Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 

A

Agency: The ability of individuals to act as self-conscious, willful social agents, and to exert their will through involvement in social practices, relationships, and decision-making.

Appropriation: The process by which often innovative or resistant cultural forms are taken up, incorporated, and commodified by the culture industry. One of the most frequently cited examples is that of punk, which, though it developed as a dissident movement in working-class England, was quickly marketed by major fashion designers, music labels, and other producers of mass youth culture. In analysis of popular cultural forms, appropriation is often viewed pessimistically as evidence of the power of late capitalism to absorb dissent into itself and turn it around for a profit; however, it is important to remember that resistance continues to circulate and change in form, even as its products are co-opted by a dominant culture.

Assimilation: Also known as acculturation, this term refers to the sometimes forced integration of an immigrant or subordinate group into the perceived “dominant” culture of the host community through the absorption of the host’s cultural practices and history. This stands in opposition to the idea of multiculturalism , which suggests that different groups can co-exist on an equal basis.

Authenticity: A positive quality of genuineness and originality attributed to objects, practices, or ideas, often in order to demonstrate the extent to which an initially authentic phenomenon has been compromised or drained of its value.   The notion of authenticity has been critiqued for its ideological grounding in a nostalgic vision of a more “real” cultural past now sullied by rank commercialism.

B

Binary Opposition: An analytical system that uses specific examples of symmetrically opposed pairs, or mirror opposites, which, although mutually exclusive, generate meaning through their difference and describe a complete, if extreme, system of understanding. For example: “us:them”—in forming group identities, people are categorized either as part of the group (“us”), or outside of it (“them”). Binary oppositions can be dangerous in that they work to repress the ambiguities that exist between the two terms by positioning the binary as natural and any other forms of identification as deviant. In addition, binary terms often carry a positive:negative value assumption; for example, “we” are “safe, good, blameless” while “they” are “dangerous, bad, evil.”

Branding: A recent phenomenon in economics wherein a company shifts its resources from producing goods or services to producing a corporate image defined by abstract emotional or spiritual qualities.  Critics of this process have suggested that the reallocation of resources and the marketing strategies it entails contributes to trends such as the rise of child and sweatshop labour in developing nations, a decline in the number and quality of available jobs, and a disturbing new invasiveness on the part of corporations into our lives and minds.    

C

Capitalism: Capitalism is the dominant economic system in the world today. Loosely definable as a system of private enterprise whose primary aim is the production of profit, capitalism has been developing since at least the fifteenth century, and underwrites many of the economic and cultural institutions that we take for granted today, such as private property, individual freedom and the imperative of economic growth.

In capitalist economies, the means of creating, distributing and exchanging wealth lies mainly in the hands of individuals and corporations (which have the rights of individuals in North America), rather than in public or state hands. The value of goods and of labour is defined not by its social usefulness or significance, but by how much it can be exchanged for. The main goal of individuals in capitalism is to maximize profit or the wages they receive. Proponents believe that through the dance of supply and demand, goods and services are optimally and efficiently distributed throughout society. Detractors point to the growing gap between the wealthy and the poor, who often generate wealth for those at the top. See also Close-Up box 1.1 in textbook.

Cold War: A phrase that popularly refers to the tense, hostile relationship between the communist (U.S.S.R.) and capitalist (United States) superpowers and their respective allies from the end of the Second World War until the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Although marked by bitter animosities fuelled by ideological differences, a similarly voracious desire for world domination, and numerous moments of near-disastrous military escalation (for instance, the Cuban missile crisis), the Cold War was known as such because it was fought largely by diplomatic and economic means rather than by sustained and overt acts of aggression. Though the Cold War spawned numerous proxy wars in Third World countries, the U.S.S.R. and the United States never came to blows directly.

Colonialism: The historical process through which dominant groups have assimilated, dominated, and subjugated less powerful ones. Distinct from imperialism , which can also be used to describe non-territorial kinds of control, colonialism involves physical settlement along with the military, political, and economic conquest of a people.

Commodification: Rendering any artifact, action, object, or idea into something that can be bought or sold. Popular culture is often maligned for its commodification of formerly more authentic cultural forms, with the assumption that through commodification things lose their implicit value.

Commodities: Objects and services produced for consumption or exchange by someone other than their producers. Although humans have always exchanged the goods that they produced for other goods, in the nineteenth century a new focus on the consumption of an increasingly diverse array of commodities by greater numbers of consumers was partly responsible for the gradual shift to a consumer culture. Marx employed the term “commodity fetishism” to describe the almost magical value attributed to objects in a capitalist economy—value derived not from how they are used or the labour that produced them, but from the price they command on the market.   The most significant, and most damaging, aspect of commodity culture from a Marxist perspective is its tendency to attribute value to things and the relations between them rather than to people and human relationships.

Commodity fetishism: See Commodities.

Conspicuous consumption: A pattern of behaviour, initially observed by Thorstein Veblen, that began in the nineteenth century as a result of increased incomes and leisure time along with the growth of marketing. “Wasted” consumption (that which exceeds what is strictly necessary for life) began to be used by members of different classes in a way that was “conspicuous”—obvious, noticeable, visible—in order to signal or symbolize social distinction.     

Consumerism: The name for the complex set of dominant values and practices produced by and arising from life in a consumer society: a historically unique form of society in which consumption plays an important, if not central role. Central to consumerism is the (generally implicit) belief that the organization of life around the purchase of commodities is the optimal way to address the needs and wants of individuals, and even to allocate social goods.

Consumption: See Conspicuous consumption.

Counterculture: Groups that express antagonism toward the existing social and political order, and propose alternative ways of organizing society. The term counterculture is most commonly used to refer collectively to the alternative politics expressed by a variety of groups in the 1960s (feminists, civil rights and anti-war activists, etc.). More generally, “the” counterculture describes all those groups who challenge and contradict the “common sense” of everyday life with the aim of creating a better society.

Cultural Imperialism: A term describing the ideological infiltration of the cultural products of dominant nations (typically, the United States) into less globally powerful ones, at the expense of some aspects of indigenous culture. Globalization theorists have cast some doubt on the concept of cultural imperialism, pointing to its problematic assumption of a passive, colonized global audience, as well as its simplistic reading of actual processes of global production and consumption.

Cultural Relativism: The acceptance of difference across a range of cultural activities, with the understanding that different cultures, individuals, and groups hold different values, all of which are of equal merit. This idea stems from a postmodern refusal to accept fixed meanings or explanations and opposes essentialist assumptions about culture, race, gender, and so on.

Cultural Studies : Cultural Studies embraces a definition of culture that includes conventional “texts” such as books, television shows, music and advertising, as well as ways of life, in the sense of concrete practices such as shopping, eating, drinking, fashion, etc, as well as more abstract structures such as language, beliefs, “the contradictory forms of ‘common sense’ which have taken root in and helped to shape popular life,” and the institutions that surround them (Hall “Gramsci” 26).  

Cultural Studies embraces a number of different disciplines, including literary studies, film studies, political science, anthropology, sociology, and communications studies, and employs a variety of methodologies: close reading, ethnography, content analysis, population surveys and historical research. See also Close-Up box 10.1 in textbook.

Culture: Culture has been described by critic Raymond Williams as “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.” The term has a wide and diverse range of meanings and associations that cannot easily be reduced to a single definition. In contemporary usage, the term carries three main significations: (1) a description of a whole way of social life (as in the idea that humanity is comprised of numerous, distinct cultures); (2) the name for “serious” works of literature, music, fine arts, film, and so on, and the activities involved in producing these kinds of works; and, finally, (3) as an extension of the latter definition, culture can be used to refer to a wide range of signifying and symbolic works and activities, whether these involve everyday social practices (e.g., folk culture ) or the objects and practices of popular culture (e.g., detective novels as well as serious literature, television as well as film, etc.).

D

Deconstruction: A method of analysis initially articulated in the work of Jacques Derrida that involves exposing the submerged philosophical assumptions that underpin texts and concepts. Derrida asserted that all Western thought is founded upon countless sets of binary oppositions (black and white, speech and writing, man and woman, etc.) wherein one term is invariably considered to be superior to its “opposite,” a valuation with vast cultural consequences. Deconstructionist readings attempt to discover how such unarticulated ideologies underpin seemingly straightforward surface meanings.

Diaspora: From the Greek word for “to disperse,” diaspora refers to the voluntary or forced migration of peoples from their homelands to new regions. In areas that are greatly affected by large diasporic movements (i.e., in the West Indies via colonization and the slave trade) distinct, or creolized, cultures have developed, which blend indigenous with homeland cultures. These unique diasporic cultures challenge essentialist models of culture or the nation.

Digitalization: The translation of any kind of data (text, images, sounds, etc.) into an electronic language that can be used by a computer or other digital system for purposes of storage, distribution, or manipulation. Depending on one’s perspective, digitalization is either an empowering tool with which to create and share diverse forms of information more democratically, or a practice that threatens more authentic (or “real”) forms of cultural production. Because it offers unprecedented possibilities for the manipulation of sounds and images, digitalization also raises important issues for practices of representation.

Discourse: A concept articulated by Michel Foucault to describe the way speech and writing work in conjunction with specific structures and institutions to shape social reality. Discourse refers to distinct areas of social knowledge (typically, broad subjects such as law, science, or medicine) and the linguistic practices that are associated with them, but also establishes rules about the context of this speech or writing, such as who is permitted and authorized to address these subjects. nowledge, according to the concept of discourse, is power, since it comes into being through the operations of power and also exercises power by determining what truths will be endorsed.   Discourses thus have immediate, material effects on the way a culture operates.    

Distinction: To be set apart and considered different or special, usually through the achievement of a specific honour, and connected to value. In the study of popular culture, distinction is often linked to consumption, with the implicit idea of a capitalist system being that one can achieve distinction through one’s purchases.

E

Essentialism (ist): The belief that categories, or individuals and groups of human beings have innate, defining features exclusive to their category (e.g., the belief that different races have inherent characteristics that differentiate them from other races).  Essentialism has been challenged by social constructivist theories that point to the ways in which identity and meaning are culturally produced.

Ethnicity: Ethnicity is a broad social category that addresses one’s perceived membership in a larger group based on characteristics such as religious, cultural, or national background. Whereas one’s race is generally “determined” by specific physical traits, ethnicity typically implies a somewhat more conscious and flexible affiliation with a particular group.   Like race, however, the concept of ethnicity has often been used to discriminate against groups based on stereotypical perceptions of their common attitudes or attributes.

Ex-nomination: A term used by Roland Barthes to identify one of the ways in which the dominance of the ruling class goes unexamined precisely because it is not named as such : the process of ex-nomination ensures that we see the values or attributes of dominant groups not as the product of particular class interests, but simply as apolitical, intrinsic human values that are, therefore, as unsuitable for critique as a grapefruit or any other “real thing.” Ex-nomination also works to legitimate the dominance of specific racial and cultural groups by failing to acknowledge or “mark” their distinctive qualities (e.g., white, heterosexual), thereby assuming their universality.

F

Folk Culture: Those cultural products and practices that have developed over time within a particular community or socially identifiable group, and that are communicated from generation to generation and amongst people who tend to be known to one another.

Fordism: A highly mechanized and standardized manner of production, pioneered on the assembly lines of automaker Henry Ford in order to improve worker efficiency by duplicating the specialized precision of a machine. Fordism now refers not only to a seminal development in the history of industrialization that enabled hitherto unimaginable levels of mass production/consumption, but also to a type of culture (or a particular aspect of a culture) that displays similarly—generally negative—qualities of uniformity and conformity.   Fordism has been supplanted in much of the North American economy by post-Fordism , a mode of production characterized by smaller, more flexible decentralized networks of labour and work organization, catering to more specialized ranges of consumer demands (though not necessarily a freer workforce).

Frankfurt School:   Name given to a group of innovative social theorists, established in 1923 at University of Frankfurt, whose ideas remain important decades after the School was formally dissolved. Though there is no “Frankfurt School” approach to popular culture per se (the individual members agreed on no fixed set of ideas or concepts, and often disagreed with one another), the School’s name is used to describe approaches that emphasize the production of popular culture and insist on its ideological constraints.

The goal of members of the University’s Institute for Social Research was the elaboration of a “critical theory” of society. Critical theory has since become the name for a diverse set of practices in social and cultural theory, philosophy, and literary studies.

Members of the Frankfurt School included Horkheimer, Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Otto Kirchheimer, and Leo Lowenthal. Some of the key texts produced by members of the school include Theodor Adorno’s Negative Dialectics and Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man.   See also Close-Up box 4.1 in textbook.

G

Globalization: An arguably recent, complex shift in the relationship between the world’s many cultures fuelled by complex economic, political, and technological factors. Its central effect is that temporal and geographic distances are no longer as divisive as they once were. Although seeming to possess enormous potential for improving the conditions of some of the world’s poorest regions, globalization is increasingly seen as being primarily profit-driven, and is closely allied with the remarkable ascension to power of massive transnational corporations and with the connected phenomenon of cultural imperialism.

Some critics of globalization argue that it is little more than a process of further concentrating wealth and power in the hands of those who already have it, and that its effect on the indigenous cultures of developing nations is devastatingly corrosive. Others distinguish between different aspects of globalization (economic, political, technological, cultural, etc.) and point to the potential for new forms of cultural expression and new democratic alliances that are facilitated by a more globally connected world.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP): The total monetary value of all goods and services produced within a nation’s economy during a one-year period, a figure often used as an indicator of a nation’s financial well-being. The GDP’s value as a diagnostic tool to measure the health of a country is often critiqued because it fails to account for a host of relevant social transactions as diverse as domestic work, volunteering, and criminal activities.

H

Habitus: Concept outlined by Marcel Mauss connoting both living space and habitat that describes the way in which particular social environments are internalized by individuals in the form of dispositions toward particular bodily orientations and behaviours. The habitus we occupy radically affects such basic activities as sleeping, eating, sitting, walking, having sex, and giving birth, all of which should be understood not as natural, but as a series of “body techniques” that are learned in particular social contexts, and are therefore culturally and historically specific.   Pierre Bourdieu extended this concept to talk about the relationship between habitus and social class.

Hegemony : Developed by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s, hegemony refers to the ability of dominant groups in society to exercise control over weaker groups not by means of force or domination, but by gaining their consent, so that the unequal distribution of power appears to be both legitimate and natural. In other words, hegemony operates not by forcing people against their better judgment to submit to more powerful interests, but rather by actively seeking the spontaneous cooperation of subordinate classes to maintaining social relationships that continue their subordination. Hegemony, significantly, is never total, but operates in constant struggle with newly emerging forms of oppositional consciousness. It works not by crushing those forces, but by a constant process of negotiation. See also Close-Up box 2.2 in textbook.

“Highbrow”/ “Lowbrow”: A colloquial reference to “high” and “low” culture—a distinction that is made on the assumption that high culture holds some sort of greater innate intellectual or moral worth, while low culture is base and degrading to those who partake in it. The distinctions between these two groups become unclear with, for example, pop art, which borrows images from “low culture” (i.e., Campbell’s soup cans) and displays them in a venue for “high culture”—the museum. The term “nobrow” has been used recently to describe images, objects, or experiences that can’t easily be classified into high or low. In fact, the quotation marks, which often surround mentions of “high” or “low” culture, suggest that these categories are not only constantly shifting, but also arbitrary, often deployed as a means of legitimating class hierarchy.

Horizontal Integration : A synergistic venture wherein one company acquires (and integrates with) another company that is making the same kind of product or providing the same kind of service, in order to increase the purchasing company’s presence in (and power over) a given market.  

Hybridity: In horticulture a term that means to graft two different plant types together in order to create a third, unique plant; in cultural studies a term, generally associated with diaspora and postcolonialism, that refers to the blending of two or more cultures.   The “third culture” that results from this interaction is not simply a combination of the two, but a space of possibility in which differences both between and within individual cultures express themselves.

I

Identity: An individual’s unique personality or self (i.e., “who we are inside”). The concept of individual identity is complicated by the fact that, rather than inhabiting a single identity, we all assume multiple identities that are defined by particular circumstances and relationships. Marxist and psychoanalytic theories further challenge the concept of identity, showing how it is constructed by largely unconscious processes of interpellation.   More recent theories of performativity offer possibilities for challenging the rigidity of the traditional identities on offer—identities that are founded in essentialist notions of gender, race, and sexuality.

Identity Politics: The strategic assertion of unity, defined by characteristics such as race, culture, ethnicity, or sexuality.   Identity politics challenge prevailing power structures by demanding recognition and the extension of majority rights to minority groups.

Ideology: At the most general level, ideology refers to process by which the set of values and beliefs that bind individuals together in a society become “naturalized.” The belief and value systems of any given society are the outcome of history , that is, of collective human activity that gives shape (in large and small ways) to the characteristic features of a society. Ideology names those social and political processes that directly and indirectly mask or hide this historical process by making everyday life seem natural, inevitable and unchangeable. The claim that capitalism is the only rational form of economic organization is often ideological in this way, especially when what this claim suggests is that history was inevitably moving towards a world-wide capitalist system anyway: people did nothing to bring it about and can do nothing to stop it. This is false, and ideology is often at work in attempts to make false statements sound not only like the truth, but like common sense. See also Close-Up box 2.1 in textbook.

Ideological state apparatuses (ISAs): Term coined by French Marxist Louis Althusser to describe those social structures/organizations that indirectly (i.e., not by direct coercion) ensure that individuals subscribe to the ideology of the state or ruling class. Unlike repressive state apparatuses (for instance, the police or the military), which explicitly enforce the laws of a culture, ISAs work via the process of interpellation to compel individuals to conform to particular, class-specific, social roles.

Imperialism: Imperialism refers to the extension of rule over different countries, territories, or peoples, usually by force, for the purposes of economic gain. Imperialism continues today through trade regulations that inhibit development in poor countries, or that tie the course of their development to the economic agendas of wealthier nations. See also cultural imperialism .

Industrialization: The movement within a culture or economic system toward an increased emphasis on large-scale/mechanized industry rather than agricultural/small- scale commercial activity. Although initially conceived as a primarily economic process in its broadest sense of organization, capitalization, and mechanization, industrialization has sweeping social and cultural implications. As well as determining the manner in which things are produced (and, therefore, what kinds of products are available), the process of industrialization also effects the way labour and other resources are divided up within a culture.  

Instrumental Rationality: This is a complex framework that has a simple idea at its core. In essence, the use of rationality, or reason, in an instrumental fashion suggests the use of the most efficient means to achieve the desired end. Analysis of instrumental rationality is usually associated with the German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920), whose work had an impact on the Frankfurt School and on the shape of the Dialectic of Enlightenment in particular. For Weber, the rise of capitalism introduces instrumental rationality into all spheres of life—not just in economics, but in politics, culture and other parts of society as well. It might seem as if it is good idea to achieve efficiency in all areas of life.

However, there are drawbacks to instrumental rationality, especially when it becomes applied generally. The concept of efficiency isn’t a neutral one, that is, it implies a certain set of values about the goals of human activity and human life that may in fact contradict other values that people hold dear. The Frankfurt School was critical of instrumental rationality because it eliminated the critical use of reason. See also Close-Up box 4.2 in textbook.

Intellectual Property/Copyright: Intellectual property refers to one’s legal ownership of an idea or any other kind of original creative work. This ownership may be protected by trademarks, patents, and copyright. Largely as a result of recent sweeping advances in technologies that can be used to reproduce or disseminate digital information, converting even the genetic material of living things into readable “code,” intellectual property has become a hotly disputed issue.   

Interpellation : A term coined by the French Marxist Louis Althusser to describe the process by which an individual is addressed, or “called on,” by ideology to assume a certain identity.   Critical to the success of interpellation is the degree to which an individual recognizes and identifies with the roles s/he is assigned by the dominant culture.

J

K

L

Language: A term that in cultural studies refers to more than literal words, language can be broadly applied to describe all forms of communication (or sign systems)—visual, oral, aural, physical. In the study of culture, the units of any type of language are a focus for study, as societal values, relations, and power distribution are reproduced through a culture’s language(s).

M

Maquiladoras: Spanish term describing the thousands of factories that have sprung up along the U.S.–Mexico border in the wake of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement).   An inexpensive source of labour for multinational corporations, maquiladoras are known for meagre wages, brutal management practices, dangerous working conditions, and widespread environmental violations.

Market Segmentation: Beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century, a paradigm shift in the marketing world that involves gearing cultural production toward increasingly narrow segments of the public with the express goal of better catering to a consumer’s specific tastes.   

Mass Culture: A form of culture produced for profit by a vertically integrated factory system, for a large and diverse audience. Mass culture, though in some ways more pervasive than ever, is also breaking down as a result of economic processes of market segmentation , cultural developments such as identity politics, and the growing accessibility of technologies that allow “the masses” to produce culture for themselves.

Media Convergence: The combination of “new media” (primarily, cable and the Internet) with older media forms (radio, television, film, and newspapers and books), primarily by large corporations, with an intent to realize greater profits through the synergistic sharing of resources.

Minority: In cultural terms, any relatively small and/or powerless group of people who differ from the majority, or dominant, culture in ethnicity, religion, language, political persuasion, and so on. Minority politics are linked to movements by groups to gain certain political, economic, or social rights that they have been denied because of their minority status. In cultural studies, minority culture may also refer to highbrow (serious, intellectual) culture, as opposed to lowbrow (mass) culture.

Monoculture: From the agricultural term for the cultivation of a single crop, in cultural studies the idea of monoculture is linked to globalization and refers to the concept of a single world culture shared by all. This term has negative implications in that it suggests the destruction of local and cultural diversity. It is often implied that monoculture is synonymous with American or consumer culture.

Monopoly: An economic situation in which a single supplier controls the market for a particular product or service. This situation puts the producer in a position of unchallenged dominance from which it can inflate price to cover more than just necessary costs (including a return on capital). Governments often legislate to restrict the emergence of monopolies, since they are usually detrimental to the consumer and the economy.

Multiculturalism: A sociopolitical concept (and in some countries, a government policy) that describes the coexistence of many different cultures in one place. As it is linked to national politics, multiculturalism recognizes that there is no essential or unified definition of a national culture, but rather emphasizes an idea of the nation as one of cultural freedom (i.e., Canada). Nominally a celebration of all cultures as equal, multiculturalist policies can often gloss over substantial power inequalities within a nation.

Multinational (Corporation): Any firm that extends itself outside of national boundaries by operating branches in many different countries simultaneously.

Myth(ology): A term coined by Roland Barthes to describe the ways in which sign systems work ideologically to reproduce and legitimate particular social relations. Myth is a mode of signification that works to express and surreptitiously to justify the dominant values of a given historical period. Unlike the relatively simple level of denotative or literal meaning, in which a word or image corresponds to a single, straightforward definition, myth brings into play a whole chain of associated concepts (e.g., tree–nature–goodness) by which members of a culture understand certain topics, and which help to shape their collective identities.

 

N

Nation/Nationalism: As a form “imagined community”, the nation is both example and instigator of the process by which identities that are constructed or imagined come to assume the force of nature . One useful way to approach the significance of the nation as a source of modern identity is to think about the relationship between nations and nationalism. Our usual, common-sense way of understanding the relationship is to see the nation—a people defined by collective belonging to an extensive community, usually defined in relation to a specific territory—as primary, with nationalism as a frequent, though not inevitable by-product.  

Recent theories of the development of nations (Anderson, Gellner) suggest that the relationship might best be understood as working the other way around: that is, nations are how the ideological impulse of nationalism is legitimated and given concrete shape. See also Close-Up box 7.3 in textbook.

New World Order: A phrase associated with the postcolonial, post– Cold War configuration of world power, which remains dominated by the West, and particularly by the United States. Coined by former U.S. President George Bush, the phrase describes genuine shifts in the geopolitical order, but also covers up long-term continuities in the global power and capitalism (i.e., not everything is “new” in the New World Order).

O

Orientalism: Refers to the way in which “The Orient” was and is constructed by the West   as a means to claim authority and exercise control over Eastern cultures. The Orient is not a fact, or a specific geographical place; rather, it is the complex layers of knowledge and mythology that have been constructed around Western ideas about the non-West. For example, the way in which North American media characterize the “Middle East” as a place of repressive government regimes and fundamentalist religion glosses over the vast cultural differences between different cultural groups of the region and contributes to the Western assumption that domination of these “backward” nations is legitimate and necessary.

P

Patriarchy (Patriarchal): A social system in which men hold power in the family and in the social structure. Patriarchy has more recently been used as a term in feminist criticism to describe the total system of gender relations in which male dominance has historically worked to dominate and disempower women. The challenge in trying to dismantle this system is that it has been historically naturalized to seem as though the social position of both genders has been biologically determined.

Performativity: Developed most extensively in the theory of Judith Butler, performativity refers to the process by which identities are enacted through repeated performance rather than inherently possessed or inhabited.   The idea of performativity works on the premise that roles such as sex and gender are produced within an ideologically determined social script. While it’s not possible to throw away the script—to be “oneself” instead of playing one’s assigned role—the theory of performativity, by highlighting the tension between the scripted ideal and its embodied performance, offers possibilities for resisting the straitjacket of traditionally defined identities.

Postcolonial(ism): Postcolonial refers to the period after the formal retraction of colonial rule in the developing world. This varies considerably, but in the case of the former British colonies, it refers to the period after the Second World War. Postcolonialism is a term that refers to the working through of the effects of colonization on a society or culture. The study of postcolonial culture examines the various mechanisms of colonialism (e.g., political rule, economic exploitation, colonial education systems) and their long-term , imbedded cultural and social implications. While many former colonies are now independent states, postcolonial studies insists on the need to recognize and understand the ways in which its effects persist in the social, cultural, and political life of those states today.

Posthumanism:   A philosophy that questions concepts that underpin the tradition of humanism, such as identity, subjectivity, consciousness, and the soul.   While humanism is based on ideas of human beings as unique individuals, and of humanity as a clearly defined, superior life form, posthumanism rejects the autonomy of “the human” in favour of the cyborg—a being defined by a combination of human and machine and/or animal characteristics.   Posthumanism has been taken up both by feminists, for whom it represents a way of challenging biologically essentialist views of sex and gender, and by proponents of genetic engineering, who support the idea of designing “better,” more powerful humans through technological enhancement.

Postmodernism: Generally, postmodernism refers to a phase in Western history that coincides with the information revolution and new forms of economic, social and cultural life. Postmodernism names a period—the current era—and points to the fundamental differences of this era from even the recent past (i.e., modernism, ranging from roughly the mid 19 th to the mid 20 th century).

Postmodernism views the search for truth as project whose real aim is achieving social power and control, and is suspicious of any “grand narratives” or theories that seek to provide the single explanation for how human beings act (such as Freudian psychoanalysis) or how societies function (Marxism, for example).

Postmodernism also refers to styles and movements in arts and culture which express this skeptical attitude, characterized by self-consciousness, formal and stylistic borrowing, irony, pastiche, parody, recycling, sampling, and a mixing of high and low culture. See also Close-Up box 6.1 in textbook.

Preferred Reading: Any given text (be it a novel, film, image, or song) can be interpreted in a theoretically infinite number of ways depending on the perspective and experiences of the reader. However, the preferred reading is the particular interpretation that emerges as the most obvious to the greatest number of people based on prevalent and culturally specific modes of understanding (e.g., it is the reading that in many cases strikes interpreters as being “common sense”).

Pseudo-individualization: Along with standardization (which it facilitates), one of the primary characteristics of the products of the culture industry, as described by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Pseudo-individualization refers to a mode of capitalist production wherein, although virtually identical, cultural products are superficially varied   insofar as it enables them to seemingly speak directly to a consumer’s sense of individuality, their unique taste, and apparent freedom to choose.

Q

R

Race:   A constructed category that is widely used to distinguish among various groups of human beings based on inherited biological or physical characteristics (such as skin colour or facial features). Although seemingly a neutral descriptive tool, race has functioned historically as a way to draw spurious connections between specific physical characteristics and the possession of certain behavioural traits assumed to be shared by all members of the race. The idea of race is therefore inseparable from the discriminatory attitude and practices of racism .   

Racism:   The systematic practice of stereotyping and persecuting people on the basis of their race. Racism remains a central form of ideology today. Cultural Studies has focused on the ways in which racist attitudes and stereotypes are both reinforced by and challenged in popular representations, and institutionalized in a variety of popular cultural practices.

Representation: The social production of meaning through sign systems (i.e., words, images, gestures, etc.). Involves making meaning by creating links between conceptual and linguistic or signifying levels of meaning, links that are established through codes shared by members of a culture.   Inseparable from the socially specific processes of ideology and mythology , representation constructs the world in particular ways that have significant bearing on the organization of society.

S

Semiotics: Part of a move (spearheaded by Ferdinand de Saussure) in linguistic theory away from understanding how languages developed historically, or diachronically , to looking at them as structures at a single moment in time, or synchronically . Saussure was interested in how the individual elements of language— signs —worked together, according to rules of selection and combination, to produce meaning. A fundamental principle of Saussure’s theory was the premise that the relationship between the two “parts” of a sign—a word (or signifier ) and the concept it refers to (the signified )—is not natural but arbitrary, determined by convention. See also Close-Up box 3.1 in textbook.

Sign: The smallest unit (such as a word, image, or sound) of communication to which meaning is attached. In order to be a sign, the unit must meet three criteria: it must possess a physical form, it must refer to something else, and it must do so in a way that is recognizable to others. The sustained and large-scale interconnection of signs facilitates the construction of shared sign systems that enables individuals to communicate with other members of their culture in a comprehensible manner.

Social Constructivism: One of two general ways (the other is essentialist) in which meaning and identity formation is often understood. Social constructivists believe that identity is not inherent within an individual, group, or thing, but is instead largely a creation of cultural, political, and historical forces.

Sovereignty: The possession of legal control and governance over a specific geographic territory. Sovereignty once rested in the body of the monarch, who possessed supreme power over his or her kingdom. In the modern context, sovereignty has been located in nation-states. Globalization has been understood by many scholars as having complicated and undermined the sovereignty of nation-states. The growth in the political power of international organizations (e.g., United Nations, World Trade Organization) and the rise of non-governmental organizations has redistributed nation-state sovereignty to a multiplicity of sites and political levels (from local to global).

Standardization: Along with pseudo-individualization, one of the primary characteristics of the products of the culture industry, as formulated by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Standardization refers to a widespread similarity between cultural products. Both a method of production and a manner of consumption, standardization not only dictates the kind of cultural products that will be manufactured but also inscribes in the consumer a shared mode of passive, apolitical, and disengaged reception.  

Stereotypes: Form of representation that reduces people to a few simple, essential characteristics that are represented as fixed by nature. Stereotyping is predicated on the simplistic notion that an individual’s membership within any given social group (based on, for instance, class, gender, race, age, or sexuality) invariably predisposes him or her to possess certain personality characteristics, attitudes, or behaviours.

Structuralism: An analytical approach characterized largely by a shift in focus from interpreting a text in order to unveil its hidden meaning to identifying and interrogating the ways in which meaning is brought into being structurally. Structuralism is a diverse approach encompassing numerous methodologies, connected by this concern with the ways in which the structure of any given text is implicated in the production of its meaning. Although it has been subject to intensive critique (focusing, for example, on its inability to take account of historical change), structuralism’s once-radical rejection of the role of relationship and context in determining meaning has been enormously influential in many disciplines.

Subculture: A term that describes groups or communities that deviate or differ from existing social norms. Subcultures are typically conceived of as groups of individuals who come together around shared practices and ideas that are rejected or treated with suspicion by official, mainstream culture. By creatively expressing their dissatisfaction with existing social norms and practices, subcultures challenge and modify what counts as normal, everyday life. Subcultures are often identified with youth and youth culture in particular.

Synergy: A strategy of synchronizing and actively forging connections between directly related areas of entertainment. For example, the merger of media giant Time Warner with Internet giant AOL was intended to allow content developed for one communication medium (e.g., television) to be re-used, recycled, and reinforced in different media (e.g., film, Internet, etc.).  

T

Transnational (Corporation): A firm that operates on a global scale and works, to a greater or lesser extent, outside of national jurisdictions. For example, former General Electric CEO Jack Welch’s fantasy of operating the company from a permanently floating barge in order to avoid all national trade regulations and laws would be an example of a completely transnational company—it operates worldwide without operating from within any specific country.

U

Urbanization: The long-term but increasingly intensifying shift of human populations from the country to the city. It is a process that has contributed significantly to the reduction of open spaces available for recreation as land was expropriated for the building of industrial infrastructure. As fields disappeared with no new playgrounds to replace them, it became harder to find places to hold outdoor sports, festivals, and other forms of public gathering, which shaped the development of popular culture in significant ways.

V

Vertical Integration: A synergistic venture wherein one company acquires the means by which a particular product or service is manufactured, distributed, and sold. Its aim is to increase a corporation’s control over its own products by diminishing its reliance on other companies. Vertical integration is considered by some to be responsible for a reduction in the diversity of available cultural products.

W/X/Y/Z (No entries)

Compiled by Carolyn Veldstra and Tim Walters