The affirmative character of U.S. cultural studies

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
This article argues that, as imported to the United States from England by scholars like Lawrence Grossberg and John Fiske, cultural studies often loses much of its critical edge. Its misleading affirmation of the power and independence of media audiences derives from several problems. First, it overestimates the freedom of audiences in reception. Second, it minimizes the commodification of audiences as analyzed by a political‐economic approach. Third, it fails to differentiate between mass advertising and specialized media. Fourth, it confuses active reception with political activity. Finally, it takes the exceptional situation of progressive readings promoted within oppositional subcultures as the norm.

This publication has 20 references indexed in Scilit: