Page 143 - Decoding Culture

136 D E C O D I N G C U L TURE

thinking through the balance between textual (or ideological or
cultural) determination, on the one hand, and the constitutive role
of human agency in 'reading' texts and constructing meaning, on
the other. V a rious possibilities have emerged, ranging from empir­
ically detailed 'ethnographies' of audiences and their reading
practices, through more general attempts to reconceptualize ideas
of 'audience' and 'reading', and on to so-called postmodern cele­
brations of the plurality of the popular. These developments (and
their roots in reactions against both Screen theory and the CCCS)
will be considered further in Chapter 7. But it should be noted
here that in the course of these changes one or two worthwhile
babies may have been cast out with the bathwater of ideology
theory. For the CCCS also bequeathed cultural studies some posi­
tive features, most notably their concern to sustain a critical
cultural studies, their determination not only to theorize but to
treat the consequent theories as requiring empirical demonstra­
tion, and putting the problem of determinacy and agency so firmly
on the cultural studies agenda. Whatever limitations we may now
see in their particular attempt to understand the role of culture in
modern societies, those issues do remain central to theory and
method in cultural studies.

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