POSSIBLE ESSAY STRUCTURE

(note don’t forget to support all of your ideas with details, examples and illustrations from the 2 CSP’s)

1. What is the link between society and media (ie McDougall/ Fenton)
2. How best to link 2 music videos and society? Postcolonialism
3. Postcolonial theory – Gilroy & WEB du Bois (double consciousness, hybridisation)
4. Postcolonialism is a way of understanding ‘the other’ Lacan – mirror theory / Edward Said Orientialism
5. How can music videos change ideas? Culture as a site of struggle – Althusser ISA / Gramsci Hegemony
6. Conclusion

jacques lacan-the other

• Often discussed by contempoary philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the recognition of the ‘Other’ is mainly attributed the French philosopher and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.
• To link this to postcolonialism would be to suggest that the West uses the East / the Orient / the ‘Other’, to identify and construct itself. How it sees itself as the ‘West’ as opposed to . . . in other words, it acts as The Other, a mirror by which a reflection of the self can be measured out and examined.
• when the black community look at tv they dont see them selves(relate to mirror theroy). no positive representation for different minorites

Edward said

talks about orientalism (look more into)

ORIENTALISM:

The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism

Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’

(break down notes)

Ideological state apparatus (ISA), is a theoretical concept developed by (Algerian born) French philosopher Louis Althusser which is used to describe the way in which structures of civic society – education, culture, the arts, the family, religion, bureaucracy, administration etc serve to structure the ideological perspectives of society, which in turn form our individual subject identity. According to Althusser, ‘the category of the subject . . . is the category constitutive of all ideology’ (214:188). In other words, we are socially constructed and what socially constructs us is ‘despite its diversity and contradictions . . . the ruling ideology, which is the ideology of ‘the ruling class’,’ (2014:245)

Althusser noted that individuals often believe that they are ‘outside ideology’ and suggested the notion of ‘interpellation‘ as a way to recognise the formation of ideology. In that ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way as to recruit subjects among individuals. In other words, the way in which society calls / addresses / hails you is interpellation, which is the way in which your subject identity is formed and which, more often than not, corresponds to the dominant ideology.

saying that the western world and the leaders of the society give the ideologies of what society is meant to be so we don’t have as much control as we would like to think. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls to be accepted by society

that the ISA’s strain and keep us where we are to conform to societies standards

‘Ideology ‘acts’ or ‘functions’ in such a way to ‘recruit’ subjects among individuals . . . through the very precise operation that we call interpellation or hailing.

Althusser 2014:190

Hegemonic struggle Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony

‘from America, black voices will take up the hymn with fuller unison. The ‘black world’ will see the light

FRANTZ Fanon ‘on national culture’

As an early critical thinker of postcolonialism, Frantz Fanon took an active role, proposing the first step required for ‘colonialised’ people to reclaim their own past by finding a voice and an identity. The second, is to begin to erode the colonialist ideology by which that past had been devalued. (Barry, 2017:195). In the chapter ‘On National Culture’ (pp;168-178) Fanon presents three phases of action ‘which traces the work of native writers’: