Introducing and Progressing Cultural Studies:
Disciplinarity, Communication and Innovation

■

Brian Longhurst

University of Salford

Chris Barker
Cultural Studies:Theory and Practice
London: Sage, 2000, £60 hbk (ISBN: 0 761 95774 X), £18.99 pbk (ISBN: 0 761
95775 8), xxii+424pp.

Nick Couldry
Inside Culture: Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies
London: Sage, 2000, £45 hbk (ISBN: 0 761 96385 5), £14.99 pbk (ISBN: 0 761
96386 3), x+166pp.

C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby (eds)
Popular Culture: Production and Consumption
Oxford: Blackwell, 2000, £50 hbk (ISBN: 0 631 21709 6), £16.99 pbk (ISBN: 0 631
21710 X), xi+348pp.

Dominic Strinati
An Introduction to Studying Popular Culture
London: Routledge, 2000, £48 hbk (ISBN: 0 415 15766 8), £11.99 pbk (ISBN: 0 415
15767 6), xvi+288pp.

ultural studies (like many other areas of academic inquiry) has been beset
by a number of recurring issues or perhaps anxieties. In particular it has
been concerned by its status as a discipline and with the problems that

codification of its main ideas and boundaries might produce. This is of partic-
ular concern when the activity has so often foregrounded issues of power in the
construction, reproduction and communication of culture. The development of
research in the field as it reaches what some may consider its maturity might be

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seen as blunting the cutting edge of its cultural criticism. Cultural studies then
becomes part of the ‘establishment’. There is of course a related issue of defini-
tion here. If cultural studies has to stake its claim, especially in disciplinary
terms, it has to separate itself from neighbouring and competing disciplines, like
sociology.

These issues are compounded by the need, for pedagogic if not for eco-

nomic reasons, to communicate the findings of cultural studies to new audi-
ences, especially to students. An important dilemma here is the way in which
any overview can become a static portrait, perhaps tending to downplay the
ongoing development of research. In turn, this raises issues of innovation, pos-
ing questions of how innovation occurs in a field like cultural studies and more-
over how this ongoing dynamism can be communicated to those new to the
field. There seem therefore, to be three key issues that can structure this review:
first, of discplinarity and power, second, of communication, and third, of inno-
vation. In different ways, and to differing extents they apply to the varied texts
under review.

These books can be seen to fall into a continuum. The most textbook-like

are the explicit introductions by Barker and Strinati. Harrington and Bielby’s
collection of articles is also designed for students. Couldry’s text is presented in
this sort of way, but actually, as will be argued below, represents a rather dif-
ferent sort of project. I begin with the books most explicitly addressed to stu-
dents.

Chris Barker’s overview of the field of cultural studies offers a systematic

introduction, which will find its way very quickly on to many undergraduate
reading lists, indeed it has already done so. The book is divided into three parts:
Foundations of Cultural Studies; The Changing Context of Cultural Studies;
and Sites of Cultural Studies. The first, most theoretical, part introduces the
field, considering ‘questions of culture and ideology’ and ‘the linguistic turn’.
The second part usefully looks at the wider social context in a chapter on ‘A
New World Disorder?’ and intellectual context in ‘Enter Postmodernism’. The
third, and by far the longest, part examines: subjectivity and identity; ethnicity,
race and nation; sex, subjectivity and representation; television, texts and audi-
ences; cultural space and urban place; youth, style and resistance; and cultural
politics and cultural policy. The book also includes an extended glossary.

It seems clear that students will find this text of use. It covers all the main

ground that one would expect in a clearly organized way. In particular the
works of authors like Derrida and Lacan were introduced in a way that should
enable students to make the best they can of their theories. Therefore this is a
project and outcome to be welcomed in general. However, there are some more
critical points that might be made. Here, an interest should be declared. As co-
author of what might be seen as a clear competitor to this text (Baldwin et al.,
1999), my view will be affected by a different way of looking at that project.
Three main critical points can be identified. First, a number of theories and
concepts were introduced quite quickly at the beginning of the book. I would
also have liked to see more examples run through these discussions to aid the

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beginner. Second, the book consists completely of text; there are no pictures, no
diagrams and so on. There may be economic reasons for this, but it does tend
to make the book look rather dull. This is a pity, especially given the potential
that the material has to be presented in more engaging ways. Third, the book is
often written in short sections, some of which tend to the definitional. This is
unavoidable in some areas, but might have the danger of fragmenting the mate-
rial under consideration.

Dominic Strinati’s book is also clearly designed as an introduction for stu-

dents. This book can be seen as complementing his earlier overview of theories
(Strinati, 1995), which, in my experience, has been well liked and well used by
undergraduate students. This book should have similar success. In effect, if not
explicitly, the book falls into two parts: the first on cinema and the second on
television. The examination of cinema discusses the rise of Hollywood and the
nature of Hollywood popular cinema, before exploring in detail the genres of
the gangster film, the horror film and film noir. The second, shorter, part of the
book introduces the nature of popular television, especially in the UK, before
examining the television audience, popular television genres and postmod-
ernism and television in more detail.

Again, there is much to recommend the book to the undergraduate. The

expositions are clearly written and cover the fields well. In particular Strinati’s
ongoing concern throughout the book with general issues of genre and genre
definition will serve students well, as it foregrounds a number of difficulties, in
areas where it might be easy just to plough ahead. More negatively, there again
seem to be some difficulties. First, there is a clear disjuncture between the space
accorded to film and that to TV. I would have liked to see more on the latter,
not just for equivalence, but because it might have allowed more discussion of
international television structures and programming. Second, and relatedly, I
am not convinced that the title of the book really reflects its content. While they
are obviously very popular forms of popular culture, film and television do rep-
resent particular types and a narrower title might have explained the content
better, if maybe detracting from its promotion to a wide market. Finally, Strinati
is often and explicitly drawn to issues of the audience. He devotes a chapter to
the topic and suggests in his conclusion that his ‘book has placed great empha-
sis upon the audience’ (p. 254). However, this issue often seemed to arise from
discussions elsewhere and then to be identified as where further research should
go. I would concur, but think that the existing body of research on audiences
might have received a lengthier exposition. After all, there is now rather a lot
of it.

C. Lee Harrington and Denise D. Bielby include more audience material, as

one might expect from the authors of an excellent book on soap opera fans
(Harrington and Bielby, 1995), and offer a wider sense of popular culture in their
edited collection. It is divided into five parts: What is Popular?; Cultural
Production/Commodification; Taste, Reception, and Resistance; Authoring
Texts/Readers; and Celebrity and Fandom. The editors contribute an introduc-
tory essay. This usefully identifies ‘three predominant schools of thought: the

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growing field of Cultural Studies, the Production of Culture perspective, and the
Popular Culture Studies tradition’ (p. 3). This is helpful as it relates cultural stud-
ies to those, especially North American, fields of research that have often taken
a more empirical approach to the study of culture. They suggest some areas
where all these approaches are converging. This is a thought-provoking intro-
duction, which obviously fed into the selection of articles for the book, some of
which are specially commissioned.

Space precludes the specific discussion of the contributions, but all will

offer much to the student and indeed to the researcher. Some are familiar (for
example, Becker on ‘Art as Collective Action’; Hall on ‘Encoding/Decoding’,
Fiske on ‘Intertextuality’ and Allen on soaps), but others are completely new
and offer less well-known authors the opportunity to grapple with significant
issues. I have no quarrels with the coverage or the range of insights offered.
However, it is possible to speculate about what the student might make of the
collection as a whole, especially as the editors confine their explicit intervention
to the overall introduction. I would have liked the specific sections and the
selections of the material for them to be further introduced to provide students
with a more explicit contextualization and map. Teachers will obviously pro-
vide aspects of this, but its absence still detracts from the usefulness of the book.

Moving to Nick Couldry’s book immediately shifts the ground of discus-

sion. While it concludes several chapters with ‘suggestions for further thinking’,
which appear to suggest a textbook function, the book is actually a very
thought-provoking and timely consideration of the state of cultural studies and
its futures. The discussion of some of its main themes will return us to the issues
introduced at the beginning if this article.

Couldry argues that cultural studies is indeed a discipline, based ‘on its his-

tory, values and overall methodological orientation’ (p. 9). He sees the signifi-
cant methodological stance of the book as opening the way for empirical
research. Developing Raymond Williams’ groundbreaking attention to com-
mon culture and ordinariness, Couldry builds his argument through attention
to a range of contemporary international authors to suggest the need for the
consideration of common culture today. For Couldry, this entails far more sys-
tematic attention to the nature of individual experience and to the textual flow
of popular culture around us, rather than to the construction of subjects and
textual analysis. In a way that is now becoming increasingly common, cultural
flows are emphasized, as are the complexities of the ongoing constitutions of
selves and ‘communities’. Coudry’s cultural studies is the place where research
on these issues and dialogues with those who are learning about them can take
place. This restates the political significance of cultural studies while offering a
set of issues that embody a research agenda that can be communicated as a
dynamic field of inquiry.

My sympathies were engaged by much of Couldry’s argument. Two dimen-

sions may be singled out for further development. Thus, Couldry argues that
research in cultural studies on television and film ‘has rarely, if ever, considered
the engagements of people with high cultural and/or economic capital’ (p. 59)

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and that cultural studies has paid ‘too little attention to the scale of the indi-
vidual’s cultural experience’ and ‘relatively few insights into how individuals
are formed, and how they act “inside” cultures’ (p. 45). Recent research on the
middle classes (see, Longhurst et al., 2001; Savage et al., 2001) and young peo-
ple in Manchester (see Carrabine and Longhurst, 1999, 2000) has pursued
some of these concerns.

1

In particular in the former it is important to see how

constructions of the self as ordinary both negate and facilitate social and cul-
tural identifications, but also how the consumption of ordinary culture (radio
and popular music in these cases) plays a role in construction of the self as both
ordinary and individual, as well as social inclusion and exclusion. This research
agenda has important key similarities with Couldry’s more theoretical overview
and perhaps not surprisingly leads me to feel that his book represents a very sig-
nificant intervention.

However, some aspects of his argument seem rather shakier. In seeking to

separate his concerns for an empirical cultural studies from ‘(positivist) cultural
sociology’ (p. 12), Couldry, in my view, underplays the potential of much of the
sociological work on culture that is currently appearing in North America. It
can be argued that some of this work offers important general arguments and
evidence that can be combined with more reflexive, qualitative material to pro-
duce important new sociological insights. A particular example can be found in
the ‘omnivore’ thesis expounded by Peterson and various colleagues (see, for
example, Peterson, 1992; Peterson and Kern, 1996). The argument, based on
survey evidence (suitably qualified in assumptions), that the American middle
classes are becoming more omnivorous in cultural tastes, while the working
classes are more univorous, seems to offer important pointers for rethinking
debates about postmodernist trends in new ways, rather than detracting from
such inquiry. Of course such material may need to be recontextualized, espe-
cially by Bourdieu (see Holt, 1997) and by further consideration in the British
context (see Warde et al., 1999) but it can stimulate different types of empirical
work rather than detract from it. This takes us back to the issues identified at
the beginning.

The authors of the texts under review vary in their approaches to disci-

plinarity. As we have seen, Couldry is explicit in his claims for the disciplinary
status of cultural studies and Barker suggests ‘that it is hard to see how this can
be resisted if cultural studies wants to survive by attracting degree students and
funding (as opposed to being only a postgraduate research activity’ (p. 7). My
own inclination is to describe cultural studies as ‘an interdiscursive space’
(Baldwin et al., 1999: 41) that refreshes more established disciplines and is
refreshed by them. This is not to decry the importance of cultural studies or its
contribution. Indeed the opposite is true, for in bringing together literary stud-
ies and sociology it provided an immense stimulus to both. However, debates
about disciplinarity should not get in the way of research into power and cul-
ture and all the books illustrate this well. Moreover, there is still much to be
done in taking the insights of particular, and perhaps more disciplinary-based
inquiries in new directions. I have already suggested the importance in this

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respect of the omnivore thesis, but another example can be found in the work
on the decline of social capital in the USA associated with the political scientist,
Robert Putnam (2000). It can be argued that this has the potential to contex-
tualize debates about culture, power and politics in many fruitful ways, to
refresh cultural studies’ understandings of culture and policy, but it will need to
be brought into dialogue with understandings on television and everyday life
from cultural and media studies (for example, Silverstone, 1994; Gauntlett and
Hill, 1999).

Such dialogues will continue to facilitate the development of cultural stud-

ies as an energetic way of researching, which can be seen to foster understand-
ing of the everyday lives of those who study it. It is to be hoped that such
innovations will mean that more textbook versions of cultural studies have
many new insights to report in the future in ways that mean that some of the
older literatures surveyed are increasingly superseded.

Notes

1

As supported by grants from ESRC, R0002236929, for ‘Lifestyles and Social
Integration: A Study of Middle Class Culture in Manchester’ and from
Manchester Airport for ‘Music, Identity and Lifestyle in Contemporary
Manchester’.

References

Baldwin, E., Longhurst, B., McCracken, S., Ogborn, M. and Smith, G. (1999)

Introducing Cultural Studies. London: Prentice Hall Europe.

Carrabine, E. and Longhurst, B. (1999) ‘Mosaics of Omnivorousness: Suburban

Youth and Popular Music’, New Formations 38: 125–40.

Carrabine, E. and Longhurst, B. (2000) ‘What Difference does a Course Make?

Music, Education and Everyday Life’, Journal of Popular Music Studies, 9/10
(dated 1997–1998): 79–91.

Gauntlett, D. and Hill, A. (1999) TV Living: Television, Culture and Everyday Life.

London: Routledge.

Harrington, C. Lee and Bielby, D.D. (1995) Soap Fans: Pursuing Pleasure

and Making Meaning in Everyday Life. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University
Press.

Holt, D. (1997) ‘Distinction in America: Recovering Bourdieu’s Theory of Tastes

from its Critics’, Poetics 25: 93–120.

Longhurst, B., Bagnall, G. and Savage, M. (2001) ‘Ordinary Consumption and

Personal Identity: Radio and the Middle Classes in the North West of
England’, in J. Gronow and A. Warde (eds) Ordinary Consumption. London:
Routledge.

Peterson, R.A. (1992) ‘Understanding Audience Segmentation: From Elite and Mass

to Omnivore and Univore’, Poetics 25: 75–92.

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Peterson, R.A. and Kern, R.M. (1996) ‘Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to

Omnivore’, American Sociological Review 61: 900–7.

Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American

Community. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Savage, M., Bagnall, G. and Longhurst, B. (2001) ‘Ordinary, Ambivalent and

Defensive: Class Identities in the North West of England’, Sociology 35(3):
875–92.

Silverstone, R. (1994) Television and Everyday Life. London: Routledge.
Strinati, D. (1995) An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London:

Routledge.

Warde, A., Martens, L. and Olsen, W. (1999) ‘Consumption and the Problem of

Variety: Cultural Omnivorousness, Social Distinction and Eating Out’,
Sociology 33: 105–27.

Brian Longhurst

Is Professor of Sociology and Head of the School of English, Sociology, Politics and

Contemporary History at the University of Salford. His books include Popular Music and

Society (Polity, 1995), Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination

(with N. Abercrombie, Sage, 1998) and Introducing Cultural Studies (with E. Baldwin, S.

McCracken, M. Ogborn and G. Smith, Prentice Hall Europe, 1999).

Address: Institute for Social Research, University of Salford, Salford M5 4WT, UK.

E-mail: [e-mail]

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