ABSTRACT
In cultural studies research, the goal is to study the meaning of things. The analyst attempts to understand the meaning of one or many cultural texts-books, songs, paintings, cartoons, movies, TV shows, advertisements, films, newspaper articles, fast-food restaurants, museum installations, carnivals, human organizations, or any other part of our social world that can be studied as text-and through various forms of interpretation. The main elements of a cultural studies perspective (Grossberg, 1995, 1993; Grossberg, Nelson, & Treichler, 1992) include a commitment to observing, understanding, and explaining human action through language and imagery; the acceptance of conflict and contradiction as a central condition of human societies; an interpretive focus on popular texts such as music, movies, and television; the notion that textual meaning is in many ways structured (encoded) within the imagery and language of a given text, but that viewers, listeners, or readers are the final arbiters of textual meaning (Hall, 1980); an interdisciplinary interest in interpreting texts by borrowing and combining theories and methods from various academic disciplines such as communication, linguistics, history, philosophy, literary theory, sociology, economics, political science, and anthropology; and a belief that a given popular culture text is typically based on familiar, culture-specific stories, norms, scenarios, themes, myths, or ideals that can be interpreted critically within the political, historical, economic, and social contexts that shape a text’s meaning. Accordingly, meaning is partly in the text, partly in the culture at large, and partly in the viewer, listener, or reader.
