Analysis of Note on Deconstructing the Popular by Stuart Hall Essay

Analysis of Note on Deconstructing the Popular by Stuart Hall - Essay Example In 1980 he wrote an article and proposed the encoding decoding model in reference to media messages. This model helps us understand how cultural texts are produced and transmitted by the industry. He has also contributed to the discussion on hegemony. Stuart defines popular culture as all those things that people do or have, Stuart starts his discussion by discussing periodisation, periodisation is the attempt to divide time in discrete new blocks, popular culture can be dated back in the agrarian society to the industrial society therefore the study of popular culture can be studied in different periods. He says that in the period 1880-1920 there was an increased interest in the study of popular culture. In 1930s this study declined and this was the time there was a decline in Chartism. In his discussion of periodisation he argues that the proper periodisation of popular culture is the profound transformation which was in 1880s and 1920s, this period was a period of deep structural changes. Social change can be defined as the alterations that occur in social system which occur in both the structure and the functions; causes of social change include advancement in technology, ideology, conflict and growth in population. Stuart acknowledges the existence of social change, he says that in the beginning of the 20th century there was the development of a working class audience and this as a result led to the development of a commercial press. In this period there was also the development of new technologies, distribution process and labour processes and this led to a change in the relationship between the dominant and the dominated classes. Stuart says that there has been a struggle over the forms of culture and way of life of the popular class which is evident in this periods of history, conflict is one source of change and according to Stuart the struggle has caused cultural changes, throughout the ages there has been active destruction of particular ways of life and this can be viewed as cultural change. This changes include honour to certain people in the society, He says that magistrates and police were in the past being accorded honour in the past than they are in the present he also argues that people in the present time understand struggle and resistant more than they understand reform and transformation, transformation is the key cause of the process of moralization and demoralization of the people. In his discussion on popular culture, popularity means manipulation and debasements of the culture of the people, people who consume the popular cultures changes them or are put in a state of false consciousness. These means that popular culture plays a major role in shaping peoples culture, the proposed culture provides an alternative culture and this means that the culture industry has the power to reshape what they create. He also says that cultural domination has an effect on people's culture, there is a continuous struggle by the dominant culture to reorganise popular culture and there are cases of resistance and acceptance. Cultural resistance involves cultural struggle which takes many forms. Cultural struggle takes the form of incorporation, distortion, resistance, negotiation and recuperation, this struggle continues to exist. The existence of