Question 8

Cultural Studies- studies culture. Cultural studies focuses on consumption and how society forms and reaffirms stereotypes. It looks at how society forms culture and words with capitol letters like Boy, Girl, Class, Wealth, and so on. Grossberg says that cultural studies cannot define its future. He also repeats how Granham, and political economists, recognize class as a distinction, but fail to recognize race and gender as distinguishers and race and gender in said classes.

Political Economy- The study of the politics of the economy, political economy studies production of goods and buying and selling said goods. Theorists relate production in terms of government and politics. Grossberg says that a flaw with political economy is that it constructs society as “cultural dupes.” This suggests the hypodermic model of communication. He also asserts that culture is ignored completely by political economists. He states that Garnham ignores identity and the construct of class.

The slight irony of both factions is that a base theorist for each is Marx.

Mouse Trapped 2010 is a superb example of an approach of cultural studies. The movie focuses on Disney’s transition into post modernism. The company no longer makes products; they make products to sell their image. Disney is purely an image now. Almost all of the workers interviewed said that they were hooked on the “Disney magic” and that they were the ones who maid the “magic” happen. The video showed the association with Disney and being the happiest place on Earth. These workers were being paid barely minimum wage, but they wouldn’t leave because they loved making the magic. This is a good example of the pipe not being a pipe. In this case, and ironically in the pipe too, the actually dennotated object is harmful to the user or worker. However the workers will not leave because of the image. Mickey Mouse Monopoly also has good examples for the cultural studies theory of semiotics, ideology, and hegemony. The video shows how Disney’s image is so innocent that they can use it as a veil to hegemonically reaffirm sexist and racist thoughts. Since the innocence is there no one really questions the content. The man who wrote the book talked about the power of Disney over all forms of media and the importance to question such a gatekeeper. These are all fundamentals of cultural studies.

Both videos also exemplify political economy. In Mouse Trapped they briefly discuss Disney’s reasoning for screwing over their workers, the very people who make the company, their bottom line. Disney is one of the most lucrative companies. The video talks about contract negotiations and the definition of competitive wages and the politics with Disney. It also briefly touches on the center of Central Florida’s economy, the tourism industry. Mickey Mouse Monopoly was a slightly better example because it discussed Disney’s political weight in the production and use in production of its iconic images. This relates back to politics of production. If a company can control so many facets of media that it can pick and choose how it is produced it reaffirms, a cultural studies pillar, it’s image.