A cultural studies approach to media study

        Over the past century, the media have become more and more engrained in our daily lives, providing ample opportunities for their messages to help formulate our views of the world (i.e. a sense of what is good/bad, positive/negative, moral/immoral) and we create our identities from learning what it means to belong in certain social groups (i.e. gender, race, class, etc.). Knowing that media have a great deal of influence on how we view ourselves and others, it is important to take a closer look at what messages are being distributed in the media. Are they showing a wide variety of images to reflect our multicultural world, or are they showing more narrow views generated by like-minded groups? Are they showing images that are positive and have the well-being of the consumers in mind, or are they showing ones that could potentially harm someone’s well-being, self-image, and their views of other groups? A cultural studies approach attempts to answer these questions by looking critically at three different areas of the media: political economy, textual analysis, and audience reception.

        Political economy is the production and distribution of media products. This area looks at what is being produced, who is producing it, and why they are producing it. It is important to note that most, if not all, media producers are out to make some sort of profit. They will produce whatever sells and cancel anything that doesn't have high enough ratings. In recent years, reality TV has become more and more popular. At one point, someone decided that showing real life experiences on television would be interesting and could show a different perspective of everyday life vs. scripted “reality” as seen on typical television shows. People took to them because they enjoyed being able to escape from their own lives and get to experience someone else’s for the length of a television program. In the case of game shows or talent contests such as “American Idol”, people loved the idea that anyone could become famous almost instantly and viewers also took to the fact that they could participate in the show with their votes. However, the more popular that these shows became, the more extreme the content became to break through the noise. We now have shows like “Jersey Shore”, “Teen Mom”, “Toddlers & Tiaras”, and “the Real Housewives” franchise, which are all about one-upping each other—how extreme and terrible can we make these situations in order to draw in a crowd. It’s like traffic slowing when driving past a crash site—it’s so terrible, yet you can’t look away. The more profit the companies bring in, the more they will keep producing shows similar to the ones listed above.

          In addition to what is being produced, there are currently 10 major media conglomerates who produce the media we consume every day. These are Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, News Corp, Viacom, Comcast, NBC/Universal, Pearson, Fuji TV Network, and ITV. These companies own multiple channels and means of distributing media texts, and each are owned by a limited amount of people. Having only a few people and companies owning and distributing media, we are limited to stories of whatever ideology those producers have. We also won’t see much diversity because if what they are doing now is selling, they will keep producing the same things without taking much risk to show new ideas.

(For more information about political economy and media conglomerates, please see:
Anup Shah, Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009)

        The next part of cultural studies is textual analysis. Textual analysis is how the text (ex. a television show) is structured and breaking down the content of its message. Genres of video games, television shows, music, or movies can tell us about the structure of the text. It can also lend some context to what the piece is about, what are commonalities that are unique to that genre, what are typical values embedded in that genre, etc. We can also look at the narrative: who are the characters, what is happening in the story, what is the overall goal of the story, etc. We can take a look at an ad and see the types of symbols that are being used to represent the ideology behind the ad. Overall, it is about looking deeper at what is being said piece by piece in a text in order to construct an overall understanding of the messages being presented.

        The third piece of cultural studies is audience reception. Audience reception is the reading and interpretation of media texts and, overall, how consumers respond to those texts. Like I said in political economy, people tell the media producers what they like by what they buy, watch, play, or listen to regularly. It also includes how people reevaluate their identities, their beliefs, and their behaviors based on what they see in the media. For example, I have grown up believing that being skinny with big boobs and long hair was the only way guys would think I am attractive. I loathed myself because I was constantly being told by media and those around me that I wasn’t pretty enough because I didn’t look like a model. In other instances, I bought things or had my parents buy me things because the coolest thing had been on TV and all of my friends now had one, but I didn’t. In other words, whatever a media message makes a person feel, and thus their consumption habits change because of it, is at the heart of what audience reception is.

        If we take media messages at face value and say, “Oh, it’s just for entertainment” or “It just makes for good marketing”, we risk continually consuming ideas that are harmful to us. By thinking about messages critically, we can begin to understand that media companies typically do not care about ‘the greater good’ and will just produce stuff that they think will sell, regardless of any truth behind the message. By looking at media texts from political economy (who produces media texts, what is produced, and why), textual analysis (what are the messages in the text) and audience reception (how do consumers respond to media messages), we can educate ourselves on the media and be better prepared to move towards a healthier, multicultural, and multiperspectival media and society.