Page 170 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

POPULAR CULTURE

meaning through a series of conceptual and phonic differences that are interpreted
in specific contexts. Thus, red is red because it is not green rather than because the
sign red is generated by the light spectrum as such, and while it may signify ‘stop’
in the context of traffic signs it may mean ‘doctor’ or ‘brothel’ elsewhere. 147
Since signs and their arrangement into texts can be interpreted in a number of
different ways the generation of meaning requires the active involvement of
readers. It is the readers of texts using the cultural competencies they bring to bear
who temporally ‘fix’ meaning for particular purposes. Thus, interpretation of texts
depends on readers’ cultural repertoire and knowledge of social codes that are
differentially distributed along the lines of class, gender, race, nationality etc.
The idea that signs have more than one meaning is also expressed by the concept
of the ‘multi-accentuality’ of the sign (and the dialogic) that is associated with
Volosinov (see Bakhtin). He suggests that signs possess an ‘inner dialectical quality’
and an ‘evaluative accent’ that makes them capable of signifying a range of
meanings. The significance of signs changes as social conventions and social
struggles seek to fix meaning, so that which meanings ‘stick’ is dependent on the
social and cultural context in which signification occurs. That is, because the
meanings of signs are not fixed but negotiable, they are fought over so that
meaning is the outcome of politics and the play of power. The ‘ideological struggle’
can then be understood as the contest over the significance of signs as power
attempts to regulate and ‘fix’ the otherwise shifting meanings of signs. In particular,
post-Marxist writers such as Laclau and Mouffe understand the role of hegemonic
practices to be one of trying to fix difference, that is, to put closure around the
unstable meanings of signifiers in the discursive field.
The political significance of polysemic signs can be understood if we ask the
question, ‘what does black mean in the context of contemporary Western cultures?’
Is black a term of abuse or a term of solidarity? Are the connotations of the sign
black those of civil rights or criminality? Is black bad or is it beautiful? Indeed, why
does black have any racial meanings at all? In short, the sign black does not have
an essentialist meaning but is struggled over. Indeed, all the key cultural categories
such as ‘women’, ‘class’, ‘society’, ‘identities’, ‘interests’ etc., cannot be conceived
of as single unitary objects with fixed meanings or single underlying structures and
determinations but instead need to be understood as discursive constructs. The
notion that signs have many meanings that are subject to the play of power is
crucial to an understanding cultural politics.
Links Cultural politics, dialogic, hegemony, ideology, post-Marxism, power, semiotics, signs

Popular culture Traditionally, the idea of popular culture has referred to that which
remains after the canon of high culture has been established and/or as the mass-
produced commodity culture of consumer capitalism. Here popular culture has
been regarded as inferior both to the elevated cultures of Art or classical music on
the one hand and to an imagined authentic folk culture on the other. Apologists for
maintaining the distinction between high and popular culture do so on the grounds
of alleged aesthetic quality arguing that high cultural forms are more subtle,