Cultural Studies critiques media effects research by focusing on hegemony, or how dominant ideologies secure consent through media. It draws from the Frankfurt School's view of corporate media tailoring messages to support capitalism, and Foucault's idea of discourses that shape understanding and naturalize certain perspectives. Cultural Studies examines how media representations reproduce social inequalities by presenting a restricted range of choices controlled by corporations.

1. CULTURAL STUDIES Of Stuart Hall

2. Basic Ideas Cultural Studies is a reaction against the prevailing approach of Media Effects studies in academic research on media. Its central concern is Hegemony – that is to say, the dominant ideologies in society that secure the consent of the governed to their own subordination

3. Hegemony Media act to support the basic Hegemony which is the ideology of democratic pluralism: i.e. the notion that *power is equally distributed in society *politics adjudicates between different centers of power *media is inform the electorate

4. The Roots of Cultural Studies Frankfurt School: corporate media tailor their messages to induce support for the capitalist system Barthes’ semiotics: ideology is conveyed through sign systems Foucault’s analysis of discourses in society that provide interpretive frameworks through which most people see the world; through discourses we learn what signs mean. People with power create “discursive formations” that become naturalized

5. The Media and Hegemonic Discourse Media representations of culture reproduce social inequalities Corporations control the media Corporate control excludes many voices Complex ethical questions are not engaged Media present restricted ranges of choice as though they were the only options

6. The Question of Audience Three ways of decoding messages encoded by the media are: Operate inside the dominant code Apply a negotiable code Substitute an oppositional code

7. Critique Hall exposes the limitations of context-independent “effects” research Against the insistence of Marxists on economic determinants of social life, Hall elevates the role of culture as a mediating and sometimes as a determining factor He shows that we cannot consider meaning without considering power