Page 125 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

JORGE A. GONZÁLEZ

some television genres such as the Mexican soap operas ( telenovelas), and the
range of meanings that can be constructed over the same cultural experience of
viewing (González 1998).

The transclass nature of cultural fronts
The work of cultural fronts thus consists of constantly defining and redefining
what is constructed as socially shared meanings. Cultural fronts are transclass
symbolic formations because they are by no means exclusive to any single
portion of the society. Even more, they can potentially be shared across
all social sectors and strata, groups and regions. Within this dynamic, com-
munication-based process, what has to be constructed historically is the ‘true’
meaning of specific common needs for everybody.
Think, for instance, of the ‘commonsense’ need for technology like a truck,
which is regarded as a basic tool to survive, as films like Hands on a Hard Body
4
have shown us. Trucks are transclass discursive concepts because inclusive iden-
tities are created over them (‘We are Texans’, ‘Don’t mess with Texas!’), as a
number of bumper stickers and advertisements clearly remind outsiders and
insiders of the Lone Star state, regardless of social di fferences. Trucks are
transclass because, extending from their functional specificity, they have been
elaborated to represent common values, like the meaning of ‘democracy’ and
‘freedom’ for all Americans, despite the wide range of political and religious
differences that Americans actually have.
We can also substantiate the transclass nature of cultural fronts by looking
critically at Culture Wars, an interesting book by James Hunter (1991). Depart-
ing from Gramsci’s ideas about hegemony and the role of intellectuals in
society, Hunter focuses on contemporary everyday battles for making sense
of American institutions like family, art, education, law, and politics as key
and conflictive issues for the moral definition of the nation. He focuses on a
number of common issues that resonate with our concept of cultural fronts.
For Hunter, the ‘culture wars’ that the United States is experiencing these days
are linked to structural changes of modernity: in particular, the growth of
people with higher education since 1960, and the strong competition between
different religious and non-religious institutions for the establishment of moral
authority. He also claims that contemporary (transclass) American culture wars
represent the most important event since the Civil War for de fining national
identity: ‘the culture wars intersect the lives of most Americans, even those
who are or would like to be totally indi fferent’ (Hunter 1991: 50). Hunter
identifies five sites of conflict at stake:

this conflict has a decisive impact on the family – not just on the critical
issues of reproduction and abortion but on a wide range of other issues
such as the limits (if any) of legitimate sexuality, the public and private
role of women, questions of child raising, and even the de finition of

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