CS251 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Snoop Dogg, Noam Chomsky, Cultural Appropriation
CS251
Monday, October 16, 2017
Common Sense
•“[T]aste can be seen as logical extension of a culture’s ideology. "
•Societies function by naturalizing ideologies, making the complex production of meaning
take place so smoothly that is experienced as a ‘natural’ system of clue or belief."
•As a consequence, it is easier for us to recognize the production of meanings in other times
and cultures as ideological than it is to see our own meanings as ideological."
•Really easy to point to other cultures, very hard to take a look at yourself critically"
•Most of the time, our dominant ideologies just took to us like common sense.” (69)"
Ideology
•“According to Marx, who wrote in the nineteenth century during the rise of industrialism and
capitalism in the Western world, those who own the means of production are also in control
of the ideas and viewpoints produced and circulated in a society’s media venues. "
•Marx thought of ideology as a king of false consciousness that was spread by dominant
powers among the masses, who are coerced by those in power to mindlessly buy into the
belief systems that allow industrial capitalism to thrive. "
•Marx’s idea of false consciousness, which has since been rejected as too simplistic by most
contemporary theorists, emphasize the ways that people who are oppressed by a particular
economic system, such as capitalism, are encouraged to believe in it anyway. "
•Many now view this concept of ideology as overly totalizing and too focused on topdown
notion of ideology.”"
•[Louis Althusser] “insisted that ideology cannot be dismissed as a simple distortion of the
realities of capitalism."
•Rather, he argued, ‘ideology represents the imaginary relationship between individuals to
their real conditions of existence.” (69)"
Ideology as a Tool
•“For Althusser, ideology does not simply reflect the conditions of the world, whether falsely or
not."
•Rather, it is the case that without ideology we would have no means of thinking about or
experiencing that thing we call reality."
•Ideology is the necessary representational means through which we come to experience…"
Always Already
•“in Althusser’s terms, we are not so much unique individuals but rather are “always already”
subjects - spoken by the ideological discourses into which we are born and in which we are
asked to find our place."
•This means that in his model, the different modalities of interpellation that we described at
the beginning of this chapter would not be possible.” (70)"
Gramsci
•“There are two central aspects of Gramsci’s definition of hegemony that concern us:"
•That dominant ideologies are often pre"
•That dominant ideologies are in tension with other forces and constantly in flux"
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CS251
Monday, October 16, 2017
•The term hegemony emphasizes the power is not wielded by one. Class over another"
•Rather, power is negotiated among all classes of people"
•Unlike domination, which is on by the ruling class through force, hegemony is enacted
through the push and the pull among all levels of society.” (70)"
Reaffirmation
•“One of the most important aspects of hegemony is that these relationships are constantly
changing:"
•Hence, dominant ideologies must constantly be reaffirmed in a culture precisely because
people can work against them.” (71)"
Stuart Hall
•“In a well-known essay titles ‘Encoding, Decoding,’ Stuart Hall has written that there are
three positions that viewers can take as decoders of cultural images and artifacts:"
1. Dominant-hegemonic reading. They can identify with the hegemonic…in an
unquestioning manner"
2. Negotiated reading. They can negotiate on interpretation form the image and its
dominant meanings."
3. Oppositional reading. Finally, they can take an oppositional position, either by
completely disagreeing with the ideological position embodied in an image or rejecting
it altogether (for example, by ignoring it) "
•Sturken & Cartwright, 72-73"
Textual Poaching
•“Textual poaching was described by [Michel De] Certeau as inhabiting a text ‘like a rented
apartment’ "
•in other words, viewers of popular culture can ‘inhabit’ that text by negotiating meanings
through it and creating new cultural products in response to it, making it their own"
•De Certeau saw reading texts and images as a series of advances and retreats, of tactics and
tames, through which readers can fragment and reassemble texts with… "
•Sturken & Cartwright, 77"
Transcoding
•“These forms of making do and appropriation for political empowerment can also be found at
the level of language."
•Social movements sometimes take terms that are derogatory and reuse them in empowering
ways"
•This process is called transcoding.”"
•Sturken & Cartwright, 78 "
Bricolage "
•One of the terms that can help us to understand the kinds of signifying practices that people
use to make sense of culture is bricolage"
•Bricolage is made of adaptation in which things, (mostly commodities) are put to uses for
which they were not intended an in ways that dislocate them from their normal or expected
context.”"
•Sturken & Cartwright, 78"
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CS251
Monday, October 16, 2017
Cultural Appropriation
•“Cultural appropriation is the process of ‘borrowing’ and changing the meaning of cultural
products, slogans, images, or elements of fashion.”"
•Sturken & Cartwright, 83"
Counter Bricolage
•“This process, by which the counter-hegemonic bricolage strategies of marginal cultures are
reappropriated by mainstream designers and marketers and then parlayed into mainstream
designs that signal ‘coolness,’ is thus counter to the intent of the bricolage strategy.”"
•Ex. Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg "
•Sturken & Cartwright, 87"
Meaning is a Process
•“Cultural meaning is highly fluid and ever changing, the result of complex interactions among
images, readers/viewers/consumers."
•The meaning of images emerges through these processes of interpretation, engagement, and
negotiation."
•Importantly, this means that culture is not a set of objects that are valued in some way but a
set of processes through which meaning is constantly made and remade through the
interactions of objects and peoples.”"
•Sturken & Cartwright, 88"
The Technical Aspects
Descartes
•“French philosopher Rene Descartes, a key figure of the Scientific Revolution who is widely
known for his contributions to a rationalist philosophy that places man at the center of the
universe…"
•Nature"
•Sturken & Cartwright, 94"
Modernity
•“The philosophy of modernity was based on an ideal of the liberal human subject as self-
knowing, unified, and autonomous entity with individual human rights and freedoms."
•In modern thought, this subject was understood to be fully endowed with consciousness and
a sense of itself as authentic and unique and as an autonomous source of action and
meaning in… "
•“Modernity is a term that scholars use to refer to the historical, cultural, political, and
economic conditions related to "
•the Enlightenment (an 18th century philosophical movement);"
•the rise of industrial society and scientific rationalism;"
•and to the idea of controlling nature through technology "
•Modernity is associated with the belief that industrialization, human technological
intervention in nature, mass democracy, and the introduction of a market economy are the
hallmarks of social progress.”"
•Sturken & Cartwright, 95"
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Document Summary
Gramsci: there are two central aspects of gramsci"s de nition of hegemony that concern us, that dominant ideologies are often pre, that dominant ideologies are in tension with other forces and constantly in ux. Monday, october 16, 2017: the term hegemony emphasizes the power is not wielded by one. Class over another: rather, power is negotiated among all classes of people, unlike domination, which is on by the ruling class through force, hegemony is enacted through the push and the pull among all levels of society. (70) Rea rmation: one of the most important aspects of hegemony is that these relationships are constantly changing, hence, dominant ideologies must constantly be rea rmed in a culture precisely because people can work against them. (71) Stuart hall: in a well-known essay titles encoding, decoding," stuart hall has written that there are three positions that viewers can take as decoders of cultural images and artifacts, dominant-hegemonic reading.
