Cultural Studies

Richard Johnson, 1986, define cultural studies as a movement or a network. In todays world, culture is perceived as our shared values. It talks about how we have groups of people sharing certain similar values and how this values may change rapidly, slowly or remains unchanged. This values are mutually shared by people who had been impacted by certain cultural impacts that had struck upon them.

Culture is similar to what we Bruneians have in common with each other, such as, a decent way of pointing is via your thumb, or to kiss or bang head against hand when you shake hands with those older than you. Similar to this, but broader, the culture change is most obvious when we look them in our media world. We can see how certain society change over time and how certain issue can immediately be a culture, or as what people mention them nowadays as "trending".

This is known as the visual culture.  Sturken, M. and Cartwright, L. (2009) said that 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).

Let us now see how the hit American sitcom comedy by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, became a cultural impact towards America, and also the world.

Friends has made a cultural impact towards certain group of people. For one, the fashionistas around the world started to follow Jennifer Aniston's haircut, which they then call the Rachel. Joey's (Matt Leblac) catchphrase, "How you doin?", became popular to western english slang which are use as greetings and also as a pick up line. Another cultural impact Friends made was the Central Perk coffee shop, how few businessman around the world open up their shop base on the Central Perk.


N Fairclough, 1998, talks on how political discourse in the media is an analytical framework. Discourse to Hartley 2002, is a social process in making or producing sense. From Friends, there is a positive discourse of how they promote friendship and have a base in mind which is, "all you need are good friends"


In conclusion, cultural studies help to show why certain things end up being something of a certain value towards a group of people. It help us identify this group of people and show what their cultural practices are. We also can understand the shifts of cultures and the rate on witch they are changing from time to time.

References:

Richard Johnson Social Text, No. 16 (Winter, 1986-1987)


Hartley, J (2002). Communication, Cultural and Media Studies; The key concept (3rd Ed.). New York: Routledge.


Sturken, M and Cartwright, L (2009) Practices of Looking: An introduction to Visual Culture. United States of America: Oxford University Press. p.3