Hello, I am Himanshi Parmar, student of MK Bhavnagar University. This blog i have written in a response to Thinking Activity, Which is a Part of my academic Work. Which we get after each unit. In this blog, i am going to discuss about Some important question from Paper number 205A - Cultural Studies. But before that it is very important to understand that what is culture and cultural studies. To understand the basic concept of that do watch these videos below.
According to oxford dictionary, "The critical analysis of the texts and practices of everyday life in contemporary society. an interdisciplinary enterprise involving both the humanities and the social sciences." Cultural studies were originated and developed by british marxist academics in late 1950s,1960s,1970s.and later on developed by many scholars all around the world. The core idea of cultural studies is to look into social organization and to study as well as construction of there everyday lives. Cultural studies is related to many other fields like, Marxism, Feminist theory, Ethnography, Structuralism, Post colonialism, Social theory, Political theory, History, Philosophy, Literary theory, Media theory, Communication studies etc.
Cultural studies look into political changes with age and contemporary culture. There are four main goals of cultural studies.
Now, let me discuss some important questions related to cultural studies.
1] Your understanding of power in cultural studies.
According to Oxford dictionary, "power is the ability or capacity to do something or act in a particular way", or "The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events." We all are a social beings and society is nothing but all about power position. Where one is ruling and others are obliging. There is always someone is in power, but not for forever. Power position is changing all the time from one to another. But for them who are not in power, sometimes power became evil and cruel.
There are several forces which are holding power for example,
1) physical Force,
2) Wealth,
3) State Action
4) Social norms,
5) Ideas,
6) Numbers (quantity).
Physical forces are mainly those who comes with physical ability to threat and to beat people. Another one is wealth, it is believed that those who has wealth can hold power. They have ability to buy power with wealth. Each State has several special powers, Powers of law and government which all should have to obey compulsory. Social norms can mold our views, thoughts and behavior in certain way that one can not dare to disobey it, but if any of them disobey that norms they get Defamation and insult as punishment. Another power is of power of ideas, those who are rich in Ideas can easily undertake those who haven't capable to think so much. The last power is of group. If huge number of people thinking in a one particular way then it will easy to do what they want. Watch this animated posters to understand concept of power in various fields.
Now let me discuss about Laws of power. There are three main Laws of power.
1) Power is never static.
2) power is like a water.
3) power Compounds.
Michel Foucault, the French postmodernist, has been hugely influential in shaping understandings of power. Foucault uses the term ‘power/knowledge’ to signify that power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’, ‘Truth is a thing of this world. it is produced only by virtue of multiple forms of constraint. And it induces regular effects of power.Foucault challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups by way of ‘episodic’ or ‘sovereign’ acts of domination or coercion, seeing it instead as dispersed and pervasive. ‘Power is everywhere’ and ‘comes from everywhere’ so in this sense is neither an agency nor a structure. To read more about his views (Click here)
2] Why Media study is so important in our digital culture?
Media or social media world is nowadays reflection or we can say imitation of real world. Media report each and everything which is happening around the world.it helps to understand what is happening around, right and wrong. And that's why Media is holding a power. Media is able to effect on people's thoughts as well as their emotions. And shape their mentality good or bad, just the way they want. Towards any particular area or person. Media has a control over mass.
And that's why it is their humble responsibility to provide fact and information which is tested twice. But if we see nowadays media also is in control of government or politicians. So media never dare to speak against them and provide information which is beneficial for them. For them it is not matter that either it is correct information or false. We can easily interpret that now a days media is not working for audience but it is working for the people who are in power. Media itself is a power and though working for power. And hide the news which are important to be seen. For example : sometimes to distract from one incident which is against the political power or powerful businessmen, media create another fake news.
Same happened with advertisements. Nowadays media become a platform where rich businessman or politicians promote or adverse their products or news. For that see this video which is about opening of mall of baba ramdev, two journalists from different channels are taking interviews. Here you find how one is praising baba ramdev by going extraordinary way. And other one is asking harsh questions and trying to bring out truth.
3] Who can be considered as a truly educated person?
To understand that what is truly educated means, it is very important to understand meaning of education. According to Oxford Dictionary, Education means a process of teaching, training and learning, especially in schools, colleges or universities, to improve knowledge and develop skills. In another words we can say that, Education means the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.
After knowing this, to whom we call educated person or truly educated person? To them who secure ranks, and highest marks? Not actually. Educated person is one who has creativity, ability to think, learn, to imagine something new. And has curiosity of knowledge. Truly educated can know how to see, what to see and where, when and whom to see and understand. They have ability to raise their voice and to stay calm when it's time.similarly true education is what bring out creativity from students. Here, R. J. Goswami in his Instagram post of 9-July - 2022, Saturday, wrote about what is the rule of true education. Read the post here.
Here are some quotes which is about what is true education. From this quotes we can define what is truly educated.
This is my blog about cultural study and some important questions which are given us as a task. I hope my blog will be helpful to you. Thank you for visit!
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