Introduction
In an examination of the role of audiences in culture, several key terms must first be established. The definition of 'culture' discussed in this research is 'culture as a particular way of life' and 'as signifying practices' (Williams, 1983). 'Active participants' refers to people who can 'freely and consciously exercise decision-making capacities' when it comes to their interpretation of culture and cultural products (Kirchberg, 2007). Structuralism, is defined as a way of understanding how 'all texts ... and all signifying practices can be analysed for their underlying structures' (Phillips, 2013). I will first examine structuralism in relation to popular culture.
Structuralism and its Strengths
Saussure, "father" of Structuralism, created the concept of 'signs', 'signifiers' and 'signified'. The combination of signifiers and signified produces signs with which we associate meaning and derive understanding (Saussure and Bally et al., 1974). This relationship in any given language is created through cultural agreement. The marking of differences, or introduction of binary opposites (eg. day and night), enables us to make sense of human behaviour. The provision of a basic structure for understanding helps people to comprehend society, i.e. popular culture, with rules and structures which we can rely upon to derive meaning (Storey, 2009).
These structures include the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axis, where meaning is accumulated on the former and is continual, while meaning is altered on the latter. Langue, a system of language organized by rules and conventions, and parole, an individual utterance or individual use of language (Saussure and Bally et al., 1974), helps us to communicate meaning because we understand ...
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...imit the agency of individuals in their experiences, the formation of structures are a result of human agency in the first place, so as to simplify certain processes in order for people to focus on the things that matter more to them. Structures, arbitrary in nature, change over time depending on social influences and the people's needs; therefore it cannot be said that either has an overwhelming grip on the other. Rather, the relationship is mutually effective in the evolution of popular culture across time and space. Although structuralism has issues of credibility due to its arbitrary nature, it must be said that without structuralism we are unable to create general consensus of meaning to begin with. Therefore, albeit flawed, we must accept and actively reconstruct the notions of structuralism in order to develop a better approach to the construction of meaning.
The idea of a “social structure” is probably one of the most popular and influential concepts in the world of sociology, with social theorists from Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and Parsons, all base their work off the fundamental idea that there is a large societal structure which pl...
The term ‘popular culture’ is a particularly difficult one to define. The word ‘culture’ alone is, according to Ray Williams, “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language” (Storey; 2006, 1). Popular culture must also be a term that is equally hard to define. Popular culture is an ambiguous phrase in cultural theory. In its simplest form: popular culture can be seen as the culture of the working class and minority cultures such as; folk and youth culture.(Brooker; 2003).
Social Structure is the framework of social institution family, education, religion, and political views shape the relationships members of society have with one another. Social structure suggests that society prepares crime and those who commit the crime give it life. Structural theorist follows two general models of society, the consensus perspective or the conflict perspective.
Because popular culture is widely accessible, artifacts easily affect the way human beings perceive the world by shaping the collective view. The opinions and representations presented through popular culture artifacts are accepted by the collective and thus become real as they inform the basic assumptions of soci...
In the structural functionalism perspective, one sees the world as a machine, made of intricate and unique parts all functioning for the benefit of the whole. Kimberly
(9) David Michael Levin has an interesting, recent interpretation along these lines; see his "Liberating Experience from the Vice of Structuralism: The Methods of Merleau-Ponty and Nagarjuna," Philosophy Today, vol. 41, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 96-111.
Social structure in terms of sociology means “the distinctive, stable arrangement of institutions whereby human beings in a society interact and live together,”(Britannica School, “social structure.”) Social structure is not a behavior science, these structures are not formed by behavior differences, and this is proven by studies done by sociologist. Social structure can be thought as how people with different social entities interact with each other. Unlike social class where people are defined by the way they interact with people with different qualities, social structure is more on how it is all structured together and how those different social classes interact with one another. All the different social classes that exist are what a social structure is made up of. The term structure was first introduced to society...
The first theory to be discussed is structuralism, this theory is composed of many different branches. The branches that this paper will be looking into is archetypes. The definition of of archetype is typical images, characters, narrative designs and themes and other literary phenomena. Archetypes have their own form of criticism that is called archetypal criticism. Archetypal criticism means the generic, recurring and conventional elements in literature that cannot be explained through historical influence or tradition.
It is interesting, then, to further define the crux of this theory in search of what conclusion a modern structuralist reading of a pre-structuralist author, namely Edgar Allan Poe, might yield. Structuralism itself is defined as “modern” but through its own origins “following the widely discussed applications of structural analysis to mythology by the anthropologist Claude Lèvi-Strauss” can be attributed to relatively recent intellectual movements, which then reflect back on the writings of Poe, perhaps evidencing inspiration for the theory in the firs...
Dickinson,R., Harindranath, R. & Linné. O.,(1998) Approaches to audiences : a reader, London : Arnold Saltzis, K.(Professor), (2010 February 23) CULTURAL STUDIES AND THE AUDIENCE Lecture 5, University of Leicester, UK
The first concept examines how labels are recognized and their functionality. The structural functionalist perspective emphasizes the interconnectedness of society by focusing on how each part influences and is influenced by other parts. (Mooney, p8). Once society figures out
Structuralism was developed by Ferdinand de Saussure in the mid-twentieth century (Cuddon and Preston 923). This creation was brought on, in part, by the French existentialism period and is often combined with the semiotic theory of literary criticism; both are the source of development for other literary criticisms from the formalist schools of thought. As the name suggests, structuralism examines the structure of the work, investigating the ramifications of the organizations of literatures (McManus, 1998). As an image to portray this idea is examining the structure of a building and comparing it to the structures of other buildings in its surroundings, and then subsequently comparing the common features of those buildings to buildings from other cultures and what those architectural discrepancies represent (Brizee and Tompkins, 2011).
Pop culture is a reflection of social change, not a cause of social change” (John Podhoretz). It encompasses the advertisements we see on T.V, the clothes we wear, the music we listen too, and it’s the reason Leonardo DiCaprio has not won an Oscar yet. It defines and dictates the desires and fears of the mainstream members of society; and it is so ingrained into our lives that it has become as natural as breathing. Moreover, adults never even bat an eyelash at all the pop culture and advertising that surrounds them since it has become just another part of everyday life. Pop culture is still somewhat seen as entertainment enjoyed by the lower class members of society; but pop culture standards change over time. A notable example of this is the sixteenth century author, William Shakespeare, since his works were considered pop culture, entertainment that could be enjoyed by everyone, but now they are considered literary classics. While pop culture encompasses most aspects of our lives, its influence is most obvious through each generations reaction to media,
“Culture” is a term that over the years, has taken many forms, served many purposes and has been defined in a variety of contexts. At the rise of the industrial era, inhabitants of rural areas began to migrate to cities, thus starting urbanization. As this new era began to unfold, urbanization, mass production, and modernization became key ingredients in the transformation of culture. As more people became literate and the production of mass media such as magazines, pamphlets, newspapers etc. increased, many had the option and desire to identify collectively – popular culture began to rise. Popular or “mass” culture can be described as a “dynamic, revolutionary force, breaking down the old barriers of class, tradition, taste, and dissolving
Saussure insisted on the systematic nature of language; “Language is a structure, a functioning whole in which the different parts are determined by one another” (Course in General Linguistics p. 9). The combined elements of parole and langue form language. Language states Saussure, manifests itself as speech (parole), the actual performance of speakers when they speak or write, also language (langue), which represents the knowledge or competence that all speakers possess of their language (Course in General Linguistics p. 8- 9).