Page 141 - Decoding Culture

134 D E C O D I N G C U L TURE
Centre's influence on cultural studies, while critical responses to
it - from both within and beyond the Centre itself - were instru­
mental in forming the terms within which cultural studies would
develop during the 1980s.
Where, then, did this position face difficulties such that the next
wave of cultural studies scholars found it necessary to move on to
other issues and utilize different concepts? It is convenient to con­
sider this question under three summarizing headings: class,
ideology, and signification. On class, the Centre itself was aware by
the 1980s that it had over-emphasized the centrality of class and
class cultural formations. This was seen to have led to a relative
neglect of other important systems of domination and subjection,
notably gender and race, analysis of which was quite properly
thought to be essential to any critical cultural studies.
Furthermore, in the broader theoretical arena of modern marxism,
widespread interest in the role of 'superstructural' elements in sus­
taining capitalist societies had inevitably reduced the direct
significance of class concepts, feeding, as it did, into a more gen­
eralized interest in 'ideology' which was itself becoming
increasingly disconnected from a simple class base.
In this context, let me again quote Carey's (1989: 97) remark
that 'British cultural studies could be described just as easily and
perhaps more accurately as ideological studies'. Although posed in
general terms, this claim is particularly apposite to the CCCS posi­
tion, where a focus on ideology informed almost every aspect of
their analysis and where culturally mediated relations of domi­
nance and subordination were, therefore, the key relations to be
understood. It might be argued, of course, that this gave rise to an
approach to cultural studies that systematically neglected those
aspects of culture and cultural activity which were not immediately
intelligible in terms of dominant and subordinate relations.
Certainly, the CCCS view was one that largely presupposed the

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