ABSTRACT
Since Curran’s (1990) critique of the ‘New Revisionism’ in mass communication research or McGuigan’s (1992) critique of ‘Cultural Populism’, we in cultural studies are emphatically told that political or economical questions are lacking in our analyses of communication or that sociology has to be put back on the agenda of media and communication analysis. What is seldom mentioned in such critiques of cultural studies is Raymond Williams’ own detour towards a critical theory of culture via his approach of cultural materialism. This theory allows one to come to terms with some of the crucial questions that are being debated in recent critiques on mass culture (cf. Hoggart 2004) as well as media culture and/or society (cf. Kellner 1995b). In this chapter we will consider what implications Williams’ ‘cultural
materialism’ as his interpretation or understanding of a sociology of culture and communication has for a re-evaluation of our understanding of media culture in cultural studies. To achieve this aim, we have to follow the connection between cultural materialism and an earlier concept in Williams’ writings, the concept of a common culture (cf. Williams 1989d). We will consider some of the interpretations that Williams’ concept of a
common culture has received over the past forty years. With these interpretations in mind, we will discuss some limitations of the traditional terminology of media (section 3). We will also outline the extent of media change which necessitates a new understanding of media culture when we think that Williams’ critical approach will help us fully grasp actual shifts and changes in communication as well as in media culture.1 In the second part (sections 4-5) we will discuss an initial suggestion for a solution which derives from the meaning of ‘media as passageways of social practice’, developing this suggestion from Williams’ cultural materialism (cf. Göttlich 1996, 2004). This idea aims at an understanding and critique of recent media concepts and communication models and can be linked to existing problems concerning ideas of a common culture.
