Re: production v. consumption
From Meaghan Morris' "Banality in Cultural Studies"
Among [Mica Nava's] enabling theses–and they have been enabling–are these: consumers are not "cultural dopes," but active, critical users of mass culture; consumption practices cannot be derived from or reduced to a mirror of production; consumer practice is "far more than just economic activity: it is also about dreams and consolation, communication and confrontation, image and identity. Like sexuality, it consists of a multiplicity of fragmented and contradictory discourses."
I'm not now concerned to contest these theses. For the moment, I'll buy the whole lot. What I'm interested in is firstly, the sheer proliferation of the restatements, and secondly, the emergence in some of them of a restrictive definition of the ideal knowing subject of cultural studies."
Among [Mica Nava's] enabling theses–and they have been enabling–are these: consumers are not "cultural dopes," but active, critical users of mass culture; consumption practices cannot be derived from or reduced to a mirror of production; consumer practice is "far more than just economic activity: it is also about dreams and consolation, communication and confrontation, image and identity. Like sexuality, it consists of a multiplicity of fragmented and contradictory discourses."
I'm not now concerned to contest these theses. For the moment, I'll buy the whole lot. What I'm interested in is firstly, the sheer proliferation of the restatements, and secondly, the emergence in some of them of a restrictive definition of the ideal knowing subject of cultural studies."
posted by Lou at 8:59 PM
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