2. Media and circuit of culture
• Culture can be understood in terms of
'shared meanings'.
(Hall 1997) In modern world, the media is the
biggest tool of circulation of these meanings.
• Stuart Hall presents them as being shared
through language in its operation as a
'representational (signifying) system‘ and he
presents the circut of cultural model as a way
of understanding this process.
4. The “Circuit of Culture”
5 interlinked “moments” at which
culture is meaningful:
… production
… consumption
… representation
… identity
… regulation
5. Representation
• Representation meaning from language, painting,
photography and other media, it uses “signs and
symbols to represent whatever exists in the world
in terms of a meaningful idea and concept,
image".
• Representation is the discursive process by which
cultural meaning is generated and given shape:
“we give things meaning by how we represent
them”.
• For Example: A Bird, A Cross, Traffic Lights.
6. Consumption
• When messages are
decoded by audiences.
• Consumers actively
create meanings by using
cultural products in their
everyday lives.
• A Bird in a Political
Conference Between Two
nations can be a
• Symbol Of ”Peace” While
the same bird in a
advertisement of beauty
soup is a symbol of
”beauty and softness”
• A Dog is a symbol of
Loyality in USA, While
abuse in India.
7. Production
• For Example the Use of
word ''HALAL” in islamic
countries
• On the product of snacks
”Lays” by its
manufacturing
• mulinational Company.
(construction) is the
process by which creators
of cultural products
imbue(arise) them with
meaning,
a process often called
encoding (Hall, 1993).
Producers encode
dominant meanings into
their cultural products.
8. Regulation
• Regulation are conditions What’s allowable or
expected in a culture often is deter mined.
• Identities are meanings that accrue to all social
networks, from nations to organizations to publics.
• Identities, then, are never fixed entities but are
multiple, culturally constructed meanings that evolve
and change.
• For example they deals with:
• To target the ideal young costumers: prizes had to be
low. Name must be cool. Addition of new demand
(e.g Diet coke)
9. Sender-Receiver Model
• In sender-receiver model Hall emphasied the importance of
specific cultural conditions at every stage of any
communication process. Creators of media texts produce
them in particular instituational context, drawing on shared
framework of knowledge etc.
• The same media text is engaged by audiences in different
context.
• Hall states that reality exists outside the language but
constantly mediated by and through language, what we can
know or say has to be produced in and through discourse.
• Discursive knowldge is not the representation of real
language but articulation of language used in real
condition/ situation.
12. Discourse
• Discourse analysis engages directly with Circut-of
culture- model, given its political aim of Putting the
forms of text, the process of production of text, the
process of readings, and the structure of power that
have given rise to them.
• In media the interpretation of texts is depends upon
viewers even viewers can produce their own text in
response to a particular visual/oral stimuli (Talk shows
in response to a Political event).
• Media message also perform ideational function of
language; function to perform communicate process,
or express our thoughts through language.
23. Nurture over nature
• FOR EXAMPLE: George Herbert
Mead’s work on the “Looking Glass
Self,” talks about how we become
who we believe others think we
are.
26. Rationality
• People change their behaviour based upon
reward. Will they be better off or worse off if I
enter in interaction
• Cost/Benefits, needs for satisfication
27. Reciprocity
• Reciprocity-the most familiar principle of
interaction, if every time I pay the bill, and you
don’t, the behaviour will be stopped.
• We have the principle of fairness, rules should
apply equally.
• Ie. Laws of supply and demand??
29. Four principles of interaction
• Four principles of interaction are balanced
• They balance behaviour over time
• They are The Human Condition
• Collectively the four principles of interaction,
shape group structure.
34. The Structure of Social Interaction
• Status set: Entire ensemble of statuses
occupied by an individual
Master status: A person’s overriding
public identity, and the status that is most
influential in shaping that person’s life at a
given time
35. Development of the Social Self
• Society made up of selves who act and
interact.
• Self = subject + object (I + me)
36. For Social Interaction to occur:
Humans must be Socialized
• Socialization is a central process in
social life.
• Its importance has been noted by
sociologists for a long time, but their
image of it has shifted over the last
hundred years.
37. • In the early years of American
sociology, socialization was equated
with civilization.
• The issue was one of taming fierce
individualists so they would
willingly cooperate with others on
common endeavors.
38. • An unruly human nature was
assumed to exist prior to an
individual's encounter with society.
• This nature had to be shaped to
conform to socially acceptable ways
of behaving.
39. • Such people were said to be
"unsocialized"--they had not yet
learned what was expected of them.
• The trouble is, they might very well
know what was expected but simply
be rejecting
40. Importance of Symbolic Interactionism
• Adds micro-level perspective to mainstream
sociology
• Adds potential to bridge gap between macro
and micro-levels
• Advances our understanding of sociological
processes.
