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The fantasy that ~ are eruItr<.i'fy{uith lS a denmit: gift. It is cmtinually opming up a gtdjlxt7J.IDZ 'i.dm·:<,e are and:;;h;;tu£'v;ouid like to Ex;, b:r<i.Wl 'UJhat 'U:€ ha-t.X: and:d:tJ.t 'i.iX: desire- Mario Vargos Llosa

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forms and styles of! cultural expressions

FORMS AND STYLES OF CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS

The aim of this chapter is to examine one of the key objectives of this thesis which is culture.

There is a need to organise and analyse various schools of thought and debates on culture.

There has been an effort to thematically link Williams. Bourdieu, Geenz, Thompson and

Baudrilliard. The essential idea is to understand the relationship between culture and media. The

underlying theme of this chapter is to examine the apparatus of the culture and media industry.

There have been numerous defInitions of culture right from the anthropological beginnings of

the study of the 'other' and this classical conception traces its origin to the heart of the exotic

and the mysterious. The orientation of such a conception was colonialist. In that, the writings

reflected more of the anthropologists' desire to form an intellectual framework out of the

observations, rather than the presence of inherent meanings in the society. The trends in the

study of culture changed later, when the focus of anthropological writings shifted from the

other to the author itself. From then onwards here, the writings of anthropologists began to

resemble those of novelists. Hence they were called novelists mcnqui. The 'collective', though a

point of study and importance in anthropology, gained immense importance in terms of the

everyday. Thus culture became the study of the everyday and the ordinary. Modem day or

critical anthropology has realised the limitations of the classical approaches.! The avant-garde

anthropologist is sensitive and is involved in a process of jotting down the events as they

happen in the location, rather than, composing the events. A subjective bias is bound to alter

the description of the anthropologist because composition essentially entails alteration of the

original meanings. Critical anthropology appeals for this sensitivity. Contemporary culture has

even transcended the self, and the point of focus has shifted to the everyday. Though culture

initially belonged to the preserve of anthropology, both, social and cultural, but of late has

developed into an independent discipline with the influence and intervention of

multidisciplinary leanings.

I George Marcuse and James Clifford stressed the need for a sensitive approach in cultural anthropology that came to embark a new orientation in the study of other cultures.

197

;,

According to Stuart Hall, there are no absolute beginnings in the formation of cultural studies; a

field characterised by the c.onfluence and pursuit of diverse lines of enquity.2 But Jim

McGuigan however, argues that Raymond Williams' resonant phrase, 'culture is ordinary', and

his insistence that this is 'where we must start' is as good a place as any to begin with.

McGuigan further argues that the phrase of Williams' is outside the context of English cultural

criticism, an anthropological banality, not a fresh sociological insight, curiously inspired by the

arch-conservative T. S Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition ofOdture, where he says:

It is the culture of a society that is fundamental ... .It includes all the characteristic activities and interests of a people: Derby Day, Henley Regatta, Cowes, the Twelfth of August, a cup final, the dog races, the pin table, the dart board, Wensleydale cheese, boiled cabbage cut into sections, beetroot in vinegar, nineteenth century gothic churches and the music of Elgar. (1948: 21,31) 3

In reading his definition of culture, McGuigan observes that Eliot's conception of culture

descended from the apex of individual cultivation, through national symbols to folksy working

class habits and customs. "Eliot's sociological turn helped Williams to breach F.R Leavis critical

dam, which assigned to the exceptionally cultured, the task of protecting authentic minority

culture from the breakers of inauthentic and popular culture in a modem, , mass civilization'.

Williams brings in the notion of 'ordinary culture' treating lived experiences and everyday

practices as more socially meaningful ......... »

It is this notion of the everyday and the lived experience, which is an important part of the

individual and the society. This lived experience is practiced in the theatre of everyday and

thereby is relived everyday. Anthropologists had already established a mark in social sciences for

studying the lived cultures of 'others' in exotic territories (Beattie 1966). Just one year before

Williams proposed that culture is ordinary, the anthropological trend saw a change. Richard

Hoggart tuihed the methodology inwards by publishing the report of his own recovery of

Northern Working Class roots, The Uses of Literacy (1957). According to McGuigan, this book

introduced something like a cultural studies mode of thought to a wider public. Williams

criticised both commercial and mass communicated culture. Questions on culture and politics

were rethought and redefined by Williams:

2 Jim McGuigan, Cultural populism, London: Routledge, 1992, p21. 3 Ibid. p.21.

198

A culture has two aspects: the known meaning and the directions, which its members are trained to; the new observations and meanings, which are offered and tested. These are the ordinary processes of human societies and human minds, and we see through them the nature of a culture: that is always both traditional and creative; that it is both the most ordinary common meanings and the finest individual meanings. We use the word culture in these two senses; to mean a whole way of life-the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning-the special processes of discovery and creative effort. Some writers reserve the word for one or other of these senses; I insist on both, and on significance of their conjunction. The questions I ask about our culture are questions about our general and common purposes, yet also questions about deep meanings. Culture is ordinary, in every society and in every mind. (1989a: 4)

What is important for Williams is the 'conjunction' of 'the most ordinary common meanings'

and 'the finest individual meanings' that mattered, when he says that culture is questions about

common purposes and deeper meanings. The latter part of his work was theorised in the

seventies and came to be called as cultural materialism, which analysed all forms of signification

within the actual means and conditions of their production. Williams rejected the base­

superstructure model of socio-economic and cultural pattern, which claimed that dominant

ideas and institutions simply reflect the ruling class interests in an exploitative economy. On the

contrary he argued that social being determines consciousness, a fundamentally materialist

proposition reconcilable with the appreciation of -popular creativity. For Williams, cultural

production is, in reality, a material phenomenon in two main senses:' first, a meaningful

transformation of materials in social interaction; and second, as constituted within determinate

economic relations. He perceived culture as a part of the base or the deep structure and this was

increasingly so in the advanced capitalist societies, where communication technologies and

media (culture) industries are of immense economic importance.

It is here that cinema assumes importance in the modem day. The materialist proposition put

forward by Williams which encompasses cultural production and reproduction is not always the

case in every society. The site of cultural production and reproduction, though may be

constituted within determinate economic relations, is always embedded in the social and cultural

realm. The proposition that communication technologies and media culture are parameters of

material constituents would be a superficial argument to propose. Though the apparatus and the

. technological know-how used in communication may be material but the information

communicated and the very act of communication is essentially social The medium may be

materialistic but the underlying intention and the code is very much social and subjective. This

process calls for a selection and rejection of information according to certain criteria. In itself

199

the communication technologies and media culture are imponant but it is the social, which

determines the kind of information that is communicated. It is the social that decides the

economic imponance. Subjective positions have always played a major role in getting access to,

and communicating 'selective information'.

The study of culture has always involved ideological positions since culture has been the site of

relational power. The concept of ideology has always been associated with culture. Though the

use of ideology has been prevalent from the period of Napoleon Bonapane, it was not deployed

in the discourse of cultural anthropology as is being used now. Ideology during a panicular

period was construed generally as being pejorative. Ideology and power have become intricate

pans of the discourse on modem day culture. Ideological trends were not manifest in the

writings of cultural anthropology in general and Thompson points out particularly its absence in

the works of Clifford Geenz.4

Thompson is of the view that cultural phenomenon, everyday utterances and actions are also

embedded in relations of power and conflict, as well as more elaborate phenomena such as

rituals, festivals or works of an which have always been produced or enacted in panicular

social-historical circumstances.

Williams, while discussing the concept of ideology, argues that Antonio Gramsci's conception

of hegemony is superior to that of the dominant ideology since it facilitates an understanding of

the complex interplay of cultural forces within a social totality.s Williams argues funher that if

ideology is construed as a distoned reflection of power relations and contradictions, the~ the

4 In Interpretations of Culture, Geertz draws out the implications of the symbolic conception of culture. For Geertz the overarching concerns are meaning, symbolism and interpretation. In studying and analysing culture we are engaged in unravelling layers of meaning, describing and redescribing actions and expressions which are already meaningful for the very individuals who are producing, perceiving and interpreting these actions and expressions in their everyday lives. One of the problems and difficulties with the Geertzian approach is that it gives insufficient attention to the problems of power and social conflict. John 8 Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Theory in the Era of Mass Communication, London: Polity Press, 1990, pp.131-135. 5 For Althusser, ideology is a necessary creation of any society, so far as any society must provide the means to form its members and transform them to their conditions of existence. According to him, ideology is not a distorted representation of real relations but a real relation itself. Althusser elaborates by delineating the nature and the modus operandi of ideology by three theses. 1. Ideology does not represent reality but rather human beings lived relation to the conditions of existence. 2. Ideology has a material existence; the representations that make up ideology are inscribed in social practices and expressed in objective forms. 3.Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects. The individual is constituted as a subject by a process of interpellation in which the subject recognises itself as a subject, although the subject does not recognise that its subjectivity is thereby produ'ced in John B Thompson, Studies in the theory of ideology, London: Polity Press, 1984, pp. 91-96.

200,

lived experiences are denied therein. That which is lived cannot be dismissed and termed

illusory, as it is represented in the common sense and used in the everyday life for all practical

purposes and reasons.6 But for McGuigan the hegemonic leadership is never all-pervasive and

the nexus of culture and ideology is one of perpetual negotiation between contending forces.

To further explore the dynamics and the complexity of hegemony, Williams tyIX>logised cultural

practice in terms of dominant, residual and emergent formations, with both residual and

emergent subdivided into alternative and oppositional.7 For Williams, the dominant culture will

never command the entire field, it must struggle continually with residual and emergent

cultures, that whose formations are in the periphery and are in the process of establishing their

own way of structure and function. Residual culture by definition derives from the past, usually

rooted, under predominantly secular and urban conditions, in religious and rural practices,

presenting resistance and challenge to the current hegemonic order.

Williams' arguments are more rooted in emergent and oppositional formations, canymg a

potential for a new, previously unimaginable, social order. Williams made a vital distinction

between alternative and oppositional practices. Alternative cultures seek a place to coexist

within the existing hegemony, whereas the. oppositional culture aims to replace it. McGuigan

observes that Williams was sensitive to the dialectic of alternative and oppositional in more

narrowly defmed practices of cultural production, in film, television and so on. The central

problem, for Williams was the articulation of· popular movements and emerging forms of

cultural production into a counter hegemony.

McGuigan is of the view that there are broadly three levels at which the development of cultural

studies can be addressed. The first level addresses it in terms of the movement of ideas within

the field, the Succession, incommensurability and the interaction between different paradigms

and problematics. This is the most conventional means of accounting for an academic project.

The second level conceives cultural studies in terms of its formation. This involves addressing

institutional and historical contexts of emergence and transformation. The third level explores

its politics of representation and the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion. The theme of

cultural production and reproduction can be located in this area, though explanations of cultural

6 Raymond Williams, Culture, Glasgow: Fontana Press, 1986. 7 Jim McGuigan, Cultural populism, London: Routledge, 1992, p.24.

201

production can also be understood agamst the background of institutional and historical

contexts.

I,n addressing the problems of modem culture, it is relevant to define and distinguish the realms

on which culture resides- the popular and the populist sphere. Against the background of these

spheres, modem culture is acted and re-enacted in the everyday. Cultural populism is widely

used in the passing and its meaning is used always in the approximate sense rather than the

precise sense. Populism is often used in the discourse of politics than in cultural discourse.

Though this may not always be the case. The dichotomous opposite of populism would be

elitism. Both populist and elitist are used in cultural discourses and other disciplines formally or

otherwise engaged in politics. In this thesis, the term elitist would be used for ideological

propositions that construe the culture of ordinary and its behaviour and practices as derogatory

and pejorative. McGuigan argues that populism has been defined with conceptual neutrality and

it is this reference which is used in the study of culture in the broadly anthropological sense

normally deployed in communication, cultural and media studies. He further argues that cultural

populism is not an analytical category and it resists semantic fixity. He discusses that cultural

populism refers, in the academic context, to diffuse political sentiments associated routinely

with certain analytical protocols, rather than the kind, dispassionately and scientifically claimed

by a paradigm. The term similar to non-academic discourse like in the theoretical and everyday

discourses on culture carries a negative connotation. According to McGuigan, any form of

culture that appeals to ordinary people could reasonably be called as populist culture with no

evaluative judgement implied, although this is rarely so in prevailing cultural discourses. The

most popular forms of culture are not generally disseminated from high to low in such a way.

Film songs and the same in television, channel music in television, for instance, are much more

firmly grounded, for good commercial reasons, in the tastes and preferences of ordinary people

or the mass. The popularisation of Camatic music in Tamil songs is a case in point. The Tamil

cinema witnessed a phenomenon where Camatic music was popularised in the films through

their songs. Till then Camatic music was the preserve of the elite. 8

8 M. S. S. Pandian, Tamil Cultural Elites and Cinema: Outline of an Argument, Economic Political Weekly, April 13, 1996, pp.950-955& S Theodore Baskaran; The Eye of the Serpent: An Introduction to Tamil Cinema, Madras: East Week Books, 1996.

202

McGuigan's usage of cultural populism is distinguishable from two closely connected practices,

a practice of primary cultu~ production, and academic and educational practice of studying

popular cultural texts as an extension of, say, literal criticism. The first practice was called by

some scholars as 'aesthetic populism,' typically refers to the manner in which popular cultural

elements are inscribed in serious works of art or the manner in which serious works are adapted

into popular contexts. Popular culture, McGuigan argues, has indeed become widely

academicised in recent years and it is no longer illegitimate to study, say, Hollywood films, crime

novels or calendar art. A much wider range of texts has come under the academic scrutiny of

popular culture and cultural studies. In fact, popular cinema has been under the scrutiny of

cultural studies and these 'films' have been studied, understood and analysed as 'texts' to discern

the multiplicity of meanings in a given culture. 9

The proposed definition of McGuigan understands cultural populism as the intellectual

assumption, made by some students of popular culture, that the symbolic experiences and

practices of ordinary people are more important analytically and politically than the Culture with

a capital C. He tries to understand the significance given in English language that it may be the

upper case for words like Culture and Art is the immediate typographic signifier of cultural

elitism in English.

One of the central concerns here is to enquire into the role of culture in the reproduction of

social structures, or the way in which unequal power relations, unrecognised as such and thus

accepted as legitimate, are embedded in the systems of classification used to describe and

discuss everyday life-as well as cultural practices- and in the ways of perceiving reality that are

taken for granted by members of society. 10 Bourdieu points out that systems of domination

find expression in virtually in all areas of cultural practice and symbolic exchange, including

such things as preferences in dress, sports, food, music, art, literature and so on or in a more

general way in taste. 11 For example, taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier. Social subjects

are classified by their distinctions they make between various dichotomies. But Randall Johnson

argues that these divisions do not cause Or create class divisions and inequalities, 'art and

9 Jim McGuigan, Cultural Populism, Routledge: London, 1992, p.3. 10 Pierre Bourdieu, The Field a/Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, London: Polity, 1993, p.2. 11 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique 0/ the Judgement o/Taste, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, pp.6-7.

203

cultural consumption are pre disposed, consciously or deliberately or not, to fulfil a social

function of legitimating social differences' and thus contribute to the process of social

reproduction. Like Foucault, Bourdieu visualises power as a diffuse often concealed and broadly

accepted, and often unquestioned ways- ways of seeing and describing the world Unlike

Foucault, however in Bourdieu's formulation this diffuse or symbolic power is closely

intertwined with - but not reducible to -economic and political power, and thus serves a

legitimating function. Bourdieu's effort on the cultural area constitutes a major force against the

Kantian arguments of the notions of the universality of aesthetic and ideologies of artistic and

cultural autonomy from external determinants. This is very similar to the fact that the central

problem faced during the formation of film theory were attempts made to scuttle the

interdisciplinary approach and film theory a discipline per se and not constitute other sciences.12

In fact Bourdieu's work transcends the structuralist dichotomies between internal and external

readings, texts and institutions, literary and sociological analysis, and popular and 'high culture'.

Realising the limitations of the structuralist discourse, he formulated his own theory and

methodology to transcend and overcome the series of dichotomous opposites. He

encompassed these dichotomies under the central epistemological dichotomy between

'subjectivism' and 'objectivism' or in his own conception, between social phenomenology and

social physics. Subjectivism, according to him, represents a form of knowledge about the social

world based on the primary experience and perceptions of individuals and includes such

intellectual currents as phenomenology, rational action theory and certain forms of

interpretative sociology, anthropology and linguistic analysis. Objectivism, on the other hand,

attempts to explain the social world by bracketing individual experience and subjectivity and

focusing instead on the objective conditions which structure practice independent of human

consciousness, found in the social theories of Saussurean linguistics, Levi-Straussian structural

anthropology and Althusserian Marxism. It is within this field that the concept habitus and

field were formulated by Bourdieu. What is of importance is that his comparison of this notion

of habitus to Chomsky's generative grammar in that account for the creative, active and

inventive capacities of the human agents but without attributing to the universal mind

According to Johnson he has distanced from Chomsky and in total habitus represented a

theoretical intention to get out from under the philosophy of consciousness without doing away

with the agent, in its truth of a practical operator of object constructions. The habitus in the

12 Jacques Aumont, Aesthetics of Film, Paris: Methuen, 1987.

204

operational sense is specific situations, that incline agents to act, that are always not calculated

and that is not simply a question of conscious obedience to rules. Rather it is a set of

dispositions, which generate practices and perceptions. Agents do operate in specific situations

or concrete social situations governed by a set of objective social relations according to

Bourdieu. To account for these situations and contexts, Bourdieu developed the concept of

field without having to fall into the determinism of objective analysis.

According to Bourdieu's theoretical formulation, any social formation is hierarchically

structured and each field operates on its own independent laws. He further states that each field

is relatively autonomous but structurally homologous with the others. A field is a dynamic

structure in that a change in the agent's position necessitates a change in the field's structure. In

any given field, the agents who occupy a central position are always engaged in competition for

control of interests and resources but the interests and resources at stake in fields are not always

material, and competition among the agents are always not one of calculation. In the cultural

field the concern is authority inherent in recognition, consecration and prestige. This is

especially so in what he calls the sub-field of restricted production where production is not

aimed at large-scale market. But the assumption that the field of cultural production is not

aimed at large scale is not true with the avant-garde literature, especially modem fiction which

has become a global business where large number of publish~rs are involved and lot of money

is at stake. And the same is true for cinema, at a different level, where distributors calculate in

order for huge markets across different regions in different languages. Authority based on

prestige, according to Bourdieu, is purely symbolic and mayor may not imply possession of

economic capital. Two forms of capital are of importance in the field of cultural production.

Symbolic capital refers to the accumulated prestige, celebrity, prestige or honour and is founded

on the dialectic of knowledge, 'connaissance' and recognition 'reconnaissance'. Cultural capital

refers t~ forms of cultural knowledge, competencies or dispositions. He defines cultural capital

as a form of knowledge, an internalised code or a cognitive acquisition that equips the social

agent with empathy towards, appreciation for or competence in deciphering cultural relations or

cultural artefacts. He suggests that 'a work of art has meaning and interest only for someone

who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which is encoded.' The cultural

acquisition is a process that involves a long duration of time, which includes a pedagogical

action for the social formation of the social institutions. The transfer of concepts from one field

205

to another, as he point~ out, possesses 'an eminent heuristic virtue, the one that epistemological

tradition recognises in analogy' and makes it possible for him, according to Johnson, attain a

greater level of generalisation of the theoretical principles.

The field of cultural production is restricted, in the broadest sense, by an opposition between

two sub-fields, the field of restricted production and large-scale production. The field of

restricted production refers to the area which is generally thought as 'high' art, for example,

classical music, and the plastic arts. In this field, as discussed above, the stakes between the

agents are largely symbolic and the competition is one of prestige and according to Bourdieu is

production for producers. The symbolic power of this sub-field's products is sustained by a vast

social apparatus encompassing museums, galleries, literary and art histories and centres of the

performing arts. The field of large scale production refers to mass or popular culture:

televisions, cinematic productions, radio and mass-produced fictional works and the entire

media industry. This is sustained by a large and a complex culture industry and operates on the

logic of economic capital and more on profits. Its dependence on the mass base constrains the

field to operate on the charact~ristics of restricted field of production although it borrows

frequently from the restricted field of production in order to renew itself. The dynamic of the

field is based on the struggle between the positions, a struggle often expressed in the conflict

between the orthodoxy of established traditions and the heretical challenges of new modes of

cultural practice, manifested as prises de position or position taking. As discussed earlier, against

the dominant ideology, the hegemonic order in the Gramscian sense, cannot have a complete

hold over society and there is always -a contention between the emergent forces and the already

established forces. There is sustained competition and confrontation in Bourdieu's arguments.

"Because the distinctive power of cultural possessions or practices -an artefact, a qualification, a

film culture-tends to decline with the growth in the absolute number of people able to

appropriate them, the profits of distinction would wither away if the field of production of

cultural goods, itself governed by the dialectic of pretension and distinction, did not endlessly

supply new goods or new ways of using the same goods".13

13 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique a/the Judgement a/Taste, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984, pp_6-7_

206

Bourdieu argues that in the cultural market- and no doubt- elsewhere-the matching of supply

and demand is neither the simple effect of production imposing itself on consumption nor the

effect of a conscious endeavour to serve the consumers' needs, but the result of the objective

orchestration of two relatively independent logics, that of the fields of production and of

consumption. He states that there is a fair homology between the fields of production where

the goods are produced and where the tastes are determined. Bourdieu states that in the case of

production of cultural goods at least, the relations between supply and demand take a particular

form: the supply always exerts an effect of symbolic imposition. A cultural product, for him, -

an avant-garde picture, a political manifesto, a newspaper- is a constituted taste, a taste which

has been raised from the vague semi-existence of half-formulated or unformulated experience,

implicit or even unconscious desire, to the full reality of the finished product, by a process of

objectification which, in present circumstances, is always the work of the professionals.14

According to Williams, the invention and the development of the material means of cultural

production a,;-e a remarkable chapter in the human history and this phenomenon is underplayed

by comparison with the invention and development of what are more easily seen as forms of

material production in food, shelter, tools and utilities. A common ideological position marks

off this latter area from the cultural, the artistic or the spiritual. The leitmotif that runs througjJ tlx; entire discourse of cultural prrxluction and reprrxIuction is the faa that uhater:er PUrfXJses cultural practices may

serre, its means of prrxluction are u:narguably materid. According to Williams, the whole contrast

between the cultural and the material is misleading. He substantiates by defining the two areas

that could elaborate the field of the cultural, the relations between the material means and the

social forms within which they are used and relations between these material means and social

forms and the specific which he calls as artistic forms which are a manifest cultural production

respectively.ls For him it is necessary to make a general distinction from continuing social and

sociological effects between the class of material means which depends on the inherent physical

resources and the other class which depends mainly on the use of non- human resources and

material objects. In order to substantiate this distinction he gives songs and dances as examples

of the first and painting and sculpture for the second. In the use of non-human resources for

transformation, especially production of cinema, the social relations become much more

14 Ibid. p.231. 15 Raymond Williams, Culture, Glasgow: Fontana Press, 1986, p.87.

207

complex and variable and gives complex types of such practices (i). combination of the use of

external objects for instance .where paints, masks and costumes are used (il). development of

instruments in the kinds of performances, in the use of musical instruments (iii) selection,

transformation and production of separable objects which carry cultural significance as in the

use of clay, metal, stone and pigment in sculpture and painting (iv). where separable material

system of signification was in use, writing as a specialised type came into practice (v).

development of complex amplificatory, extending and reproductive technical systems which

makes possible new trends of presentations.16

According to him, culture becomes complex and richer as the social distance between its

practices becomes greater. The divisions which he deems as important; affect the character of

modem cultures to the point where social relations between artists and the audiences or what

Williams calls as public can be the only kind which can be considered. He is of course

academically sensitive to declare that the dance and music of other cultures are difficult to

respond to than one's own. Though the language of drama is culturally specialised by language,

but in many of its other elements of movement and scene it is widely and inherently accessible,

as is clear in mime and evident in the silent cinema.

Sociological Significance of the New Technique of Reproduction and Circulation

The earliest examples of the circulation- are seals, coins and medals which were connected with

extending trade and political empire. The reproducible symbolic visual image became a mode of

defining a social area of credit or power. In a political empire the production and reproduction

of an area of power was through military and political means though at the level of

reproductioh, the use of the reproducible image of authority became and has remained very

important. The reproduction of the image as currency became quite decisive in the

reproduction of trading relationship that was primarily a political and economical relationship.

The visual image is historically located and traced in the field of cult, magic and religious

objects, of utilitarian articles and decorative items. These images were homologous to the

natural world and are distinguished as works of art and that the reproductive technology

became a major cultural mode. The leading technique which pioneered the reproduction was

16 Ibid. p.90.

208

casting and that was a major factor in the extension of cults and religions through votive

statues to the image of god. But in the public sphere portraits, busts of kings and queens were

made. To begin with, most of the time objects of art especially in the area of reproduction and

circulation were either religious or ideological. Then came the graphic reproduction, where

graphic images were reproduced and thus illustration came into existence. Though it was slow

to develop the woodcut reproducible illustration which appeared initially in China. Paper was

used in the late twelfth century for xylography. Woodcut designs appeared in the fifteenth

century and finally casting of metal type combined with developments of the press.

Reproduction was employed within the social and cultural reproduction evident in the

production of prints of Christ and saints, extensive printing of bibles, almanacs, dictionaries and

calendars. The circulation of a whole lot of texts that were to mark the literary sphere, became

the classical literary texts. The inherent mobility of the cultural objects was crucial to the market

relations that brought change in the society. During the same period large scale printing on

paper took place. The movable canvas replaced the wall fresco as the most common base

material for painting.

The forms of dependence within the monopolistic social and the cultural reproduction were

modified and replaced by the artistic and cultural independence. Both Benjamin and Wdliams identified a shift in the throretical indication in consequence of tb:se chan[!5. Williams identified the variable

degrees of the symmetry and the asymmetrical relations between the cultural reproduction and

general social and cultural reproduction. In the earlier period, asymmetry began to appear in

social relations between the dominant and the subordinated cultures. According to Williams

there are three types of asymmetry. First, organisation of licensing and censorship and other

forms of control and struggle against these, second, the organisation of the market in expansion

and profit maybe in conflict with otherwise dominant political and cultural authorities, exercise

commercial controls, imposed on conceptions of art and cinema, and third, cinema and

changing relations between a received and always to some extent recuperated popular culture

and the new forms of standardised and increasingly centralised production and reproduction.

The asymmetry between market and official reproductive institutions changed in character as

the market moved towards universality especially in the newest means of production and

reproduction above all in cinema and television. Williams observes that when work becomes a

commodity, that is, when it is sold at a profit, the internal calculation of any such market

209

production leads directly towards new forms of cultural control and especially cultural selection.

The manifest commercial modes of control and selection become cultural modes. This effect is

visible in highly capitalised forms of production, especially, in the history of newspaper and

commercial cinema, music and record industry, art production and paperback book. The

market, though open to innovation, is by its nature, profoundly reproductive both of known

demands and priorities. The dominant field and the market determine the prevailing types of

reproduction and, the following are the familiar asymmetries (i). Between the notion of high

culture and pressures of the market on its continued viability and between the notion of plural

culture and the actual profit governed market selection of what can be distributed in some

areas. Divisions have settled along a line of division between newer and older means of

production with the market dominant in the new reproductive technologies and subsidy evident

in the older live forms. The next step in the progress of reproductive technologies was the

intervention of printing, which expanded a minority culture and made into a majority culture.17

He suggested that distinction should be made between a technical. intervention and a

technology and funher between a technology and its actual or possible social relations. The

technology of writing is not only the series of invention, script, an alphabet, and materials for its

production that initiate the process but the mode of distribution of the work thus produced as

well.

Distribution in itself is not only technical but depends on a wider technology primarily

determined by social relations, in the ability to read-which is not the true substance of

distribution.1s The development in the field of cultural production in the post-writing phase is

quite significant. In various ways the new technologies of cinema, sound broadcasting, sound

discs and cassettes, television and video cassettes and tape recorders all embody systems of

access that are direct at least in the sense that they are already available within normal social

development, without any selective cultural training. The deepest changes came only with the

development of the new reproductive technologies ~anifest in cinema and television. The new

technologies required extensive professional specialization whereby complexities in the relations

between various departments was reached.

I7 Charles Nanry talks about in the same breath and manner how Jazz evolved from a minority culture to a majority culture but retaining the minoritarian aspects even after the advent to the majority culture in arguing about the social evolution of Jazz 18 Williams, p. 108.

210

In the field of cultural studies, the central concern was the question -wh:rewas tlx: art in sodolngy?

In the earlier stages the distinction was made between various art forms from simple to

complex forms be it song or dance. For Williams, art is a conscious performance of the

performer and in order to observe the quality or the standard was exhibition of a parameter to

acknowledge art. What defines and constitutes the work of art are generally the aesthetic

properties and effects. The aesthetic in the modem sense is the modem specializing

generalisation of arts and creative arts. It is easy to categorise the aesthetic which is usually done

by introducing, supporting or specifying terms like beauty or in more particular terms like

harmony, proportion, fonn and the like. According to Williams, initially there was a problem in

the perception of ait and there is no way of defining the category art from the undoubted and

general human perceptions which we are bound to recognise as widely applicable and thus not

reduced to any specialisation. Problems in conventional categorising were also sociological

interest like in the works of art, commercial trash, crime and pulp fiction. The terms are harsher

in the popular arts but the tendency exists. Williams argues that this criterion should be refused,

often rhetorically invoked in these doubtful positions by the criterion of the strictest intellectual

coherence and rigour. The modem distinction between 'high' culture and popular culture, for

example, is impenetrable without the closest consideration of the shifting structures of social

class. Form is inherently reproductive and reproducible. Culture -that is its necessary definition

as fonn. They lose their significance when they don't reproduce. Tradition is the process of

reproduction in action and reproduction has different levels and meanings.19

Since the central problem revolves around cultural reproduction it will be relevant to trace, in

brief, the cultural origins of the concept of culture not from the etymological origin but from

the classical conceptions and the decisive shift towards social anthropology and sociology. John

B. Thompson typologises the concept of culture that emerged in the late eighteenth century and

early nineteenth centuries as the classical conception of culture. This classical conception was

also articulated by the German historians and philosophers like Adelung, Herder, Meiners and

Jenisch.20 He defines that, "culture is the process of developing and ennobling the human

faculties, a process facilitated by the assimilation of works of scholarship and art and linked to

19 Ibid. p.184. 20 John B Thompson, Ideology of Modern Culture: Critical Theory in the Era of Modern Communication, London: Polity Press, 1990, p.126.

211

the progressive character of the modem era." He adds that the classical definition could not

carry its assumptions for a very long time and the decisive shift came in the late nineteenth

century, when culture was incorporated into the then emerging discipline of anthropology and

later in social and cultural anthropology. In this shift, the concept of culture was stripped of its

ethnocentric connotations and adapted to the efforts of ethnographic description. The study of

culture was more of an unravelling the way of life of the other, than the ennoblement of the

mind and the spirit.21 Even the initial attempts to study the other were colonialist in their

approach as opposed to the modem day anthropological endeavours. Culture has been used in

many ways and linked to various methodologies and approaches and the task of this chapter is

to distinguish between two usages of culture, the descriptive conception and the symbolic

conception. Thompson points out that Tylor's conception contains the main elements of the

descriptive conception of culture and makes a series of methodological assumptions about how

culture is to be studied. These assumptions of Taylor made culture as the object of a systematic,

scientific inquiry as they produce what we may describe as the scienti:mtion of the a:ncept of adture. The classical conception of culture was primarily a humanistic notion of culture concerned with

the cultivation of behaviour and social graces and it was in the writings of Tylor wm-e a

scientific discipline was established which was responsible in observation, classification,

comparison and analysis of different cultures. Tylor's conception is scientific and evolutionary

in character, which Thompson argues was inconsistent with the general intellectual climate of

the nineteenth century. Darwin's social evolution had a deep impact on the nascent disciplines

of sociology and social anthropology and later adapted the positivistic approach. The writings

of Durkheim and later the writings of Malinowski espoused the functionalist perspective of

culture and society in which cultural processes and phenomena could be analysed in terms of

satisfaction of human needs. The cultural approach employed by Malinowski according to

Thompson calls is the descriptive conception. The descriptive conception is summarised by

Thompson as: the adture of a group or a society is the array of beliefs, custxms, idRas, values, as mil as the material artifacts, objros and instrurnmts, which are acquiml by the individuals as rmrrzb;rs of the group or society. Thompson locates the centrality of symbolic conception in the works of Clifford Geertz

particularly in his magnum opus, The Interpret£ltionofCultures. Though Geertz terms his work as a

semiotic one, rather than a symbolic one, Thompson recognises the distinction as impertinent

21 Ibid. p.127.

212

in this particular discussion. Meaning, symbolism and interpretation are the questions of

obsessive concerns to Geertz.

The analysis of culture involves interpretation in which the ethnographer translates the culture

in question into a written text, which was not there before. This interpretation in fact is a re

reading of the culture in pursuit. Geertz borrows the concept of fixation of 'said' from Paul

Ricouer and explains the ehtnographer's task in grasping what is 'said' in the social discourse

and fIxing the 'said'. Underlying this aspect and approach is the symbolic conception of culture.

Thompson describes the symbolic conception as: culture is the pattern of meanings embodied

in symbolic forms, including actions, utterances and meaningful objects of various kinds, by

virtue of which individuals communicate with one another and share their experiences,

conceptions and beliefs.22. In contrast to the descriptive conception that is focused more on

classification, the symbolic conception involves interpretation. For Geertz, the study of culture

is more concerned with interpreting a text. He gives importance to the sensitivity of the

anthropologist to discern the meanings and render a sensible and intelligible pattern of life

which is already meaningful for those who live it. The human behaviour is 'extremely plastic'.

Thompson fmds The Notes on Balinese Oxk Fight as an imaginative interpretation, and says that

the interpretation is insufficient and that does not provide any convincing defence of the claim

that this is what the cockfIght means to the Balinese. Another diffIculty in the methodology of

Geertz's approach is that gives insufficient attention to the problems of power and social

conflict. Thompson points out that the power aspect in the cultural discourse of Geertz has

been completely neglected. Cultural phenomenon is viewed as meaningful constructs, as

symbolic forms and the analysis of culture is understood as the interpretation of patterns of

meaning embodied in these forms. Cultural phenomenon however, is also embedded in relations

of power and conflict and meanings embedded therein are communicated through latent and -

manifest power structures. Geertz's emphasis is on meaning rather than on power relations.

Apart from an insufficient attention to power relations, Thompson is of the view that the work

of Geertz is insufficient to the problems of the structured social contexts within which cultural

phenomena are produced, transmitted and received. Thompson suggests an alternative a

structural conception of culture that emphasises both the symbolic character of cultural

phenomena and the fact that phenomena are always embedded in structured social contexts. He

22 Ibid p.132.

213

defines the structural conception as, the study of symbolic conception-that is, meaningful

actions, objects and expressions of various kinds-in relation to the historically specific and

socially structured contexts and processes within which, and by means of which, these symbolic

forms are produceq, transmitted and received.23 The core of Thompson's argument is the

rmmingfol ronstitution and social contextualization of synlxJlic forms. In examining the social

contextualization of symbolic forms, Thompson argues that symbolic forms are constantly

valued and evaluated, acclaimed and contested, by the individuals who produce and receive

them. He calls it as the object of 'i.i1lorization, i.e., process by which and through which they are

ascribed cenain kinds of 'value'. These symbolic forms are always in constant transmission

between individuals and institutions that are located in specific social and cultural contexts. This

exchange requires same means by which they are transmitted and Thompson calls it as the

rrxxIalities of adtural trctn911ission. The production and the reception of the symbolic forms take

place in contexts, which involve spatio-tfm{Xffal setting;. The spatial and temporal characteristics of

the context of production of the symbolic form mayor may not overlap with the characteristics

of the context of the reception of the symbolic form. Thompson tries to clarify the typical

characteristics of social contexts by introducing the concept of fm of interaction. Thompson

tries to distinguish between the fields of interaction, the resources or the .capital and the social

institutions. Thompson understands social institutions as specific and relatively stable clusters of

rules and resources, together with the social relations that are established by them and within

them. He stretches his methodology further when he makes a distinction between the fields of

interaction and social institutions on one hand and social structure on the other. He uses the

term social structure to refer to the relatively stable asymmetries and differentials in terms of the

distribution of and access to, resources of various kinds, power, opportunities and life chances.

The analysis of the social structure provides the background in which power and its relations

can be located. The operationalisation of power, i.e., how power is translated in everyday is a

matter of concern. Thompson says that when the established relations of power are

asymmetrical then the situation is described as being one of domination. Williams also argued

about the symmetry and the asymmetry in the relations, which lead to the situations of

domination and subjugation.

23 Ibid. p.136.

214

".

The process of production and reception of symbolic forms is not of assimilation;but is a

creative process of interpretation and evaluation in which the meaning of the symbolic form is

actively constituted and reconstituted. Individuals who do not passively absorb the symbolic

forms make sense of them after receiving them and discern various meanings and variations out

of them. Thompson and Williams share the same view that these variations are particularly

evident in the case of symbolic forms-such as fine arts and classical music- meaning thereby

that interpretation and appreciation require special skills and conventions which are acquired

through special training and which are limited to certain privileged sections of the society.

Thompson calls the continuos process of constituting and reconstituting meaning in the

reception of symbolic forms as the symbJlic reprrxIuaion of social coruexts and the consequence of

contextualization of symbolic forms is called the prrxf5S of vdoriZ£ltion.

Through out this process, the symbolic forms are subjected to a complex process of evaluation,

valuation and conflict. This means that the form in transmission is assigned a value which might

be symbolic or economic. Economic valorization is the process through which symbolic forms

are ascribed a certain economic value, i.e., a value which can be exchanged in the market.

Economic valorization assigns symbolic forms as commodities. The process of economic

valorization, according to Thompson, is accompanied by conflict because symbolic goods may

be valued in different degrees by different individuals. Thus the value of goods is relative. The

growing conflict of economic valorization has manifested in the growing commodification of

symbolic forms and the incorporation of institutions into industries of mass communication

especially in cinema and television. These organisations are routinely concerned with the

economic valorization of symbolic forms. Thompson observes that though the distinction

between· the symbolic and economic valorization and conflict may be analytical, in actual

situations and circumstances they overlap in complex ways. The relation between the symbolic

value and the economic value is evident, for instance, in the sale of movies and paintings by

renowned directors and painters and even in the music industry with the sale of the cassettes

and their direct relation with the music director.

Thompson gives another important concept, the avss-vdorization which refers to the use of

symbolic value as a means of increasing or decreasing the economic value, and vice versa. In the

field of advertising, cross-valorization is a well known measure and strategy pursued by the

advertisers who use models, actors and well known public figures as a means for promoting

215

c·

these products. The objective is to increase their sale by associating them with a figure of high

symbolic value. The strategies that are employed by the person depend on the positions they

occupy in the particular field of interaction and also depend on the resources and their relations

with other fields. Thompson distinguishes between three types of strategies employed by the

individuals and explains how they are linked to different positions in the field i.e. the dominant,

intermediate and the subordinate positions. Individuals in the dominant position have access to

resources and they employ the strategy of distinction, which is also explained by Bourdieu,24 by

which they distinguish themselves, from the subordinate. They may anribute high symbolic

value to the goods, which are scarce and expensive and are largely inaccessible to others who

are economically weaker. An intermediate position may be a situation in which where there is a

large flow of economic capital and a less quantity of cultural capital (the intelligentsia or the

avant-garde).The strategies of symbolic valuation pursued by individuals in intermediate

positions are often characterised by maleration. Individuals in intermediate positions may also be

oriented towards dominant positions, producing symbolic forms as if t4ey were products of

dominant individuals or groups. Consequentially the individuals in intermediate positions may

thus pursue a position of pretens~on, pretending to be what they are not and seeking thereby to

assimilate themselves to positions which are superior to their own.25 Individuals who occupy the

subordinate positions are those, who offer, access to the smallest quantities of· capital in

different kinds. The strategies of the symbolic valuation pursued by the individuals are the

strategies of practicality. They ascribe more value to goods, which are practical in design and

functional in everyday life. The individuals in the submlinate position acknowkdg; the WJrks of classical art and by aa:epting that they are not the kiizd of uurks, which they 1.WUfd wish to consume and enj;y. The

positive valuation of practical objects may go hand in hand in with a r5JXr1fo1 resignation concerning the symbolic forms produced by the individuals who occupy the superior positions

in a field. In contrast with the respectful resignation, individuals in subordinate positions may

pursue various strategies of rfjrtim. By rejecting the symbolic forms produced by the individual

in the subordinate positions they might be able to affirm their position and the goods produced

in their field without fundamentally disrupting the unequal distribution of resources

characteristic of the field26

24 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction. 25 Ibid. p.159. 26 Ibid. p.161.

216

The Development of Media Industries.

The production and circulation of symbolic forms in modem societies is inextricably woven

with the media industries. The role of media and its related institutions has become vital to the

functioning of the everyday and its products have a pervasive effect on the patterning of the

activities of the society. The events which are presented to audiences and the viewers take place

beyond the social milieu in which they are present and the countless characters which appear in

cinema and television provide them with points of reference so that these forms, cinematic and

television become a part of the everyday. Though the audiences never come in contact with the

characters who appear on television and cinema, but they share, by virtue of their participation

in, what Thompson calls, a mediated culture, a common experience and a collective memory.

Media industries of late have played a crucial role in sustaining the symbolic forms not only

through transmission but by actively participating in the transformation of these forms. The

origins of mass communication can be traced back to the late fifteenth century, when the

techniques associated with the Gutenberg's printing press were taken up by a variety of

institutions in the major trading centres of Europe and exploited for the purposes of

reproducing multiple copies of manuscripts and texts.

These processes have grown in complex ways along with the rise of industrial capitalism and

with the formation of modem state societies. The growing interconnection in societies in the

contemporary world, according to Thompson is an outcome of the very processes- including

the mediazation of modem culture-which have shaped social development-since the early

modem period. It is very important to discuss the aspects of cultural transmission, a series of

characteristics that are discussed under the heading cultural transmission. There are three

aspects of cultural transmission- T£rhnical Medium of transnission, Institutional apparatus, Space and Time Distanciation. Thompson calls them the modalities of transmission. The general process by

which the transmission of symbolic forms become mediated by the technical and the

institutional apparatus of the media industries is called mediazation of culture. The exchange of

symbolic forms involves three aspects in varying ways and degrees that are discussed below.

The technical medium of transmission is the material substratum of a symbolic form, i.e., the

material components with which the symbolic form is produced and transmitted. One attribute

of the technical medium as discussed above is that it allows for a certain degree of fixation as

217

elaborated by Paul Ricouer.27 The degree of fixation vanes and it is high especially in

engravings, paintings, films and television. These are called information storage mechanism.

The second characteristic attribute of the technical medium is a certain degree of reproduction

of a symbolic form. The third attribute of the technical medium is the degree of the

participation it allows for the individuals who employ the medium. Different technical mediums

according to Thompson cannot be fully disassociated from the social contexts in which they are

employed by individuals involved in encoding and decoding of symbolic- forms. Another aspect

of the cultural transmission is that apart from the technical medium the exchange of symbolic

forms involves an institutional apparatus of transmission. The institutional apparatus is a

determinate set of institutional arrangements within which the technical medium is deployed

and the. individuals involved in the encoding and the decoding are embedded These

arrangements involve resources and relations who are most of the time hierar~hical and involve

power relations between individuals occupying institutionalised positions and also institutions

per se. These institutions are channds of selcr:tire dijfosion if symbJIic fonns where through the

institutional apparatus, the transmission is made possible. The institutional apparatus also has a

framework and a template, according to which the transmission is done, which he calls 'a set of

mechanisms for the restricted implementation of symbolic forms.' The final aspect of the

cultural transmission what he calls the 'space-time distanciation' is involved in transmission.

The two traits of the third aspect are important for in this discussion. According to the fIrst trait

the context of co-presence and the availability of the symbolic form is limited to the

participants who are involved in the action, or to the individuals located in the immediate

proximity and the form does not endure beyond the transient moment of its utterance if it

happens to be a conversation or the rapid fading memory of its content. The second trait is the

extension of availability of the symbolic form in space and time where the nature of availability

and the extension depend on· the technical medium of transmission and the institutional

apparatus.

These traits and attributes have been involved at various stages of the cultural development,

especially the development of cinema. The establishment of the fUm industry, its production

companies, the distribution companies and its associated chains and other networks are

instances and examples of the modalities of cultural transmission. Each modality is located in a

27 John B.Thompson. Paul Ricoeur: Hermeneutics and the Social Sciences, London: Polity Press,

218

technical medium, which encompasses the relevant symbolic forms with certam kinds of

ftxation and reproducibility. Each modality involves distinctive types of institutions, what

Thompson calls generic or sedimented institutions -within which the symbolic forms are

produced and diffused.

After having discussed the appearances that constitute culture and its developments it is

important to discuss the theoretical frame of reference that is the basic requirement for the

study of mass communications. This area has remained a blind spot in contemporary social

sciences. In trying to assess this field, there arise an unsystematic group of observations.

Popular culture has a century old tradition in modem history. The historical locus of popular

culture today is not be ftxed because the source of culture is in a state of constant flux. There is

a need to evaluate the overall approach of empirical research to the social function of popular

culture. The trend is that there is a philosophical, qualitative, non- research analysis of popular

culture. There has emerged a responsible relationship between social criticism and social

research.

Popular culture has been an old dilemma. There are two leitmotifs that run continuously

through out the modem era. Positive attitude toward all instrumentalities for socialization of the

individual on the one hand and a concern about the inner fate of the individual under the

impact of the levelling powers of institutional and other organised forms of leisure activity on

the other hand,zs

During the sixteenth century in the post-feudal society, Montaigne observed that pressures

exerted upon the individual. To escape those pressures, Montaigne suggested distractions where

the self loses its trace and makes it safe. It manifestal in the transformation firm a faith in religion to

faith in mass and ammenial culture. Montaigne gives examples of the barrister and the men who

were hired at funerals to assist in ceremony of mourning. Escape, distraction, entertainment and

various leisure beliefs and concepts emerged in the sixteenth century. Pascal who replied to

Montaigne after a century later said that diversions could lead to unhappiness. In his reply,

Pascal observed that in an everyday fashion all the unhappiness of men arise from one simple

28 Leo Lowenthal, Historical Perspectives on Popular Culture, in Stephen Eric Broner and Douglas Mcckay Kellner. ed., Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, New York: Routledge, 1989, p.186.

219

fact, that men cannot stay quietly in their own chamber and 'amusement seeking' behaviour

arises from constant unhappiness. What was leisure for Montaigne was distraction for Pascal.

The fine arts during this period were confined to a small section of people. What emerged in

the beginning as everyday life articulated the interests of the elite in the classical form of culture

that were manifested as fine arts. The other side of the fme arts, i.e., folk art however, was never

acknowledged. In fact, the source of folk art, which is the everyday, came to be known as 'low

culture' as against 'high culture' that came to be known as the fme arts. Entertainment was

conceived as the rightful possession of all. The standards set by the people are considered lower

than those, which were set by the workers around the seats of almighty. The people's artists had

a satisfaction that they were identified with a vast and forward movement, which gave everyday

folks their right to flourish under the sun.29

The nonconformist position of social critique to entertainment is the process of frustration,

which ensues entertainment in the modem man. The conditions of earning one's bread create

the lonely modem man. These conditions explain the need for entertainment so that it

repetitively presents the same reveries. Hence paralled to the retrogression of consciousness, in

say, the Hollywood's writer, there is a more widespread and a more pernicious retrogression of

consciousness in the motion picture audience. The social and economic conditions have

established the basis for this. The Motion picture further enforces it.30

The popular culture dilemma manifested its forms in the verbalization of that time. The

language of the sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophers was steeped in religious

terminology followed by modem writers who employed a sociological usage. The common

man's language was colloquial in nature.

The historical locus of popular culture is important to understand its activities and associations.

The counter concept to popular culture is art. Artistic products started losing their spontaneity

by the replacement of popular culture, thereby becoming a manipulated version of reality. Thus

the mechanical reproduction of art forms came into practice as suggested by Walter Benjamin.

29 Cou1oton Waugh, The Comics, New York: Macmillan, 1974, p.188 30 James T Farrell, The Leauge of Frightened Philistines, New York: Vanguard Press, n.d.

220

One of the characteristic traits of popular culture is that it glorifies and sanctions whatever it

finds wonh echoing. Schopenhauer observed that music is the world once more. This

philosophical aphorism throws light on the unbridgeable difference between an and popular

culture. It is the difference between an increase in insight through a medium possessing self­

sustaining means and a mere repetit~on of given facts with the use of borrowed tools.3!

St. Simon argued that conSIstent deeply rooted social tendencies which were completely

impervious to political change made themselves felt in these decades. The concept of society

rests in this insight. There is a complete inconsistency in the content of popular culture within a

given political system and popular culture is an element of society of the first order. Expediency

is the barometer of popular culture and what is said to be one of its chief tasks is not carried

with popular culture. Nietzsche was a critical analyst of popular culture. He expressed in the

general terms as the philosopher of culture has its spokesman today. An analysis of canoon

films in their selection of their materials is an example to the criterion of social expediency.32

Nietzsche criticises the already anificial respiration administered to religion in an era of

decadence and nihilism. When he said God is dead he meant that the frenzied activities of

modem life produce a popular culture in an attempt to fill a vacuum which cannot be fulfilled.

The precarious role of religion along with the pressure of civilization has had a nueroticizing

influence on people, argued Nietzsche.

The differences between popular culture and an are brought about in Aristotle's concept of

catharsis. There is a fundamental difference between spurious gratification and genuine

experience as a step to greater individual fulfilment. In that an lives on the threshold of action.

Lowenthal argues that men free themselves from the mythical relation to the realm of the

beautiful. To experience beauty there needs to be a liberation from the overpowering

domination of nature over men. In popular culture, men discard everything, even reverence for

the beautiful. They deny anything that transcends the given reality. From the realm of beauty

man walks into the realm of entenainment that is integrated with the necessities of society and

denies the right to individual's fulfilinent.33 Men no longer surrender to illusions.

31 Leo Lowenthal, p.188. 32 Barbara Deming, "The Artlessness of Walt Disney", Partisan Review, Spring 1945:226. n .

Under the absolute sway of one man the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic

221

Stuart Rice argues that the effects produced may be qUlte unpremeditated, although the

machinery opens the way for mass impression in keeping with special ends -private or public.

The individual, the figures show, increasingly utilises these media and they inevitably modify his

attitudes and behaviour. What these modifications are to be depends entirely upon those wh

control the agencies. Greater possibilities for social manipulation, for ends that are selfish or

socially desirable, have existed. The major problem is to protect the interest and welfare of the

individual citizen.34

It can hardly be denied that the condition of criticism today is chaotic, especially when it is

applied to the products of these immense distributing machines, the new media. Much

reviewing is unselective in its enthusiasm and can with difficulty be distinguished from

advertising copy. There is a lack of clearly expressed and generally recognised standards of

value. We believe that this confusion is partly due to a failure to realise or accept the fact that

the social framework in which works of art are produced and judged has changed

fundamentally. It makes little sense to suppose that the means of distribution or the size of

social origin of the audience wholly determines the quality of art or entertainment, but it is naive

to pretend that they do not affect it.

This chapter dealt with the idea of reproduction and reproduction which intricately is linked to

the dissemination of cultural forms and expressions. It also examined the site of cultural

production and the politics involved in the reproduction of culture. To render the organisation

of the chapter a linear fashion the chapter traces the classical conception of culture to modem

conception of culture. It also dealt with the diffusion of cultural forms and expressions through

the apparatus of the media. After having analysed culture the next chapter moves on to examine

the issue of filmization. This chapter aims at understanding the influence of cinema on society

and that is the overarching importance of the next chapter.

republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says: " You shall think as I do or you shall die"; but he says: " You are free to think differently from me and retain your life, our property and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow citizens if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their tum, Go in peace! I have given your life, but it is an existence worse than death." '4 o Leo Lowenthal, P.193.

222