Cultural Studies in the World Today

Jake Pellegrino

LCS-Professor Roach

Culture as a Site of Struggle-All around the world there are different cultures and people that

have their own ways of living and doing things. According to Rojek there are four interrelated

components to Cultural Studies (10). The first he discusses is genre, this allows for the

opportunity to look at the characteristics of cultural form but also the ability to compare and

contrast different cultures to see if there are any cultural differences. The second is production,

this is essentially the framework of any cultural meaning. Production talks about how certain

things in cultures became to be popular or meaningful, for instance why do people like certain

sports teams or why do companies use certain cultural references to help grow their products.

The third is consumption, this is about the reactions consumers have towards cultural meanings.

How does a person on vacation experience compare to the brochures? The fourth is cultural

politics, this has to do with how meaning is presented, resisted and opposed through the process

of cultural exchange (11).

Systems of Representation- Representation is a very important in life because without it we

would not be able to communicate with one another very well, as representation is mostly about

meaning, this then leads to understanding. Hall talks about representation by breaking it down

into three theories, Reflective, Intentional, and Constructionist. Reflective is the concept that

language just reflects a meaning that is already present in the world today. Intentional is the idea

that language is presented only how the person who is expressing themselves originally intended
the meaning to be. Constructionist had the most significant impact, according to Hall, in recent

years involving cultural studies, involving meaning being constructed in and through language.

Commodity Fetishism- This is a theory made famous by Karl Marx in his book Capital: Critique

of Political Economy explaining that commodity fetishism is what the public think of

relationships involved in production are like, not as relationships among people but as a

relationship between money and commodities exchanged in a market trade. For instance who

makes what, who makes what for who, how fast a product is made are all considered and

compared to other commodities giving them either less or more value. Companies who produce

commodities in bad working conditions try to hide this from the public because they do not want

people to think less of their commodities.

Semiotics- Is the study of meaning-making and the interpretation of signs and symbols, tied in

with semiotics is the rule of thirds which illustrates how visual items should be presented.

Advertisements are good examples for demonstrating semiotics and the rule of thirds, every

advertisement is trying to send a message through semiotics by depicting certain objects or

certain people wearing certain things to relate to different people. The rule of thirds comes into

play to make everything neat and comfortable for the eye, however the rule of thirds is not

always applied in every advertisement.

In todays world there is a lot of discussion when it comes to culture studies, how one

person looks at certain things in the world is different from everyone else but often people have

similar views when it comes to cultural studies. There is often a lot of critical analysis that goes

with cultural studies because people are dissecting everything in our lives and revealing the truth

about them. Companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch targeting certain people in their marketing
and only hiring employees that fit the Abercrombie mold. Cultural critique is important because

it opens peoples eyes to what is really going on.

The purpose of such critical critique when it comes to consumer society, popular culture,

educational goals, and the practices of advertising is to better the world. People are critiquing

because they have noticed that something is wrong which is leaving the world fooled. In Why I

Hate Abercrombie & Fitch by Dwight A. McBride he discusses how Abercrombie & Fitch has

been running their company and who they are targeting as their potential buyers. This is a harsh

critique but with good reason, McBride expresses hatred towards Abercrombie & Fitch because

of their look and hiring process, it was very selective with race, class, and age. This process has

changed overtime but Abercrombie & Fitch still targets white males, recently upper middle class

collegiate students. The Look Book is a book giving the history of the company but also

describing the look each employee should have, entailing personal appearance along with the

would natural, American, and classic being used very often, haircuts and jewelry that non-whites

would usually wear are prohibited according to the look book. Without someone critiquing this

company most people would have no idea how racist and immature Abercrombie & Fitch is,

anyone who does not fit their profile will not be offered a job. In this day in age you would think

that everyone should be able to get a job anywhere as long as they are qualified instead of having

to fit a perfect mold that everyone can obviously not fit into.

Similar to McBrides ideas towards Abercrombie & Fitch, how they created their look

trying to be so perfect but instead being scarcely similar to Hitler and the Aryan race he tried to

make, Susan Bordos critical analysis brings up great points on how gender is perceived in

advertisements specifically in food advertisements. Womens appetites are often represented as

cool in food advertisements which means women can take the food or leave it. In these food
advertisements women are usually shown eating mostly healthy foods in portions while men are

the opposite, eating large meals that are usually more expensive and definitely more

spontaneous. Even the food products that are being made now have names such as a manwich

or the hungry man which further amplifies the stereotype. The effects these advertisements and

food products are having on people in a culture can be pretty dramatic, these advertisements are

being seen multiple times a day every day which makes it hard to not pay attention to them. I

cannot speak for everyone but I do know that the image of what is sexy and what is not sexy for

men and women has changed over time. Today, sexy for a women is pretty much unrealistic

unless you have surgery or you were blessed by the gods, basically you have to be in shape,

skinny, big butt, and big chest, the same goes for men essentially, being in shape, muscular. As

Susan Bordo explains in her analysis, women are shown eating small amounts of healthy food or

no food at all which makes it difficult to get in shape to look the like the ideal women without

eating. On the other hand men are shown as eating large amounts of food whenever, this makes

more sense especially when trying to get in shape and get more muscular because you need to eat

more to get bigger. Binyavanga Wainainas critique of western representation of Africa connects

with Bordos critique of food advertisements because Wainaina writes about all the stereotypes

westerners use when they are describing Africa which is strikingly similar to food

advertisements showing the stereotypes of women and men instead of writing them. Wainainas

writing is so detailed, talking about almost every single stereotype westerners use when talking

about Africa, the food advertisements are essentially doing the same thing just with pictures but

the message is still very clear in both.

Cultural Studies is trying to figure out how different cultures create and transform

individuals experiences, their relationships with others, and just their everyday life. This is
really important especially in the world we live in today because Cultural Studies can help us

find the best ways of living or figure out why certain cultures act negatively or positively so we

can learn from them and grow as a race. In the film Schooling the World the filmmakers are able

to show how a culture was dramatically changed due to the use of the western idea of schooling.

This film takes place in Ladakh which is in India, there are schools being built that are teaching

western ideas of school which might sound great at first but when you look closer it is not. The

schools are teaching the money making subjects such as math and science turning people into

machines with the idea that they have to make money. The techniques being used by these

schools not only in India but America too are all based on how well someone does on a tests and

quizzes, depending on how you do on these you are given a value. This has led to the town of

Ladakh losing kids to America in search for a job that they will most likely have a very hard time

finding, even graduates from prestigious schools such as Bryant have the same struggle getting

jobs. Cultural Studies helps us see these problems in the world today, showing us that western

schooling is dehumanizing us, not having enough of a well-rounded learning experience and just

learning the money making subjects.

In the Circle by Dave Eggers shows a future where technology plays a larger role in

society than ever before. The future is similar to today with everyone using technology, always

being on their devices or social media, the difference is that in this future technology allows for

users to know more about the people they are communicating to. This is an extreme knowledge

into their personal lives, to the point where the characters start to wear cameras so people know

everything they are doing all the time. These advances in technology take a toll on the characters

as the book moves on, at first everything is fine and the Circle is a great company for everyone

who works there. As the book goes on and the Circle starts to make new advances and the
characters start to be affected by the openness of these new advances and the burden of working

at the Circle. In the Amazon article it talks about how long their work weeks are, having crazy

amounts of hours some times up to 85 a week, not only that but workers can send anonymous

messages critiquing their co-workers and bosses. The Circle campus is supposed to resemble an

Amazon/Google environment and it does, they work all week being totally engulfed in the Circle

as if were the only thing in their life, they even have parties on weekends and dorms you can stay

in making workers be at the office for more than just work, creating an illusion of the Circle

being its own world. This in turn leaves the characters having less time to spend with friends and

family outside of the Circle ultimately ruining most relationships that were had before anyone

joined the Circle. The main characters ex-boyfriend tells her that technology has made her

boring, less meaningful, after she took a picture of him, then going upstairs and posting it all

over her social media. He explains to her that she is spending her whole life producing more data

about herself and doing less offline. Even relationships within the Circle are ruined because

workers become so driven to be better than the next but they also become so obsessed with their

social media and technological advances that they forget how to communicate well in person

which makes relationships less meaningful without real emotions and intimacy.

There are many pros and cons to having so much transparency with everyone, giving the

ability to have public access to all knowledge and information. As the novel goes on we learn

even more about the advances the Circle makes, they develop all kinds of new technology such

as childtrack which is a chip that is placed in childrens bones so their parents and the police

can track them, the health plan workers get at the Circle that gives you a bracelet which monitors

your real time health. The scary part about the Circle is when they start to get involved in

politics, knowing that public trust in congress was low at 11%, the Circle introduces the idea that
congress goes completely transparent with the use of the SeeChange cameras which means

you give up full audio and visual live streaming of all your interactions. After one

congresswomen went transparent other elected officials started to make the change and if you did

not go transparent you were viewed by the public as if you were trying to hide something. The

Circle begins to take over, any officials who question the Circle as being a monopoly or just

question their power are arrested shortly after for having criminal activity on their computers.

Eventually 90% of Washington goes transparent in what the Circle calls clarification. The

SeeChange cameras are becoming popular to everyone not just elected officials, workers at the

Circle wear them and people start to know everything about every bodys life with the touch of a

button.

Michel Foucaults concept of panopticism fits perfectly with the Circle and their

evolution throughout the book. Panopticism is explained in a jail setting, there is one all seeing

tower in the middle of a circular structure, in the structure there are rooms built for singles that

are blocked off from any form of communication with any other inmates. The key to this is the

fact that the prisoners are isolated but the tower is able to see every single person at all times, the

inmates do not know for sure if the tower is looking or not but it makes them feel always

watched. This can be translated into the work place affecting the rest of the world, the Circle is

the tower and the rest of the world are the prisoners. The Circle made all the advances that

made the world so transparent even influencing the elected officials to go fully transparent, the

Circle is watching everyone especially the wise men who are the head of the company. Everyone

in the book begins to feel like they are always being watched because they are, leaving people to

feel like they have to be perfect all the time. In panopticism the prisoners are under the

impression they are always being watched but they are also isolated from everyone else. In the
Circle people are definitely being watched but they are under the false impression that they are

not alone when in reality all the transparency and technological advances have made everyone

more alone than ever before. Being in this false hope of not being alone is similar to

Deresiewiczs view on friendships today, in the Circle everyone is connected through

technology, as the book develops their interactions with people offline become more distant and

this causes relationships to become superficial. Deresiewic explains that friendships today are

nothing like the bond they once were, today people use each other to get things they want,

friendships can change over a disagreement over little things, and people do not put as much

work into their friendships as they once did.

Seeing our technology grow at such a rapid pace today definitely is a concern especially

after reading the Circle and being able to relate so closely to it and being able to see a dystopian

future. Sherry Turkles critique on modern technology helps paint the picture of the road we are

headed down if we do not make a change. Turkle talks about the Goldilocks Effect which is

the idea that people cannot get enough of each other as long as they can control what is going on,

being able to edit things and being able to hide behind a screen instead of face to face

interactions. Turkle emphasizes that we have a device in our pockets that are so powerful they

control what we do and sometimes who we are. Turkle helps explain how connected and

controlled we already are by technology and if we further our technological advances with no

concern to the problems they will cause socially then we may end up like the Circle.

Although the critical analysiss we studying make good points I feel it is almost

impossible to prevent a dystopian future. Susan Bordos analysis shows how men and women are

depicted differently in food advertisements, making people want to be like the people in the

advertisements. This is the flaw we have, people want to be perfect, we are moving forward in
technology so we can have bigger and better devices. People are becoming obsessed with being

perfect online more the offline, because we can edit ourselves online making people appear

better than they actually are leaving real life interactions seem disappointing. We are headed to a

dystopian future because of the simple fact that my grandparents have iPhones, by the time I am

grandpa I will be using SeeChange!!!