Cultural Studies

As defined by Storey, J. (2003) in Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture, culture is “the practices and processes of making meanings with and from the ‘texts’ we encounter in our everyday lives… cultures are made from the production, circulation and consumption of meanings. To share a culture, therefore, is to interpret the world – make it meaningful – in recognizably similar ways” (p.3). In this post i will use World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as my text to explain the terms  representation, discourse, ideologies and politics and study how WWE affects the American culture.

According to Griffin (2003, p. 334), cultural studies is "A neo-Marxist critique that sets forth the position that mass  media manufacture consent for dominant ideologies." Whereas Littlejohn (1996, p. 234), "cultural studies involves investigations of the ways culture produced through a struggle among ideologies.

As stated by Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) in Practices of Looking, The term ‘visual culture’ means “the shared practices of a group, community, or society through which meanings are made out of the visual, aural and textual world of representations and the ways that looking practices are engaged in symbolic and communicative activities” (p. 3). In other words, culture that are seen and practice by a group of community and these groups engaged in human interactions. For example the WWE culture among the American society. Moreover, culture can be defined into two part. First, a similar belief within a particular society in which they understand on. Second, a way of life in a community (Littlejohn, 1996, p. 234) 

WWE Superstar John Cena (centre with cap) among the WWE fans

Representation stands as the equivalent of something in the material world or what we call a referent. The WWE, formerly known as World Wrestling Federation (WWF), has been part of the American culture since it's establishment in 1982, this wrestling entertainment company represents the American entertainment culture; where WWE involves the music, films and professional sports.

As noted by Griffin (2009, p. 337), discourse are "frameworks of interpretation". Usually written or spoken “communication” on a particular topic which are coded by religion, tradition, law and culture. My discourse in this post if the World Wrestling Entertainment or WWE. Ideologies on the other hand are frameworks where a society all agrees on and develop meaning to the particular discourse (Griffin, 2009, p. 335). In other words, ideologies are commonsense, Ideologies determines what we understand as unquestionable “truth” and shapes our view on certain agendas. Hence, when there is ideology there is discourse. The ideologies of WWE are; professional wrestlers are superstars and divas where they are 'actors' of the entertainment industry, championship belts are titles, professional wrestling is not a professional sport but a sort of entertainment, superstars are body builders with large muscular physique, WWE incorporates itself with music and films where each story-line in WWE is similar to a movie plot. Ideologies in a discourse does not show the whole truth, this is a major problem and due to the pre-existent of a counter-discourses and counter-ideologies, meaning are already embedded in minds. As stated by Fairclough (1995), "The concept of Ideology often implies distortion, 'false consciousness', manipulation of the truth in the pursuit of particular interests."


For example a positive discourse of professional wrestling is  wrestling without the guidance of professional trainers is bad therefore the unspoken opposite rule would be that wrestling with the help & guidance of professional trainers is good. While a discourse that does not really tells the truth is that it does not necessary reflects the actual representation of a particular subject. 


To be more clear, the discourse of a WWE Superstar; the ideologies are big muscular physique, confident and good 'actors', entertaining, able to do promos and perform wrestling moves in front of a large crowd.


Politics in Media as defined by Stuart Hall is the 'struggle over meaning'. In other words, one struggle to define a particular text. In the case of the WWE, its politics are politics of gender relation, politics of masculinity and femininity, politics of consumerism, this struggle over meaning especially in politics of masculinity in the WWE creates controversies as preferred Superstars  should have large muscular physiques and a sense of macho and manliness of a man, to show that they're tough and rough, this is controversial due to the old 'professional wrestling ethics' where back then it was not about size but it was more about skills and talent.

Discourse of a WWE Superstar

In conclusion, the WWE plays a role in the American Culture especially in the entertainment business, as not only it affect the politics of consumerism but it also subconsciously affect the politics of masculinity via the visual media that is the television.

References:


Fairclough, N. (1995). Media Discourse. London: Arnold.

Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory (7th ed). New York: McGraw-Hill


Littlejohn, S. W. (1996). Theories of Human Communication (5th ed.) California: Wadsworth Publishing Company.