Chapter 12 – The politics of the popular

I have tried in this book to outline something of the history of the relationship between cultural theory and popular culture. In the main I have tended to focus on the theoretical and methodological aspects and implications of the relationship, as this, in my opinion, is the best way in which to introduce the subject. ¹ However, I am aware that this has been largely at the expense of, on the one hand, the historical conditions of the production of theory about popular culture, and on the other, the political relations of its production and reproduction (these are analytical emphases and not separate and distinct ‘moments’).

Before you read

Warm-up

Watch the short video on FANDOM [link] – a phenomenon of a vast range and great cultural significance. How, do you think, it may relate to the politics of the popular described in Chapter 12?

Preliminary questions

In the final chapter of Cultural Theory and Popular Culture, John Storey takes issue with McGuigan’s (1992: 171) claim that Cultural Studies as a discipline is in the middle of a crisis by its contemporary focus on the micro-politics of the everyday rather than on broader more macro issues of social inequality and power. Storey continues, as well, to reject the idea that you – as students – are passive consumers of a fixed body of knowledge about popular culture that is bestowed upon you from lofty professorial heights. In discussing the tensions that exist within the discipline, he looks at the work of John Fiske and Paul Willis and utilizes Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘the cultural field’ and the ‘economic field’.

How, do you think, the cultural and the economic in popular culture become political?
Why discussing the political of popular culture might be important?
How does is relate to what has been said so far about ideological interpellation, encoding and meaning production?
Is aesthetic always political?
Can popular culture be politically disengaged?

After you read: Important ideas

Once you have read Chapter 12, rethink its content and information with Quizzes 12.1. and 12.2

Important names

Chapter 12 mentions important theorists associated with debates on the cultural and the political. See who they were/are with regard to their prominent ideas and their work.

Henry Jenkins

John Fiske

Paul Willis

Jose Ortega y Gasset

Michel Foucault

Pierre Bourdieu

Important Terms

Chapter 12 discusses fandom practices using a number of terms that explain those practices and their cultural significance. Revise those terms with the following flashcards by flipping them from TERM to PAUSE (when you think of the term’s meaning) to DEFINITION (the explanation of the term from Chapter 12).

<Insert Ch12 Flashcards here>

Recontextualization

the production of vignettes, short stories and novels that seek to fill in the gaps in broadcast narratives and suggest additional explanations for particular actions.

Refocalization

this occurs when fan writers move the focus of attention from the main protagonists to secondary figures. For example, female or black characters are taken from the margins of a text and given centre stage.

Moral realignment

a version of refocalization in which the moral order of the broadcast narrative is inverted (the villains become the good guys). In some versions, the moral order remains the same but the story is now told from the point of view of the villains.

Genre shifting

characters from broadcast science fiction narratives, say, are relocated in the realms of romance or the Western, for example.

Cross-overs

characters from one television programme are introduced into another. For example, characters from Doctor Who may appear in the same narrative as characters from Star Wars.

Character dislocation

characters are relocated in new narrative situations, with new names and new identities.

Personalization

the insertion of the writer into a version of their favourite television programme. For example, I could write a short story in which I am recruited by the Doctor to travel with him in the Tardis on a mission to explore what has become of Manchester United in the twenty-fourth century. However, as Jenkins points out, many in the fan culture discourage this subgenre of fan writing

Emotional intensification

the production of what are called ‘hurt comfort’ stories in which favourite characters, for example, experience emotional crises

Eroticization

stories that explore the erotic side of a character’s life. Perhaps the best known of this subgenre of fan writing is ‘slash’ fiction, so called because it depicts same sex relationships (as in Kirk/Spock, etc.).

Complementary materials

Listen to an interview with Ashley Hinck , author of Politics for the Love of Fandom [link]. What emancipatory potential of fandom does it point out? How does the potential resonate with the emancipatory potential of popular culture described in Chapter 12?

Further considerations

What, in your view, is the future of popular culture and the cultural study of popular culture? What tensions does it entail?

You may like to read about issues and tensions currently being debated in Australian Cultural Studies by way of extending your knowledge.

For more information, read Goggin, G., A. Pertierra and M. Andrejevic (2015) ‘What’s Become of Australian Cultural Studies?: The Legacies of Graeme Turner’, Special Issue of Cultural Studies, 29(4): 491–502 (DOI:10.1080/09502386.2014.1000608).