in media and
cultural studies might entail thinking against the grain of an
argument, and assessing competing positions and views.
None of the subjects and disciplines taught in universities
provide one way of examining or critiquing a problem, and
media and cultural studies degrees are no exception.

For example, it is often suggested that some television output

contributes to increased violence in society, or that broadcast-
ing standards are lower than they were thirty years ago, or that
the news media are controlled by a small, unelected and unde-
mocratic minority. Watching popular television, holidaying

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with package companies or listening to popular music are
thought by some critics not to require as high a level of cogni-
tive, intellectual or aesthetic discrimination as going to see a
performance of King Lear at the local theatre, visiting an art
gallery to see the latest installation piece or buying a recording
of Gregorian chant. Some people in media and cultural studies
adopt quantitative approaches to analyse these issues whereas
others pursue qualitative research. Thinking critically about
these claims means probing the claims and the assumptions
which underpin the claims. This will entail using evidence and
reading others’ research in order to make a more informed,
a more considered and a less subjective judgement.

Approaches to working critically

Consider the claims that are made about the media and culture:

• Hollywood films are rubbish.

• Soap operas are cheap, formulaic dramas made for uncrit-

ical and unthinking audiences.

• There’s a world of difference between a popular women’s

romance and a novel by George Eliot.

• We don’t honour actors anymore, only C-grade celebrities.

• Nobody speaks English correctly these days.

• The media manipulates us and forces us to do things we

wouldn’t normally do.

Imagine these have been set as essay questions, as discussion
topics for a seminar or as part of a presentation where the
group is required to examine the validity of the claims.
Ask:

1. What is the context of the claims?

2. Who is making the claims?

READING, WRITING AND ESSAYS

153

3. What research is available which examines the field or

topic?

4. If it is possible to agree with the claim, and if so, to what

extent: mostly agree, mostly disagree, somewhere in the
middle?

Working critically with essays
We can consider approaches to working critically if we return
to the essay question introduced earlier.

Reminder: With reference to contemporary examples, critic-
ally discuss how far advertising and advertisements allow
consumers to ‘identity shop’.

1. Always think through the terms and references of the

claim; never assume the statement or question is there to
be agreed with and always establish an agenda.

2. Ensure that identity is seen in complex terms. Although

‘identity’ is an important term, it is always more than one
thing (for example, gender, sexuality, social class, ethnicity
and so on).

3. Decide which specific aspects of identity will be consid-

ered. Use broad as well as specific references in order to
establish well-rounded responses.

4. Make clear that identity can be seen in terms of something

given (we can’t take away the location of one’s birth), as
well as something social (we make sense to each other in
relation to the society of birth or socialisation). But iden-
tity is something which is in part determined and in part
negotiated.

5. Ensure that identity is seen in relation to the texts and

advertisements which promote senses of identity – but don’t
think that the text will then give consumers an identity: con-
sumption is active, not passive, but advertisements nonethe-
less remain powerful shapers of choice; texts are marked by

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multiple discourses and we read them in multiple contexts,
but, in the final analysis, consumption involves monetary
exchange at some point.

6. Think again about the phrase ‘identity shop’. Does ‘shop’

mean ‘buy’ or does it mean ‘consume’? Does ‘shop’ mean
we can go looking for an identity in the way that we can
go to the shops to look at products rather than buy them?
To buy a CD or car is not to consume the object; and to
shop at one store as opposed to another is as much a cul-
tural as it is an economic activity.

7. The question asks you to think about advertisements and

identities. Remember that an advertisement is a text, and
texts always assume readers. The answer to the question,
then, will want to consider the two-way processes in the
making of meaning. However, another question emerges:
Does the advertisement make consumers shop, or do the
consumers want to shop regardless of the advertisement?
We can’t say that advertisements will position us exactly
(as young, as old, as students, as thirty-something, etc.),
even though there is a dominant reading (this advertise-
ment seems to speak to ‘me’). Consumers will produce
other readings and rereadings of advertising texts.

THE HARVARD REFERENCING SYSTEM: A SUMMARY

All written work at university, but especially essays and dis-
sertations, will make reference to and cite the work of others.
Quoting references shows your attempts to understand the
work of others, and critically incorporate it into your essay. It
is important, therefore, to be both consistent and accurate.

Citation in the text: author/date method

All ‘evidence’ which is taken from the work of another must
be cited. This is the case whether you are quoting the work

READING, WRITING AND ESSAYS

155

directly, paraphrasing or summarising it. If you use the
Harvard System, you will cite publications in the essay by
using the author’s surname and the year of publication in one
of the forms shown below.

Here are a few examples of how this is done:

1. In a popular study, Hall (1973, p. 76) contended that . . .

2. More controversial studies (e.g. Hennessy, 2000) argue

that . . .

3. Hall (1994a) suggests that . . . (The ‘a’ refers to one of two

publications by Hall in 1994; hence 1994b and so on.)

4. Thornham and Purvis (2005) make clear that . . . (For

a publication with two authors, both surnames are used.)

5. du Gay et al. (1997) have argued . . . (The ‘et al.’ is used

when there are more than two authors for a publication.)

6. A study by Hall (1973, cited in Davis, 2004) . . . (This

makes clear that the source for the Hall evidence is in
Davis and not Hall.)

Page numbers and quotations

1. It is not necessary to use page numbers if you are dis-

cussing the argument of a book in general terms. For
example, ‘Hall’s work (DATE) allows us to see that . . .’

2. When you are making reference to a specific point within

a book or article, then you must give the page numbers (for
example, Author, 1990: 56–7).

3. When you are quoting material of less than perhaps forty

words, then this will be included in the body of the text
using quotation marks.

4. When you are quoting material of substantially more than

forty words, then the quotation will be indented, it will start

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on a new line, it will not use quotation marks, and the page
number will be included in parentheses after the quote.

5. Charts, tables and diagrams should be referenced as though

they were a quotation.

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

The bibliography will come at the end of the essay or dis-
sertation. It lists all the references (and not simply quota-
tions!) to cited documents in the final piece of written
work.

If you use the Harvard System, then the references will be
listed in alphabetical order of authors’ surnames.

If you have cited more than one source by the same
author, they should be listed chronologically (earliest
first), and then by letter in the case of the same year
(2000a, 2000b).

The elements of a bibliographical reference will be taken
from the title page of the publication.

In the bibliography, you use the details as they are given
in the book or journal article.

5a. Reference to a book: Author’s surname, initials, Year of

publication. Title. Edition (if not the first). Place of pub-
lication: Publisher.

5b. Reference to a contribution in a book: Contributing

author’s surname, initials, Year of publication. ‘Title of
contribution’. Followed by Initials and surname of
author or editor of publication followed by ed. or eds if
relevant, Title of book. Place of publication: Publisher,
page number(s) of contribution.

5c. Reference to an article in a journal: Author’s surname, ini-

tials, Year of publication. ‘Title of article’, Title of journal,

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157

Volume number and (part number), page numbers of
contribution.

5d. Reference to a conference paper: Contributing author’s

surname, initials, Year of publication. ‘Title of contribu-
tion’. Followed by: Title of conference proceedings,
including date and place of conference.

5e. Reference to a thesis: Author’s surname, initials, Year of

publication. ‘Title of thesis’. Designation (any type).
Name of institution to which submitted.

Electronic material

1. Make sure readers can see exactly which information is

being cited or quoted from an electronic source.

2. Always refer to a specific document and not simply home

pages or menu pages.

3. Make sure the internet address is one which works!

4. A reference to an internet source must provide a title or

description, a date (either the date of publication or update
or the date of retrieval) and an address (uniform resource
locator, or URL). Where you can, identify the authors of
a document as well.

5. The most important element is the URL. Make sure the

URL does not fail when accessed. Thus, give the exact
address and double-check for updates if these are relevant.

Example
Felluga, Dino. ‘Modules on Lacan: On the Structure of the
Psyche.’ Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Date of last
update, which you can find on the home page Purdue
University. Date you accessed the site. <http://www.purdue.
edu/guidetotheory/psychoanalysis/lacanstructure.html>

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COMMON ERRORS IN WRITING
AND PRESENTING

In academic writing, seminars and presentations, a number of
common errors are repeatedly made by students in the first
year of university. Errors are to be expected when working to
deadlines, especially when other work is due at the same time,
or when ideas are complex and it is difficult to translate them
into the language of an essay. Listed below in italics are some
of the most common ones with brief comments as to how to
overcome the error.

OVER-GENERALISATIONS, GENERALISATIONS
AND SWEEPING STATEMENTS

There is little doubt that ﬁlm noir has served as a model for all
good ﬁlms since the 1950s. It is a genre which is beyond compare –
inside and outside the ﬁlm industry.

I agree with the critic and would join him in arguing that all
popular television drama is unsophisticated.

And it is this cultural theory which is most suitable in the analy-
sis of popular texts. No other theory comes close and this is sup-
ported in all the textbooks I consulted for the essay.

The main point to note about sweeping statements and
generalisations is that, while they might be fine in conversa-
tions, they don’t really stand up to closer scrutiny or analy-
sis. They are invariably unsubstantiated, and they are the
kinds of statements which essay markers call into doubt
straightaway.

159

SUBJECTIVIST AND OVER-PERSONAL – A STEP UP
FROM THE SWEEPING STATEMENT

I personally feel that the ﬁlms of Alfred Hitchcock have never
been surpassed, either for tone or style, since his death.

I truly believe Stephen Spielberg is the best director ever, and this
recent ﬁlm is yet another example of his utter mastery of ﬁlm art
because it is brilliantly made and has an excellent script.

In my considered view, there is no doubt that television has con-
tributed to increased social disorder and moral laxity.

Comments of a deeply personal nature have their place, but
need to be considered very carefully before being included in
an academic essay. Like sweeping generalisations, they are dif-
ficult to justify in academic discourse and would probably be
commented upon by the marker.

PROBLEMS WITH PHRASING . . .

I can follow that point of view, but your point of view is not the
same as the one expressed by the others’ points of view.

. . . AND STRUCTURE

Having said that, sci-ﬁ is the best genre ever, and not agreeing
with critics that of course it has its limitations, there is some sense
that we can disagree that it is still the best genre.

Phrasing and sentence structure should add to the flow and
readability of the essay. The above examples make the essay
difficult to follow. Some ‘advanced’ academic writing is often
guilty of endless qualification of points in one (very long) sen-
tence, though poor phrasing and complex phrasing are not to
be confused. Be as clear as possible.

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SPELLING MISTAKES AND ‘SILLY’ ERRORS

The Wizard of Oz (1999) was directed by Ian Fleming and
starred Judy Garlend.

His family wanted him to do all he could’ve.

The camcorder is shown with up-beat music and as the hip-hop
music ampliﬁes the feel.

It should be Victor Fleming; Ian wrote the Bond novels; the
year is 1939; and the name is Garland. These errors are
usually avoided in essays which have been read and reread in
draft form and read for the final time the day before submit-
ting for formal assessment.

IRRELEVANT INFORMATION

The sequence is a very long sequence and some parts dwell and
dwell over the hill but all in all, all the sequences are good and long.

This is my favourite television series ever and I have seen it twenty
times in order to analyse it as best I can for this dissertation.

Again, irrelevant information is partly because the essay hasn’t
been checked before it was handed in, and partly because
research and reading mean that it is padded out – something to
be avoided in exams.

AMBIGUITY

I can see the man with the telescope.

Who has the telescope?

The food tastes of ancient people.

COMMON ERRORS IN WRITING AND PRESENTING

161

Does the sentence mean ‘the food is awful’ or ‘the eating habits
of ancient civilisations’?

I can ﬁsh.

There are at least three readings of the clause: ‘can’ meaning
s/he is able to; ‘can’ meaning the person has a permit to fish;
and ‘can’ as in the verb ‘to can’ fish. Ambiguity is an interest-
ing feature in writing. On the one hand, ambiguity can mean
that objects, terms or phrases are ambiguous because they are
open to more than one meaning (a favourite discussion in the
field of semiotics and post-structuralism!). On the other hand,
ambiguity in academic writing can mean that the writing has
been rushed. The above examples are obvious enough, but
rushing an essay often means that the arguments are not as
clear as they should or could be.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A separate section discusses the Harvard System and bibliog-
raphy, but take care before including any of the following as
references:

Lecture Notes: universities discourage students from using
lecture notes as major or minor source in essays. Apart from
the fact that the essay should demonstrate extensive reading
and research, you may have misheard what was being said
and present an incorrect argument. Lecture notes are fine
when being used for examination revision but most lectures
and module guides provide readings lists of books and journal
articles.

Internet sites: Using lots of internet sites (unless for the spe-
cific purpose of discussing particular web pages) suggests that
the writer didn’t need to use any books. Internet sites should
only be used in moderation.

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When quoting from a source, always be exact: provide

author details, page number and date of publication. Make
sure that the source in the body of the essay is backed up in
the bibliography by a book or article with author or source
details. The bibliography is important because it allows the
reader to gain a sense of your research and data collection.
The main sources will be mostly academic books and journal
articles, though the latter may only become important during
the second and third years of study.

Plagiarism: All universities have policies regarding plagiarism
(passing someone’s work off as your own and without any
honest and judicious acknowledgement of sources). A bibli-
ography, alongside specific page numbers for quotes in the
body of the essay, allows the reader to see that you have incor-
porated sources and references.

COMMON ERRORS IN WRITING AND PRESENTING

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EXAMINATIONS

In this chapter, some typical examination questions, from a
cross-section of media and cultural studies degree programmes,
are considered. The questions allow you to have an idea of the
topics that will be assessed, as well as the ways in which the
questions are asked. It is more than likely that the questions
are phrased and structured along similar lines to A levels or
Highers, although the content and themes are more typical of
the undergraduate study of media and culture.

PHRASING OF QUESTIONS

One of the first points to make about examinations is that the
marker – a member of staff who has taught on the degree or
who is familiar with the range of ideas – is not looking for or
expecting the student to recite everything that can be said about
a topic. It is more a case of responding in ways which demon-
strate your command of the key debates, and your confidence
in discussing these issues with some fluency and critical sense.
Questions require students to respond in certain ways and not
others. Understanding these question ‘stems’ is important, and
so the most common ones used in examinations are listed here.

Examine. This word is asking students to provide a relatively
thorough written investigation of a particular debate, topic
or object. ‘To examine’ means to look closely at something
from a number of angles. You will ask probing questions and
provide answers so that the shape and potential flaws of the
object under examination become familiar. But you will also
point to the strengths, as you see them, on the basis of your
specific examination.

164

Discuss. Here you are being asked to approach a question in
different ways. There is no one correct way to discuss a topic.
However, it is often worth considering the ways in which your
discussion focuses on one or two issues more than others in
order to illustrate in detail what it is that is being discussed.
See the word ‘discuss’ as a way of engaging the issues in
diverse and stimulating ways. Consider, for instance, how dis-
cussions occur on television documentaries or on radio inter-
views. The best discussions come from participants who cover
the range of material in interesting and sometimes provoca-
tive ways, but who do not stray from the subject.

How far has . . . This kind of phrase is making it clear to stu-
dents that there is a number of ways of thinking about a par-
ticular topic. The answer will probably address the length and
breadth of an issue or field. Again, it will be worth having one
or two areas for specific illustration to support the answer.

Compare and contrast. This sort of question uses words
which make clear that there are least TWO sides to a debate.
Generally, to compare one thing with another is to see simi-
larity, and to contrast one thing with another is to notice
difference. The answer thus needs to indicate similarity and
difference. Try and provide unusual contrasts in order to
make the answer richer or more thought provoking.

Deﬁne and outline. These words are often used in conjunction
with other key terms (as in ‘Outline and examine . . .’). To
outline and define a topic is to offer a fairly short summary
without going into critical detail. Having defined ‘culture’,
for instance, you will be expected to assess its usefulness or
examine its different meanings.

Describe. To describe an object is not to express any judge-
ment or make any assessment of its worth. You will be asked,
for instance, to describe some of the features of contemporary
youth cultures or the features of a particular television genre,
and then go on to analyse, discuss or examine the features.

EXAMINATIONS

165

Assess and evaluate. These words are associated with the exer-
cise of judgement, and often have an element of measurement
attached to them, depending on the phrasing of the question.

Other terms such as brieﬂy, choose and drawing on the work
of are fairly self-explanatory but should always be taken into
account in the interpretation of the examination question. In
addition, always double check ‘either/or’ questions so that
you are not answering both parts of the question if this is not
required. Sometimes questions use quotations from other
texts to elicit student responses. On some occasions, it will be
necessary to know the work of the author, whereas, on other
occasions, the quote is being used to stimulate discussion of a
particular area of study.

EXAMPLES OF QUESTIONS

Module: Introduction to Cultural Studies and Popular Culture
Instructions: Answer TWO questions.
Time: 9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.

1. Examine the role of popular fiction in relation to ONE of the

following: gender identities; masculinity; childhood.

2. Discuss the links that can made between popular music and

subcultural protest.

3. Some consider Americanisation a negative thing, some con-

sider it positive, and some believe Americanisation hasn’t hap-
pened. State briefly what is meant by this term, presenting an
argument which indicates what your own position is in rela-
tion to any aspect of ‘American culture’ in the context of a
country other than the USA.

4. Discuss the different ways in which audiences can ‘read’ tele-

vision programmes, paying attention EITHER to the way the
programme has been put together OR in relation to the notion
of ‘audience’.

5. ‘The Frankfurt School offers limited insight into how popular

culture can be understood’. How do you assess the influence

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of their position in relation to current understandings of
popular culture?

6. Choosing any popular text (film, music lyrics, novel, other)

discuss how your chosen text represents life in cities.

7. How has your study of a specific cultural theory deepened

your understanding of popular culture.

Module: Level I: Themes and Issues
Instructions: Answer TWO questions.
Time: 9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.

1. Compare and contrast the work of Matthew Arnold and

F. R. Leavis with Richard Hoggart’s approach to the study of
culture in his The Uses of Literacy.

2. Discuss Raymond Williams’s contribution to the definition

and study of ONE of the following: society; culture; commu-
nications; tradition.

3. With reference to specific examples, examine how a Marxist

perspective can be used EITHER in the study of culture OR
mass media.

4. Briefly outline the meaning of ‘subculture’ and analyse how

subcultures challenge dominant cultural practices.

5. Examine how a theory of the sign has been used EITHER in

the study of culture OR the study of mass media.

6. ‘I resented seeing Nature and History confused at every turn,

and I wanted to track down, in the decorative display of what-
goes-without-saying, the ideological abuse which is hidden
there’ (Roland Barthes: Mythologies, 1957). Examine Barthes’s
claim, discussing specific examples to support your explanation.

Media Studies
Instructions: Answer TWO questions.
Time: 9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.

1. On the basis of your studies in this module, outline and assess

the contribution of EITHER audience research OR theories
and methods of content analysis to the study of contemporary
media.

2. Drawing on specific examples, discuss the relations between

the media and globalisation and/or imperialism.

EXAMINATIONS

167

3. ‘Television news is never impartial’. Explore this claim, pro-

viding specific examples in your answer.

4. Examine the media’s role in the production and consumption

of celebrities.

5. ‘There is no such thing as “Reality-TV”.’ Discuss this claim in

relation to specific output.

6. Discuss the media’s role in the construction of ONE of the fol-

lowing: time; events; space; locality; sociality.

7. Examine the role of the radio in the representation and/or con-

struction of ‘community’.

8. What, in your view, is the most important matter which con-

fronts media organisations today?

Media and Communications
Instructions: Answer Question 1 and any other question.
Time: 9.30 a.m. to 11.00 a.m.

1. The News. Choose any THREE topics and offer a critical

summary in relation to how media studies understands the
news. You are encouraged to make references to research and
empirical evidence. Each summary should be approximately
one page long.
a/ news agencies; b/ news frameworks; c/ agenda setting;
d/ news globalisation; e/ CNN; f/ the filter model; g/ news
values; h/ propaganda; i/ ITN.
This is a compulsory question.

2. Discuss whether audiences are more usefully understood as

citizens or as consumers.

3. How far are media professionals constrained by media

organisations?

4. Compare and contrast discourse analysis with EITHER frame

analysis OR semiotics.

5. Discuss the ways in which a sociological analysis of the media

differs from a cultural studies analysis.

6. Critically explore the conflicting interpretations of globalisa-

tion.

7. Outline what is meant by ‘media discourse’ and examine how

the media uses discourses of EITHER ethnicity OR social
class.

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BEFORE AND DURING EXAMINATIONS

Most students have studied for examinations before going to
university. Examinations aim to assess undergraduates’ abil-
ities to recall and discuss knowledge in a set time period –
usually forty-five minutes per question. It is not necessary to
know every single detail or fact. However, it is important to
demonstrate a command of the field and an ability to focus
on detail by providing useful illustrations of knowledge.
Reproducing everything you think will be required to answer
the question is not usually what is required by examiners.
Rather, demonstrating an ability to discuss in reflective and
critical ways is a much better indication of students’ knowledge
and skills.

Before

Preparation and planning: In many ways, this starts when the
module does, and so always keep detailed notes which can be
broken down into key points and used constructively in future
revision.

Revision: Always start earlier than you think you should, and
revise in short but productive time periods.

Planning: Identify the days when you will revise, the topics
you will revise, and stick to the plans.

Note-making: Make notes and know the ideas to which the
notes refer. Reading and note-making go hand-in-hand.
Sometimes diagrams and summary lists are useful ways of
remembering what it is you need to recall in the examination.
Highlight key names and concepts.

Previous papers: It can be useful to look at previous examin-
ation questions.

EXAMINATIONS

169

Underpinning Logic: Always have in mind a rationale or an
approach which will structure your answer. Foreground crit-
ical approaches when revising, and be clear about it in the
note-making and general preparation. Use evidence and
remember key names if relevant, drawing attention to the
relevance of themes, theories and perspectives which the
module has covered.

During

Structure: In the examination, briefly map out the structure of
your response to the question, consider how the question is
asking you to respond, and make reference to the question at
least three or four times in the answer. If a key point should
have been included, make a note of where it should have been,
using an asterisk or arrow.

Timing: If the exam questions are equally weighted, make sure
the same amount of time is spent on each question. Answer
your preferred or your ‘second-best’ question first as this can
build up confidence and allow more time for questions you are
less certain about.

Signposting: State the obvious in examination answers and
provide signposts of what you know and how the essay will
develop.

Style: Do not worry too much about exactness of style and
phrasing; the examination essay usually reads better than you
think. However, do write legibly.

Repetition: Do not repeat material in the same answers or in
other essays.

Anxiety: Remember that anxiety is normal in examination
conditions, and remind yourself that you have passed examin-
ations before!

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The module and examinations

Remember that all modules:

1. have key themes and concepts. Remind yourself of these

before and during the examination.

2. are associated with names of theorists and theories. Again,

remind yourself of these before and during the examination.

3. have a rationale and aims and objectives which underpin

the module. Make sure you are aware of this rationale
while revising.

Make sure that examination answers or coursework essays
deal with these features. It is often useful to make reference to
what the module has covered and how this has impacted on
your studies.

Some examinations are essay based; some are short-answer

based; some examinations use multiple choice questions; and
some are text based or provide stimulus material to comment
on. Make sure you know how you are being assessed. However,
also remember that, in many ways, the key skills in essay-
based examination are those associated with essay writing.
Developing skills in essay writing are the ones which will stand
you in good stead in examinations.

Stimulus material

Some examinations will provide an extract to be read in timed
conditions. You will normally be asked to comment on the
extract by way of short answers. Examinations which provide
stimulus material for comment are assessing skills of reading,
knowledge, comprehension, interpretation, summary, précis
and discussion. An extract below gives you some idea of how
to respond to these types of assessments. Typically, stimulus
material is followed by questions, whose weighting is indicated
in brackets, and which gives you some sense of the amount of
time to spend on each response.

EXAMINATIONS

171

Examination: Myths in media and culture
Instructions:

1. Read the stimulus material below.
2. Answer ALL questions.

Time: 9.00 a.m. to 10.15 a.m.

The relations between production, output, consumption, and iden-
tity have been central to the research and analysis of the media and
culture industries over the last twenty years. The recent Open
University course D318 ‘Culture, Media and Identities’ has as two
of its key textbooks Representation: Cultural Representations and
Signifying Practices (1997; ed. Stuart Hall), and Doing Cultural
Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman (1997; eds du Gay et al.).
Both volumes present research findings structured around and
informed by the ‘circuit of culture’, a model which allows culture
to be analysed in terms of representation, identity, production,
consumption and regulation (Hall, ed., 1997: 1–11). Fundamental
to the concepts of media and culture in the Open University course
and textbook series is language, and the key feature of language is
its function as a ‘representational system’. Indeed, at the centre and
at the edges of the circuit of culture is the domain of representa-
tion. Representations – both in the OU series and more generally
in some recent culture study are understood in relation of the
notion of ‘texts’. Roland Barthes’s discussion of the myths which
structure contemporary mass culture proposes that textual repre-
sentations are neither natural nor neutral. His Mythologies (1957)
demonstrates how signs and texts are caught up in a history whose
apparent inevitability is attributable not to an uncontrollable
nature but to the force fields of myth and ideology.

In Barthes’s work, human subjects are also texts and are textual,

cultural more than they are simply ‘natural’. Mythologies is con-
cerned to expose how culture masquerades as nature via the imper-
atives of the myth. But Barthes’s is an exposition which has the
additional effect of highlighting the significance of the cultural con-
sumption of myths. Faces, magazines, sporting events, striptease
shows and eating and drinking are examples which Barthes uses in
his attempt to show how myths are made meaningful in relation to

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their cultural consumption, social exchange and symbolic usage.
His essay ‘The face of Greta Garbo’ (Mythologies 56–7) succinctly
attends to the ways in which subjects’ faces and physiologies
become embodied not on the basis of impartiality or biology but
in the situations of the signs and practices of socio-cultural histo-
ries. Garbo’s cinematic face plunged audiences into ‘the deepest
ecstasy’ (56). The impact of the star is not simply linked to her
filmic or celebrity status but to the subsequent conceptual con-
sumption of the Garbo in the cinematic and cultural economy. In
Barthes’s account, it is clear that consumption is tied to notions of
identity and language: ‘As a language, Garbo’s singularity was of
the order of the concept, that of Audrey Hepburn is of the order
of the substance. The face of Garbo is an Idea, that of Hepburn,
an Event’ (57).

Questions

1. What does the opening paragraph identify as the key issues in

recent media and cultural analysis? (20%)

2. How are these issues linked to the research of Roland Barthes?

(20%)

3. What, in your view, is meant by ‘myth’ in the extract above?

(20%)

4. Making links with your studies in this module, comment crit-

ically any TWO of the sections underlined in the above
extract. (40%)

EXAMINATIONS

173

SEMINARS AND GROUP WORK

1. Seminars are smaller than lectures and are ideally composed

of no more than fifteen students and a lecturer.

2. The seminar is the space where ideas and issues are dis-

seminated, discussed, debated and explored. They are an
essential part of university learning (and assessment in
some cases), and are as important as lectures, tutorials,
workshops and production meetings.

3. There is no one way to do a seminar, but they are usually

structured in very informal ways, with the group ideally
seated facing each other. Sometimes the seminar will be
organised around one key topic. On other occasions, it
may be that stimulus material (for example, a handout or
article, with supporting questions) has been provided, and
students prepare for the seminar the week before the group
meets.

4. Ideally, every student makes some form of contribution,

either in a smaller group of two or three in the seminar
itself, or as part of the general group discussion. Seminars
are to be welcomed with enthusiasm, and they are poten-
tially very enjoyable elements in the learning and teaching
process. Undoubtedly students often feel nervous about
sharing ideas in this kind of setting, but there’s no reason
that seminars shouldn’t be one of the best places to learn.

ENJOYING SEMINARS

1. Students should not feel intimated. Media and culture

studies are principally concerned with how people live

174

with each other in relation to the objects, forms, institu-
tions and practices of the media. Culture is a way of life
which is not fixed but open for debate and discussion –
and so use the seminar to engage with some passion and
humour.

2. Seminars are the place to state what it is about the lecture

or the module that is straightforward, complex, interest-
ing, obvious, worth talking about further or not worth
talking about again.

3. The seminar is the place to make your own mark on how

media, culture and society are talked about.

4. The seminar is not for the lecturers! At least, lecturers give

lectures and students do seminars. The lecturer’s role in the
seminar is to facilitate the discussion.

5. Don’t think lecturers are expecting right answers and that

wrong answers will be mocked. Think of the seminar as
something which is undertaken in a spirit of inquiry and
open discussion.

SEMINAR ACTIVITIES: CULTURE, CONSUMPTION AND
EVERYDAY LIFE

Below is an example of a cultural studies seminar on ‘reading’.
This is material provided at the beginning of the seminar
(which lasts an hour). The seminar brief accompanied the
lecture of the previous day (which was on the theme of con-
sumer cultures). The example is included here in order to
provide students with a sense of how seminars are not to be
feared. It is a forum in which to challenge, question and
understand different positions and arguments. In addition,
seminars are great places for understanding the ideas that will
be used in the writing of the essay for a module, etc.

Key aim: to explore the relationships between identity and the
production and consumption of ‘texts’.

SEMINARS AND GROUP WORK

175

GROUP WORK

Some assignments at degree level are assessed wholly or in
part by means of group-work projects and presentations.
Sometimes the group is required to respond to a particular
theoretical brief (along the lines of the seminar activity above),
a piece of ethnographic or audience research, or team task in
a production-based group (see ‘Production projects’, p. 000).

Group work means you will need to:

1. Consider the extent to which a common or collective

understanding of the task has been thought through.

2. Ensure that each group member is in agreement with deci-

sions or strategies.

3. Agree tasks and share roles and responsibilities.

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Task One: What is identity? What defines or describes your
own identity? Is identity the same as (a) personality (b) indi-
vidual (c) subject

Task Two: READING (novels, comics, magazines, internet site,
other)

• How do you define ‘reading’?
• How does reading define you?
• Is reading a production- or consumption-based activity?
• A novel: is the author the most important figure in the

determination of meaning.

• What is meant by ‘the death of the author’ and ‘the birth

of the reader’?

• ‘Meaning IS fixed in the text.’ Discuss.
• ‘Meaning is NOT fixed in the text.’ Discuss.
• What’s the relationship between consuming a text and pro-

ducing an identity?

• What reading skills are required in a media-literate society?

4. Make sure that all group members understand how work

will be assessed, and how far the task is assessed on indi-
vidual contributions.

5. Book equipment, rooms, fix meeting times.

6. Establish group-working practices.

7. Agree deadlines, time limits and timescales.

8. Be prepared to confront conflict directly, and agree any

changes to plans collectively.

9. Agree to monitor workloads and outputs.

SEMINARS AND GROUP WORK

177

DISSERTATIONS, RESEARCH
PROJECTS AND PRODUCTIONS

EXTENDED RESEARCH PROJECTS

A research project or dissertation demonstrate a student’s con-
tinued input and research effort over a prolonged period, and
they are key ways of assessing work in the final year of study.
The research project itself will very much depend on the sort
of degree programme being followed. It is possible to identify
three routes, depending on the degree route being pursued:

Dissertation

This will be a piece of written work, not usually less than
8,000 words, which investigates a key question and is pre-
sented in the form of a detailed argument. The analysis and
discussion will be structured according to specific conventions,
but normally include the abstract, introduction, specific chap-
ters, conclusion and record of sources used. The dissertation is
a fairly standard option on media studies, film studies and cul-
tural studies programmes. Examples later in the chapter illus-
trate some of the ways of doing dissertations and production
projects.

Employment-related project OR audience research
project

This is a piece of work which draws on and/or combines strate-
gies such as ethnography, social research, quantitative analysis
and organisational theory with the aim of providing useful
data on the basis of a specific research question. This route

178

usually involves working with a local group or community, a
business or media organisation, using questionnaires, survey
methods or ethnographic methods. This kind of research is
fairly typical of degree programmes which combine media
and/or cultural studies or media production with journalism,
marketing, business studies, sociology, psychology or other
social science courses.

Production project

This route is one that is often taken by students on production-
based degree courses. The project will usually entail the pro-
duction of a final piece of work (for example, short film, radio
broadcast, newspaper articles, photographic exhibition). This
is an ideal way for production students to demonstrate skills
in, for example, sound, editing, reporting, medium-specific
skills, working with others in crew and putting together a pro-
duction which is assessed by staff and increasingly by peers.
The project is usually supported by an accompanying rationale
which justifies and discusses the logic of the project.

Common features
Before offering some examples of initial proposals and final
research project proposals, it is possible to identify some of
the common features of the three different research projects,
and the reasons why projects such as these are used in final
assessments.

1. They provide an opportunity to engage in extended

research over a prolonged period.

2. A key idea or proposal can be developed thoroughly.

3. A range of skills can be assessed at the same time.

4. Final-year projects mean students can develop specialisms.

5. The project is something which can be usefully and prof-

itably discussed on CVs and job applications.

DISSERTATIONS, RESEARCH PROJECTS

179

6. The project assesses the linkages between critical, intellec-

tual, analytic, generic, practical and employability skills.

7. Projects can often lead to postgraduate study or specific

employment routes.

Research, whether in the form of a dissertation, an extended
essay or social-scientific investigation or ethnographic project,
will be presented in accordance with the practices and conven-
tions of the university. However, a number of observations may
be made which will assist students new to this kind of assess-
ment. The final piece of work will always have:

1. A front cover which is also a title page.

2. An abstract (of no more than one side of A4) which offers

in summary form an overview of the project.

3. A contents page (list of section, chapters, sub-sections, etc.).

4. A list of sources and/or bibliography.

5. Appendices (optional).

One of the most common ways of bringing together the infor-
mation or the content is as follows:

1. Introduction; or statement of aims and objectives.

2. Review of sources, or literature review

3. Methods; or methodology

4. Discussion of results.

5. Conclusion

Variations might include:

1. Introduction.

2. Chapters or sections.

3. Conclusion.

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Details of structures
The abstract: an abstract states in summary form the context of
a research project. It outlines briefly the background, purpose
and context of the project and provides a résumé of the research
methods used, the findings and the conclusion. It does not offer
detailed discussion, and it does not comment in critical or eval-
uative ways. The abstract is not normally longer than one side
of A4, word-processed and single spaced.

The introduction: the introduction should describe the context
and the setting of the research project, allowing the reader to
gain a sense of its purpose, aims and objectives, and why these
matter in relation to the chosen field. The introduction will
explain the reasons for the way that the research has been
carried out in the way it has, and may identify some of the very
specific questions that have been considered.

Literature/sources review: this is a section which might be
included in the introduction or across introductory chapters of
the dissertation. However, the main aim of the literature
review is to establish that your research shows: (1) links
with key research in the field; (2) your knowledge of which
research (journals, books, other) is the most recent and the
most relevant; and (3) that you are alert to and address key
concepts, perspectives and theories. The review can be organ-
ised in a number of ways, but generally short extracts or cita-
tions from key texts are grouped around themes or chronology
or approaches. If the dissertation is concerned with popular
culture, then it might be that the literature review breaks
down the broad area into more manageable segments (for
example, popular youth cultures, theories of popular culture,
popular music, youth cultures, and popular youth cultures
and girls). Literature reviews arranged chronologically will
discuss material by date of publication. Thus, a dissertation on
audience studies and media reception will deal with material
from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and so on. Or, it may deal with
material in terms of key responses to a piece of work over a
twenty-year period (for example, responses to Hall’s encoding/

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181

decoding model from 1973 to 1993). A literature review
which is organised around themes may well select material
which draws on feminist, Marxist and semiotic approaches to
media audiences.

Methodology: this section is more relevant to some dissert-
ations than others. In the case of the dissertation proposal, it
may be that the section on methodology is not a major part
of the dissertation or research project. Let’s imagine the dis-
sertation is an investigation into how audiences interpret the
national TV news in a one-week period. The section on
methodology will provide an overview of the research ques-
tions which the dissertation is examining. It will then consider
specifically ‘who’ the audience or the sample is and whether the
interview sample should be organised according to age, loca-
tion, social class, gender, family group or other criteria. In your
methodology, you should be attentive to the methods of sam-
pling, the restrictions which might impair the work under-
taken, and the procedures that will be adopted for data
collection. It may be that the dissertation needs to demonstrate
analyses in statistical ways, making links between quantitative
and qualitative data. All data collection and interpretation
needs to be accurate, but accuracy can be understood in dif-
ferent ways.

Results and discussions: there is no one correct way to present
results or discussions of data. Often the university will provide
students with guidelines appropriate to the degree programme
being studied. Some dissertations will present results separately
followed by discussion of them. If a results section is required:

1. Present your findings in charts, tables, or figure so that

general trends or problems can be seen at a glance.

2. List important findings, results, patterns, exceptions and

trends.

3. Comment on the results, especially where the most impor-

tant findings are concerned.

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4. Present these findings in logical and sequential ways (for

example, 1, 1.1, 1.1a, etc.). Again, the conventions of how
to do this will be listed in the university’s guidelines.

Discussion of results can vary, although all discussions should
make reference to the main aims and objectives of the research
project. The most important findings and questions should be
discussed in thorough ways, and should draw on a literature
review and your own critical analysis and appraisal. The dis-
cussions will allow you to consider a range of explanations,
hypotheses, etc.

Conclusion: in an extended piece of work, the conclusion
should consider a range of implications and amplify the
arguments made throughout the project. You might consider
making recommendations, suggesting strategies for future
work or investigation, note areas for improvement or further
development. No piece of work covers everything, and so
there is no requirement to imply or claim that the research has
exhausted all the issues.

PRODUCTION-BASED PROJECTS

In many media and cultural studies courses, there are oppor-
tunities to do an extended piece of work or project which
relates to production modules. Production-based work can
include journalism and writing for the media, photography,
film, radio, digital media, web design or other media practice.
The project might also be combined with work experience
or an industrial placement. Many media-production-based
programmes will require students to demonstrate technical
skills and abilities in the use of media equipment, working
according to professional codes and regulations, and in teams
where decisions reflect individual initiative as well as group
efforts. It is vital to check how the project will be assessed
and to make sure that you identify the criteria you need to
address.

DISSERTATIONS, RESEARCH PROJECTS

183

It is worth briefly considering some of the specific topics

within production modules which students might develop
into research projects:

• screenwriting in the style of a particular programme genre

• production projects in the style of documentary genres or

hybrid genres

• writing for a specific magazine and with a particular brief

• improving interpersonal communications in organisations

• radio news coverage of war and conflict

• media globalisation and cybercultures

• web design

• sound and audio studies

• media ethics and the reporting of conflict

• media ethics and photography

• interactive DVD

• radio drama

Examples of projects

It is usually the case that you will study ‘research’ modules
during the second year of the course which prepare you for
the research and study skills required at level III. However,
students usually find that there are one or two key topics
which interest them and which will be developed into research
or production projects at level III.

If we take the radio news module from the list above, how

might a proposal develop from the taught classes? A group of
students might decide to conduct research in the local commu-
nity or on behalf of a specific group with the aim of producing
a radio broadcast. (Organisations might commission the group

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to do the research.) The topic which interested the group in the
radio module was ‘radio news and representing disability and
social marginality’. One way of imagining the project is as
follows:

1. A number of residents who use Age Concern are increas-

ingly alarmed by the decline in public transport links
between the city centre and the suburbs.

2. You (and your group) are a radio production/broadcast

team based at the local station, and you have agreed as a
team to investigate the matter.

3. The radio station has generously agreed a ten-minute slot

on the sixty-minutes lunchtime news report.

(Further ways of imagining this production project include a
double-page report in the local newspaper produced by one
student, a series of articles over a four-week period produced
by a team of students or a report for a TV station, also pro-
duced by a team of students.)

For the purposes of the team assessment, the project might

involve:

1. a group of students who will agree specific tasks and roles

for which they are individually assessed;

2. students keeping a portfolio of evidence which documents

their contributions and reflections; and

3. students assessing other members’ ongoing contributions

in the production of the radio bulletin.

Responsibility for the project is divided among the group of
students (group as well as individual pieces are assessed).

1. The end product (for example, radio report or short film

in the case of visual texts) will be broadcast or screened to
tutors and peers. Specific criteria will be used to assess the
quality of the piece. Each member of the group will receive

DISSERTATIONS, RESEARCH PROJECTS

185

an individual mark (based on agreed contributions and
roles) and a group mark. The portfolio of evidence will
also contribute to the individual mark of each group
member.

2. A group report (or an executive summary) of the project’s

rationale will discuss the extent to which the group
achieved what it set out to do. Often this takes the form of
the final report which accompanies the production itself.
Remember: it is the production proposal or rationale
which makes the project seem viable or not, and so it is
important to map out your production rationale clearly
and convincingly (see below).

Two other examples of production projects might include
interactive DVD and television documentary production.
Interactive DVD projects will allow students to show
advanced skills in new media production, demonstrating in
addition a critical knowledge of recent technology, and com-
petent production management skills. Production files will
allow the student to show abilities and critical skills in being
able to evaluate and contextualise their production work in
relation to theoretical and practical concerns. Similarly, a
practical project in TV documentary production will allow
students to combine theoretical and practical skills in a
project which results in a video documentary. It is more than
likely that this project will be group based. Students will be
assessed on their knowledge of production techniques but
also in relation to detailed fieldwork and research, allowing
the group to evidence a knowledge and understanding of the
processes of the media industry. The rationale of the project
will also be assessed by means of pre-production and produc-
tion files, and subsequent production management. As with
all practical projects, it is important to allow the final pro-
duction piece to express your knowledge of underpinning
concepts and knowledge of media and cultural theories.
A critical awareness of intended audience, the reception
contexts, the politics of representation and the economic

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and industrial contexts would be considered and reflected in
the rationale, the draft scripts and the management of the
piece.

PRODUCTION RATIONALE

The projects listed above all assume a production rationale or
justification. Some of the questions which would be addressed
at the outset of the project are listed below.

Rationale – why do you intend to carry out this
production?

• Why are you interested in this production project?

• What is the key idea or ideas which informs the production

project?

• What will the production finally demonstrate?

• How does it relate to other productions in the field?

Approaches to production

• What materials will the production use or require?

• Who is involved in the production and why?

• If the production involves external agencies, how will you

access your target groups?

• What information will you get from them and how will you

record it?

• Why do you think your production is best tackled the way

you propose?

DISSERTATIONS, RESEARCH PROJECTS

187

Organising and planning

• What do you think your biggest problems will be (scale,

materials, personnel, etc.), and how do you propose to
resolve them?

• How will the actual production take shape?

• How will it be organised over the period allocated for the

production?

DOING PRODUCTION PROJECTS

In all production projects – whether based on individual or
group assessment – it is vital that the production tutors can
sense that:

1. The aims and objectives are clearly stated.

2. The structure of the project is explicit.

3. A clear outline of roles and responsibilities of individual

students is obvious from the start.

4. The weighting of individual contributions is made clear

from the outset (often this is set by the module or the
degree course).

Make sure that tutors can gauge how the project will:

1. address the specific issues of the production brief;

2. allow abilities to be assessed in relation to production-

specific skills as well as underlying theoretical knowledge;
and

3. enable all group members to demonstrate individual and

collective working practices.

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MEDIA PRODUCTION COURSES

Chapter 1,‘What Are the Media? What Is Media Studies’, out-
lines in fairly general terms how media studies and media pro-
duction degrees are structured. However, there are some
students who, while they may have taken media studies at
GCSE or ‘A’ level, have limited experience of media produc-
tion before going to university. This section offers more
detailed observations and comments, and aims to encourage
students who don’t have media skills or training not to be
deterred from making inquiries about studying media pro-
duction.

EXPERIENCES OF MEDIA PRODUCTION

No two media production courses are the same. Each will have
slightly different aims and objectives. In large media studies
departments, there will also be variations based on specialist
interests (for example, new media, video production, print
journalism). However, the main points to note about media
production can be summarised as follows:

1. You will be trained in a range of media production skills

(ranging from newspaper journalism to working in sound),
and it is usual for students to attend classes in media theory
and critical studies.

2. The production degree will train students to produce work

for a variety of audiences and target groups. Journalism
students, for instance, may well have to produce a news-
paper or magazine, and have responsibilities which cover
a range of skills.

189

3. The professional skills acquired in media production

degrees will invariably relate closely to experiences in the
media industries and media organisations. The skills
acquired will be media based and related closely to pro-
fessional and industrial practice. In addition, interper-
sonal, administrative and intellectual abilities will be
developed.

4. Working in the media industries also means working

to tight deadlines and under constraints determined by
audiences as well as the media organisation. Thus, time-
management skills will be emphasised throughout your
development on the media degree.

5. Media programme makers, in addition to learning how to

meet external deadlines, will also make programmes for
external agencies, and the degree course will provide
opportunities and experiences to demonstrate skills in
these areas.

6. Often, degree programmes will facilitate work place-

ments or allow students to consolidate employability skills.
Experiences might include: working in design companies;
shadowing key personnel in marketing, advertising and PR
companies; doing a job (or shadowing) in local newsrooms
(for example, in television or in the press office); working
with the voluntary sector on the production of promotional
or campaign-based materials; and working in university PR
and marketing departments. Most degree programmes also
encourage students to seek out media placements of their
own choosing, in the UK or abroad.

Examples of modules

The ‘skills’ side of a media production degree is important,
but the skills themselves are always integrally connected to
the wider theoretical and conceptual questions of broadcast-
ing, culture and society, and the media. We can consider these

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links in relation to a number of fairly typical production
modules that may be taught at level I.

Journalism

An introductory module in journalism, for instance, will
develop students’ knowledge of some of the key terms and
concepts of the newspaper industry. Skills will usually be
taught in small classes which deal with understanding how the
newspaper industry operates. Although students will learn
how to write according to different newspaper formats and
genres, critical study of the format or genre will be as import-
ant as the actual skills acquired. Journalism requires know-
ledge of social and political issues, and it also requires
knowledge of ethics in the context of the media. Skills in inter-
viewing and researching, newsgathering and copy presenta-
tion will be taught in relation to theories concerning the role
of the journalist and the function of news reporting in con-
temporary societies.

Television studio

Similarly, a module such as ‘The Television Studio’ will also
be skills based, and will be organised around planning, struc-
turing and recording ‘as live’ a news programme. Work in
television studios, however, also requires solid grounding
in the operation of a television studio, multi-camera work
and other equipment as well as knowledge and experience
of production roles. However, these skills will be acquired
in a context which asks questions about television and
public service broadcasting, digital media, and deregulation.
Alongside learning a range of procedures and techniques (for
example, training in vision mixing, floor managing, directing
and camera operating), students will appraise their work in
relation to others, or present a file of the student’s own crit-
ical assessment of television viewing.

MEDIA PRODUCTION COURSES

191

Cybercultures

Increasingly, students on media studies and media production
degrees take modules in internet or web studies (an area
which is often referred to as ‘cybercultures’). Modules in this
field provide excellent opportunities for linking theory, prac-
tice, critique and skills. A module in cybercultures will involve
practical skills, but it will also establish a knowledge base
for the understanding of the theoretical and conceptual
issues surrounding identity, politics and globalisation. This is
because the internet is as much about design, layout and tech-
nology as it is about theories of communication, the construc-
tion of virtual communities and concepts of space. A module
in cybercultures, then, might examine the history of the inter-
net and the emergence of cyber-communities, encouraging stu-
dents to examine issues which encompass online fan cultures,
the politics of digital copyright and language and identification
in the new media. This is also an area which proves very rich
for dissertation research.

Radio production

A radio production module, for instance, will introduce stu-
dents to the methods and techniques of radio production.
Sessions might consider studio operations and functions,
knowledge and production of live radio sequences, and inves-
tigation of radio formats and genres. But because radio is in
very obvious, and perhaps not-so-obvious ways, a medium of
voice and speech, so students will be trained to assess and cri-
tique the language and contexts of speech inside and outside
radio. In addition, students might well produce a radio package
according to a specific brief and conventions (see earlier
chapters). In a radio module, intellectual and practical skills
include researching, note-making, interviewing, digital editing,
drafting/writing, studio operation and presentation. But
because radio broadcasting is never detached from the society
in which the medium makes sense, so a key part of the assess-

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ment in a radio module might involve listening to radio and
compiling a radio log or portfolio.

Sound

Radio – but also television and film – are concerned with
sound. Again, modules dealing with this area of media pro-
duction prove interesting in terms of how sound is used to
generate a sense of image, context and actuality. Modules
concerned with sound recording will develop skills in using
portable recorders and microphones, encouraging students to
work with sound in a range of acoustic situations and con-
ditions, and in order to generate different impacts. Moreover,
creating and transferring digital audio files (MP3 and
MIDI), or using a variety of sources for recording and subse-
quent editing, are abilities which will also be developed.
However, to the extent that sound raises a number of impor-
tant questions for the media (for example, the psychology of
‘hearing’ and ‘listening’), so a module of this kind is as inter-
esting in terms of its conceptual frameworks as much as its
skills base.

MEDIA PRODUCTION: ASSESSMENTS

Each practical module will be assessed in slightly different
ways. However, the following general guidelines provide a
sense of how practical modules are marked.

1. It is important that the work is fully completed, especially

where there are a number of elements being assessed.
Never submit a project which is only half finished.

2. It is vital that the production or project demonstrates skills

and competencies in the relevant medium. Moreover, if
you are required to work to industry guidelines, make sure
this is also brought out in the submitted piece.

MEDIA PRODUCTION COURSES

193

3. All production modules require students to link theory

and practice. Always demonstrate knowledge, where rele-
vant, of cultural, social and ethical issues which the project
or production might raise.

4. If management skills are being assessed, then these must be

evidenced in portfolios, reports or summaries of work.

5. The critical evaluation of the project is essential. Make

sure this covers in detail how you achieved what you set
out to at the beginning of the project. Indicate where and
why changes were made to original plans.

6. Make sure that the project shows your awareness of indus-

trial and institutional concerns (where this is relevant).

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EMPLOYABILITY AND PROGRESS
FILES

The range of jobs media and cultural studies graduates enter
is vast, and it includes media-based and non-media-based set-
tings. Most universities train students to self-assess and
monitor their ‘employability skills’. This means that students
are not simply receiving training in critical and practical skills
but are additionally demonstrating skills in team work, com-
munications and administration, leadership, and research.

CONTEXT AND HISTORY OF EMPLOYABILITY
AND PROGRESS FILES

In the UK and elsewhere, degree programmes are monitored in
various ways, and on a regular basis. Staff research output,
publications and scholarly activities, alongside teaching quality
are all assessed. Teaching quality is an important measure for
staff and for students, and so is research. Assessment grades in
these areas are available for all universities, though it has to be
stressed that universities and degree programmes should be
judged on a range of criteria and not simply ‘official statistics’.

However, it is against this backdrop that students are

increasingly asked to maintain progress files (PFs), and to
monitor their employment skills. Briefly, progress files are
records of the way a student has attempted to monitor their
progress in intellectual, practical and personal ways whilst at
university. ‘Employability’ refers to employment skills and the
student’s preparedness in:

1. working with others;

2. showing initiative and leadership;

195

3. using ITC and databases;

4. intellectual spheres such as research, and critical and con-

ceptual thinking;

5. giving presentations; and

6. time and self-management, and being organised.

Employability skills are generic and not simply vocational or
work-based. As with most types of audits and assessments of
skills and performance, there are reasons to endorse as well
as to question critically and improve the strategies which
governments require universities to have in place to support
students.

MONITORING AND SUPPORTING STUDENTS’
LEARNING

Perhaps the best way to understand progress files and employ-
ability is in terms of ‘support’.

1. Universities provide undergraduate and postgraduate

courses, but universities are also research institutions. In
fulfilling these functions, students receive various levels of
support, and one area of support is in the providing of
intellectual and personal space. Such a space should enable
students to monitor progress and needs in relation to the
intellectual formations of the degree programme as well as
the generic skills sought by employers.

2. Employers require students to have a knowledge which is

degree or content specific. However, transferable and
employment skills allow students to demonstrate a readi-
ness or preparedness for work after university.

3. Learning at university is very much about learning new

knowledges and critical skills as much as it is about learn-
ing skills of self-reliance. Lectures and seminars cannot,

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and will not, provide you with all the skills and knowledge
you need. Regular self-monitoring of your own progress
and needs in intellectual as well as career-related domains
is thus an important process to put in place at the start of
university life.

4. Equally, degrees in all universities are assessed not just by

way of end-of-term, unseen examinations. Students are
assessed regularly in formative or ongoing ways. Seminars,
course-work essays, group projects and portfolios of evi-
dence are ways of demonstrating your intellectual and crit-
ical development as well as your progress in relation to
skills development.

5. It is important to make the progress and employability

processes at universities part and parcel of career and voca-
tional formation. However, employability and progress
files are integral to a process which sees employment as
tied to intellectual, critical and academic formations.
Employability is not about learning how to do a job but
about learning how to think critically, how to work with
concepts and complexity, how to work with others on
group tasks, learning how to manage research projects, and
working to deadlines.

6. How you measure your own progress is something uni-

versities are interested in, partly as a way of improving
how academics understand the processes of teaching and
learning, and partly as a way of regularly responding to
internal and external assessments of university perfor-
mance. It is important, therefore, to take an active part
in how your learning takes place, and to be prepared
to offer feedback about the university’s resources and
facilities.

7. The monitoring of your skills in relation to employability

and general progress provides a useful way of engaging
with your personal tutor, a study skills tutor or the uni-
versity careers service. For instance, students often need
help with confidence building but don’t make this clear

EMPLOYABILITY AND PROGRESS FILES

197

enough; or students need regular reminders about the
conventions of academic writing and are reluctant to ask
for further guidance. Use the progress file system to log
development issues such as these, and make small but
important advances in progress. The progress file is a semi-
structured and supportive process, and it should allow
students to strengthen their relationship to their own
learning, planning and reflection.

The progress file is a process associated with intellectual and
critical activities which, ideally, should:

1. promote a greater insight into how you learn, how you

study and how you research;

2. clarify how to increase independence and confidence in

learning;

3. provide some sense of how to think and talk about

employment and career possibilities after university;

4. provide some sense of direction in the field of postgradu-

ate study and/or further training; and

5. promote positive approaches to study and learning

Portfolios of work

Modules which combine academic content with employabil-
ity skills will often require students to submit portfolios of
work. The portfolio will be used to assess your input on the
module concerned, and it will demonstrate your ongoing
investment and formation in a particular area of study. Often,
research-based modules or modules which involve a number
of components (for example, journalism) use portfolios as the
principal means of assessment.

The following summary lists the elements which will com-

prise the portfolio of work.

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Example
Module: Research and employment-related studies: Level II (20
credits)
All work will be submitted in a portfolio whose contents will be
ordered as follows:
Progress File: This will cover the period of semester two. (15%)
Summary of ﬁndings: This will list the key findings of the ethno-
graphic research (or other agreed research topic) undertaken
within a small group. (500–700 words) (20%)
Annotated literature review: This will identity and summarise
three key books or other academic sources used in research
project/work. (1k words) (20%)
Job search: CV, job application form completed and 1,000 word
summary of job search skills. (15%)
Personal Progress Presentation: This will be presented during the
assessment sessions in week 9 or 10 of the module. (30%)

Assessment criteria
Portfolios of work will be assessed as follows:

1. Work submitted in the portfolio is detailed and clear.

2. Files, summaries, CVs and applications are presented in

ways which make the aims and objectives of the module
transparent.

3. Portfolios are ordered and structured.

4. Portfolios demonstrate evidence of self-critical reflection

and application, and students’ reflections show aware-
ness of areas of strength and weakness in balanced and
logical ways.

5. Action planning is clearly but realistically established,

with aims and objectives built into progress files or self-
reflections.

6. Students’ critical reflections attempt to assess whether or

not goals or the aims of research/learning aims have been
achieved.

EMPLOYABILITY AND PROGRESS FILES

199

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7. Where appropriate, projects have been undertaken and/or

completed according to conventions and agreed formulae.

8. Students have attempted to synthesise prior experiences

and learning, and have considered directions for further
research or reading.

FURTHER READING IN STUDY SKILLS

Clark, V., Baker, J. and Lewis, E. (2002), Key Concepts and Skills for Media

Studies, London: Hodder Arnold.

Cottrell, S. (2003), The Study Skills Handbook, Basingstoke: Palgrave, now

Palgrave Macmillan.

Denscombe, M. (2002), Ground Rules for Good Research: A 10 Point

Guide for Social Researchers, Buckingham: Open University Press.

Denscombe, M. (2003), The Good Research Guide: For Small-scale Social

Research Projects, Buckingham: Open University Press.

Gaskell, P. (1998), Standard Written English, Edinburgh: Edinburgh

University Press.

Hicks, W. and Adams, S. (2001), Interviewing for Journalists, London and

New York: Routledge.

Keeble, R. (2001), Ethics for Journalists, London and New York:

Routledge.

Peck, J. and Coyle, M. (1999), The Student’s Guide to Writing: Spelling,

Punctuation and Grammar, Basingstoke: Macmillan, now Palgrave
Macmillan.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED
READING

The following books prove useful in the study of media and
culture. They variously provide general outlines of the field,
offer systematic coverage of key themes, concepts and theo-
rists, stimulate further discussion, and supply details of further
reading.

Barthes, R. (1973), Mythologies, London: Jonathan Cape.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. (1997), Doing

Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, London: Sage.

Hall, S. (ed.) (1997), Representation: Cultural Representations and

Signifying Practices, London: Sage.

Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (1992 (1980)), Culture, Media,

Language, London: Routledge.

Marris, P. and Thornham, S. (1999), Media Studies: A Reader, Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press.

Storey, J. (2001), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction,

3rd edn, Harlow: Pearson Education. http://cwx.prenhall.com/book-
bind/pubbooks/storey_ema/. This also has exercises, self-assessments
and a useful glossary of key terms.

Williams, R. (1965), The Long Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Williams, R. (1988; 1976), Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society,

London: Fontana.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND SOURCES CONSULTED

Ang, I. (1985), Watching Dallas, London: Methuen.
Barthes, R. (1973), Mythologies, London: Jonathan Cape.
Bengston, D. N. and Fan, D. P. (1999), ‘Conflict over Natural Resource

Management: A Social Indicator on Analysis of Online News Media
Text’, Society and Natural Resources, 12: 493–500.

Berger, A. A. (1982), Media Analysis Techniques, London: Sage.
Burton, G. (2000), Talking Television: An Introduction to the Study of

Television, London: Arnold.

Chomsky, N. (1991), Deterring Democracy, London and New York:

Verso.

201

Chomsky, N. and Herman, E. S. (1988), Manufacturing Consent: The

Political Economy of the Mass Media, New York: Pantheon.

Creeber, G. (ed.) (2001), The Television Genre Book, London: BFI.
Devereux, E. (2003), Understanding the Media, London: Sage.
Du Gay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. (1997), Doing

Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman, London: Sage.

Entman, R. M. (1993), ‘Framing: Towards clarification of a Fractured

Paradigm’, Journal of Communication, 43(4): 51–8.

Glasgow Media Group (1985), War and Peace News, London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul.

Gripsrud, J. (2000), Understanding Media Culture, London: Hodder

Arnold.

Hall, S. (ed.) (1997), Representation: Cultural Representations and

Signifying Practices, London: Sage.

Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (1992 (1980)), Culture, Media,

Language, London: Routledge.

Hermes, J. (1995), Reading Women’s Magazines, Cambridge: Polity.
Holland, P. (1997), The Television Handbook, London: Routledge.
Huston, A. C. (1992), Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television

in American Society, Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
Press.

Iyengar, S. (1991), Is Anyone Responsible? How Television Frames Political

Issues, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Jenkins, H. (1992), Textual Poachers, New York: Routledge.
Klein, N. (2001), No Logo, London: Harper Collins.
Lacey, N. (2000), Narrative and Genre: Key Concepts in Media Studies,

Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, now Palgrave Macmillan.

McCullagh, C. (2002), Media Power: A Sociological Introduction,

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

McQuail, D. (1992 (1983)), Mass Communication Theory: An Introduction,

2nd edn, London: Sage.

Morley, D. (1980), The ‘Nationwide’ Audience, London: BFI.
Radway, J. (1987), Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular

Literature, London: Verso.

Scheufele, D. A. (1999), ‘Framing as a Theory of Media Effects’, Journal of

Communication, Winter: 103–22.

Thornham, S. and Purvis, T. (2004), Television Drama: Theories and

Identities, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Watson, J. (1998), Media Communication: An Introduction to Theory

and Process, Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, now Palgrave
Macmillan.

Williams, R. (1965), The Long Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Williams, R. (1988; 1976), Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and

Society, London: Fontana.

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USEFUL INTERNET RESOURCES FOR MEDIA AND CULTURAL
STUDIES

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~favretto/media.html
www.theory.org.uk/
www.michaelmoore.com/

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RECOMMENDED READING

203

agency, 34–5, 74–5
Ali G, 54–8
audiences, 4–5, 7, 34, 69–77, 91–4
authorship, 94–5

Barthes, R., 41–3, 121–5
BBC, 85–6
bibliographies, 162–3
binary opposition, 52–3
Britishness, 26–8, 50–4

careers, 8, 18
celebrity cultures, 56–8, 64–5
Centre for Contemporary Cultural

Studies, 101

circuit of culture, 128–31
content analysis, 113–16
critical approaches, 36–7, 143,

147–8, 150–5

cross-cultural research, 102–4
cultural consumption, 42, 90–8
cultural hybridity, 54–5
cultural production, 34, 42, 90–8
cybercultures, 192

De Saussure, F., 41
deficit model of culture, 86–7
definitions of culture, 21, 26–32
degree programmes, 3, 4, 11–14,

16–17, 22–6, 104, 106, 110

discourse, 91
dissertations, 178–83
drama, 63–7

economy, 35, 46–7, 72–3, 91–2, 93
employability, 18–19, 195–200

employment-related projects,

178–9

encoding-decoding model,

124–8

English literature, 50–2
Englishness, 50–2
essay writing, 145–58
ethnicities, 54–7
ethnography, 73–5, 101–3
everyday life, 26–8, 34–5, 52
examinations, 164–73
exchange value, 35, 92, 130

fantasy, 65–7
femininity, 54
film analysis, 60–7
frame analysis, 116–19

genre, 46, 60–7, 96–7
Glasgow University Media Group,

113–16

globalisation, 116
Gramsci, A., 100, 104
group work, 174–7

Hall, S,. 125–9
Harvard referencing, 155–8
high culture, 88–9
Hitchcock, A., 67
Hoggart, R., 32
Hollywood, 97–8

identity, 48, 50–9, 127, 129
ideology, 36, 48–9, 73–6, 119,

123, 125, 131

ITV, 85–6

204

INDEX

journalism, 191

language, 50–1
learning outcomes, 137–8

Marxism, 93, 99–100
masculinity, 54
mass culture, 84–5
meaning, 28–33, 36, 90
media, definitions, 3–6
media, object of study, 3–8
media analysis, 5–6, 7
media images, 41–3
Mills and Boon romance, 82–4,

modular structure, 15–17, 24–5,

136

module handbooks, 135, 136–7,

140–2

narrative, 60–7
nationhood, 124–5
news, 76–7, 117–18, 125
newspapers, 70–2

personal tutor, 136
plagiarism, 163
political economy, 42
politics, 35, 46–7, 97–100
popular culture, 54–7, 79–89
producers, 5, 7–8
production-based projects, 179,

183

production courses, 12–13,

189–94

progress files, 9, 195–200
propaganda model, 75
public sphere, 72, 75

qualitative approaches, 9–10
quantitative approaches, 9–10

radio, 192–3
reading, 82–4, 95–6
representation, 41–3, 129
romance, 82–4

seminars, 174–7
semiotics, 41–4, 123–5
skills, 18–19
structuralism, 123–5
subcultures, 99–107

television studio, 191
texts, 34, 41–4
textual analysis, 41–9
theory, 11, 13–14, 36–7, 43–4,

121–31

time management, 139, 142–4

use value, 35, 92, 130

values, 28–30

Williams, R., 30–3, 34, 37, 79–82,

104

INDEX

205

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