Page 150 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

MULTICULTURALISM

race and the alleged black threat to law, order and the British way of life. Specifically,
they give an account of the political, economic, ideological and racial crisis of
Britain that formed the context of the moral panic and explicate the argument that
the moral panic around mugging facilitated the move into the ‘exceptional state’ 127
of an authoritarian ‘law and order’ society.

Links Mass media, New Social Movements, race, subculture, youth culture

Morley, David (1949– ) Currently a Professor at Goldsmiths College, University of
London, and a former member of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary
Cultural Studies, Morley was a key figure in the development of the ‘active
audience’ paradigm within cultural studies. His early work on television audiences
during the 1980s combined a theoretical justification of ethnographic methods
with empirical studies of audience readings within the broad parameters of an
encoding–decoding model. Within this context he also developed work relating to
the gendered character of television viewing and the linkages between globalizing
media and cultural identity. In addition, Morley’s writing contains a long-running
concern with the absorption of technology into everyday cultural life.
• Associated concepts Active audience, consumption, encoding–decoding,
gender, ideology, television.
• Tradition(s) Cultural studies, ethnography, hermeneutics, Marxism.
• Reading Morley, D. (1992) Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies. London and
New York: Routledge.

Multiculturalism The idea of a multicultural society has become official policy in
many Western cultures and represents a liberal democratic attempt to promote
ethnic/racial equality. It is premised on the idea of displaying tolerance towards a
range of cultural practices within the contexts of the nation-state. As a policy
approach it has been influential in the education and cultural spheres where it has
underpinned attempts to introduce people to a range of different beliefs, values,
customs and cultural practices. For example, the teaching of multi-faith religious
education, the performance of rituals and the promotion of ethnic food became
facets of educational policy. As such, multiculturalism aims to express respect for
and indeed celebration of difference.
While multiculturalism as a strategy has much to commend it, some
commentators argue that the process of relativizing cultures can, in the context of
institutionally racist social orders, overlook the dimension of power. That is, the
day-to-day experiences of racism in relation to housing, employment and physical
violence may slip from view. Critics of multiculturalism from within cultural studies
have argued that we would be better served by an anti-racist approach that
highlights the operations of power and challenges the ideological and structural
practices that constituted racist societies. This includes contesting racist language
in school textbooks and the over-representation of black pupils in school exclusions
and suspensions. It has also been suggested that the philosophy and strategies of
multiculturalism rest on essentialist versions of ‘ethnic’ identity and thus