Re: Birmingham Sch. and first instance

[Thomas Schumacher <tschumac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To follow up on my earlier post and in relation to Jon's comment about the
marxian left in cultural studies avoiding the economic, I think that this goes
back to the debate between political economy and cultural studies.  While those
people who were studying the political economy of the culture industries argued
that patterns of ownership, market forces, etc. were "determining" of cultural
products, Cultural Studies went on the defensive and said that cultural
processes were more complex than that -- from Richard Johnson and Stuart Hall's
respective discussions of the moments of cultural production to the veritable
"indeterminacy" of someone like John Fiske who sought "resistance" in the
practices of the audience to the point of being a bit absurd.

Now I think that there are those who are trying to recover what cultural
studies got rid of when they purged the political economists.  Folks like
Golding and Murdock and Nicholas Garnham are headed in that direction -- more
like reconstructed political economists.

Tom Schumacher


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