Chapter Eleven Culture and Society

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Chapter ElevenCulture and Society

• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
• otherwise known as the theory of linguistic
  relativity
• 1. It imagines direct relationship between the
  sign and the thought processes within a culture.
• 2. The hypothesis suggests that the way we see
  the world is shaped by the grammatical structure
  of language.
• 3. This theory differs from social
  constructionist theories because it holds that
  reality is already embedded in language and
  therefore comes preformed.

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Cultural interpretation

• commonly referred to as ethnography, involves
  interpreting the actions of a group or culture.
• 1. It involves thick description, in which the
  interpreter describes events from the native's
  point of view,
• and thin description which is a description of
  behavioral patterns without a sense of what it
  means to the participants themselves.

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Cultural interpretation

• 2. The hermeneutic circle in ethnography involves
  a movement of the mind from experience-near
  concepts, which are close to the meanings of the
  natives in the culture,
• to experience-distant concepts, that are closer
  to the meanings of the interpreter.
• 3. Constant reinterpretation may be required as
  each subsequent understanding is found lacking.

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Cultural interpretation

• Ethnographic theorizing is a four-part process.
• 1. The first is to develop a basic orientation to
  the subject.
• 2. The second phase of ethnographic theorizing
  defines the classes or kinds of activity that
  will be observed.
• 3. Next, the ethnographer will theorize about the
  specific culture under investigation.
• 4. Finally, the ethnographer moves back out to
  look again at the general theory of culture he or
  she is operating with and test it with the
  specific case.

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Ethnography of Communication

• , a research tradition originated by Dell Hymes,
  suggests that formal linguistics is not
  sufficient by itself to uncover a complete
  understanding of language.
• You gotta go hang out!

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Ethnography of Communication

• 1. The focus here is on communication patterns
  within a cultural group.
• 2. All forms of communication require a shared
  code,
• communicators who know and use the code,
• a channel,
• a setting,
• a message form,
• topic,
• and an event created by the message.

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Ethnography of Communication

• 3. Hymes suggests a number of general
  communication categories that can be used to
  compare groups.
• a) Ways of speaking are patterns familiar to the
  group.
• b) The ideal of the fluent speaker is the
  group's idea of what makes an exemplary
  communicator.
• c) The speech community is the group itself and
  its boundaries.

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Hymes suggests a number of general communication
categories that can be used to compare groups.
cont

• d) The speech situation, times when communication
  is considered appropriate in the community.
• e) The speech event is what episodes are
  considered to be communication.
• f) The speech act consists of the specific set of
  behaviors taken to be communication.

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Hymes suggests a number of general communication
categories that can be used to compare groups.
cont

• g) The components of speech acts are what the
  group considers to be the elements of a
  communicative act.
• h) The rules of speaking are the guidelines or
  standards followed when communicating.
• i) The functions of speech are what
  communication is believed to accomplish.

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Four assumptions of ethnography of communication

• 1) Participants in a local cultural community
  create shared meanings by using speech codes.
• A speech code is a distinctive set understandings
  within a culture about what counts as
  communication.
• Speech codes create a sense of how to act with
  other people in a social group.
• The code guides what communicators actually
  experience.
• The speech codes are embedded in daily speech.
• They form the basis on which culture will
  evaluate and conduct its communication.

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Four assumptions of ethnography of communication

• 2) Communicators in any cultural group coordinate
  their actions.
• 3) Meanings and actions differ from culture to
  culture.
• 4) Each group has its own ways of understanding
  certain codes and actions.

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The ethnography of communication looks at three
types of problems.

• a) The first is to discover the type of shared
  identity created by communication.
• b) The second is to uncover the shared meanings
  within the group.
• c) The third is to explore the ways in which
  groups handle contradictions.

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The communication ethnographer asks three types
of questions

• a) Questions of norms direct attention to the
  standards of right and wrong.
• b) Questions of forms direct attention to the
  types of communication used.
• c) Questions of cultural codes draw attention to
  meanings and symbols.

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Performance ethnography

• 1. Everyday culture is like theater.
• 2. Public performances are social dramas.
• a) They are liminal, marking transitions and
  borders.
• b)They follow a pattern.
• (1) The breach is a violation or threat to the
  community.
• (2) The crisis involves community agitation.
• (3) Redressive procedures mend the breach.
• (4) Reintegration restores peace.

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Performance ethnography

• c) Not all members participate as performers in
  social dramas, but these roles are taken by
  "stars."
• d) Performance is significant as embodied
  practice.

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The Critical Tradition

• has one common theme, the idea that social and
  cultural arrangements are loaded to enforce the
  power of certain groups and oppress others.

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Most hold that the process is overdetermined,
caused by multiple sources

• 1. Critical scholarship seeks to uncover
  oppressive forces through dialectical analysis
• which exposes the underlying struggle between
  opposing forces,
• and to empower the aggrieved.

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• 2. To groups who benefit from the current
  arrangement, everything looks normal and natural
  while the marginalized see the misalignment.
• 3. Critical theorists holds that language of the
  dominant class makes it difficult for subordinate
  classes to understand their situation.

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Four general categories of theory

• , modernist,
• postmodern,
• poststructural
• and postcolonialism help in sorting out this
  diverse tradition.

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Modernist theories, often referred to as
structural, centers on ongoing oppressive social
structures.

• Marxism, based on the social theory of Karl Marx,
  is one of the most important intellectual strands
  of the past century.
• a) It is based on the premise of the
  base-superstructure relationship, the idea that
  societys means of production determine the
  structure of that society.
• b) Marxist critique of political economy is the
  belief that economics drives politics.
• c) Marxism places great emphasis on the means
  of communication, on the discursive formations
  that contribute to oppression and alienation.

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Few critical theorists today hold to classical
Marxist ideas

• but many are neomarxists incorporating Marxs
  concerns with dialectical conflict, domination
  and oppression.

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Ideology remains an important concern to most
critical theories.

• a) Ideology is set of ideas that structure a
  groups reality, a system of representations that
  govern how people and groups view the world.
• b) In classical Marxism, ideology is a false
  consciousness, a set of false ideas that
  perpetuate the dominant forces.

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Louis Althusser sees ideology as forming an
individuals subjective understanding of
experiences.

• a) The superstructure consists of repressive
  state apparatuses, such as the police, military
  and the ideological state apparatuses such as
  religion, education and the media.
• b) The repressive mechanisms enforce an ideology
  when it is challenged, while the ideological
  reproduce it in every- day communication making
  it seem natural.

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Hegemony, the process of domination of one
particular ideology, is the interest of Antonio
Gramsci.

• a) Hegemony happens when events or texts are
  interpreted in a way that promotes the interests
  of one group over those of another.
• b) This can be a subtle process of co-opting the
  interests of the subordinate group into
  supporting those of the dominant group.

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Feminist scholarship with the modernist tradition
centers around two lines of inquiry

• a) Liberal feminism seek for women to gain equal
  status with men in existing power structures.
• b) Radical feminism demands a basic redefinition
  of all facets of society to make it more
  emancipatory for both men and women.

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Postmodernist theories resists the idea of a
priori oppressive social structures.

• 1. It teaches that there is no objectively real
  structure or central meanings and for this reason
  is often considered atheoretical.
• 2. It holds that social realities are fluid,
  constantly produced, reproduced and changed
  through the use of language and other symbolic
  forms.

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Postmodernist theories

• 3. Cultural studies involves investigations of
  the ways culture is produced through a struggle
  of ideologies.
• a) The most notable group of cultural studies
  scholars are affiliated with British Cultural
  Studies at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural
  Studies at the University of Birmingham.
• b) This group aims to achieve change by
  identifying contradictions in society and
  providing interpretations that will help people
  see how they are oppressed.

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Cultural studies

• c) Cultural studies is dominated by the study of
  mass communication because media are powerful
  tools of the dominant ideology.
• d) Culture is the ideas and practices on which a
  group relies in its everyday life.
• (1) Within a culture ideas are produced by
  practices, and practices are shaped by ideas.
• (2) Dominant interests are promoted by
  particular cultural productions such as those
  disseminated by the media.
• (3) Realities are created and reinforced by
  many different sources, which is a process of
  articulation.

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Cultural studies

• e) Capitalistic societies are dominated by a
  particular ideology of the elite.
• (1) Social institutions support the dominant
  ideology, making resistance difficult.
• (2) The state of affairs in society is
  overdetermined, or caused by multiple sources.

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Cultural studies

• f) Media are a particularly effective tool for
  dispersing perceptions and are governed by the
  prevailing ideology that frames opposing views
  from within this dominant form.
• g) The irony is that media present the illusion
  of diversity and objectivity when in fact they
  are clear instruments of the dominant order

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Cultural studies

• h) Views that challenge the prevailing structure
  are painted as being on the fringe.
• i) Media producers control content in the way
  they encode media messages.
• (1) To be intelligible events must be put in
  symbolic form.
• (2) The communicator has a choice of codes to
  use to put these experiences in a symbolic form.
• (3) Every symbol coincides with an ideology so
  the selection of the symbols chosen is an
  ideological choice.
• (4) The ones chosen affect the meaning for the
  receivers.
• (5) Audiences may or may not accept the meanings
  intended, and oppositional ideologies can and do
  arise.
• (6) Dominant ideologies are usually accepted
  because they are reinforced by so many sources in
  society.

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Cultural studies

• j) The interpretation of media texts is a
  struggle for ideological control as a number of
  competing interpretations struggle to be
  accepted.
• k) The chief aim of cultural studies is to expose
  the ways these ideological messages are
  perpetuated and ways they can be resisted.

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Critical Race Theory (CRT)

• is another example of a cultural studies although
  it has connection to modernist, as well as
  post-modern traditions.
• a) CRT scholars see racism as ordinary and
  normal, the usual way society works.
• b) White domination in the U.S. serves the
  dominant groups so there is no real interest in
  eliminating racism.
• c) Race is a social construction, products
  of social interactions that is manipulated or
  retired when convenient.

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Critical Race Theory (CRT)

• d) Race is more than structural category but a
  fluid one.
• e) An extension of this line of thought is the
  study of whiteness, examining what it means to be
  white, how it became established legally, and how
  certain groups (such as the Italians and Irish)
  moved into whiteness.
• f) Six strategies are inherent in whiteness.
• (1) White is equated with power.
• (2) White is a default position.
• (3) White has become a scientific classification
  drained of its social status.
• (4) White is synonymous with nationality.
• (5) White means the refusal to label self as any
  radicalized category.
• (6) White means European ancestry.