Circuit of Culture

the five interacting loci of cultural practices
Representation, Regulation, Identity, Production*, Consumption:

(definitions from Media and Identities series.  London: Sage, 1997.)

Representation:	‘the production and circulation of meaning through language’; “language” as system of representation, as a signifying practice (semiotic approach), and as discourse Used of sign that stand in for and take the place of something else its through representation,that people organize the world and reality through the out of naming its elements,sign are arranged in order to form semantic constructions express relations it has been associated with art and signs.
Regulation:	government rolicies and regulations;  the reproduction of a particular pattern and order of signifying practices (so that things appear to be ‘regular’ or ‘natural’); cultural policy as well as cultural politics, involving struggles over meanings, values, forms of subjectivity and identity. a dynamic process that is often contested’
Identity:	derive from a multiplicity of sources–from nationanity, ethnicity, social class, community, gender, sexuality–sources which may conflict in the construction of identity positions and lead to contradictory fragmented identities. identity gives us a location in the world and presents the link between us and the society in which we live.
Production*:	”cultural economy” economic processes and practices as cultural phenomena, as depending”on meaning for their effective operation
Consumption:	an active process and often celebrated as pleasure, In postmodern accounts, cultural consumption is seen as being the very material out of which we construct our identities: we become what we consume.

*another way of defining “production” is to see the production of meaning at different culvural moments: “material production, symbolic production, textual production, and the ‘production in use’ of consumption” (J. Storey 2).

1. What is Culture? ‘cultural processes’? ‘Circuit of Culture’?

• different definitions of culture
• cultural processes– making sense of the world and of our place as individuals, groups, communities and nations within it
• a de-centered, materialist view of culture and text–

the five interacting loci of cultural practices in the ‘circuit of Culture’
Representation, Regulation, Identity, Production, Consumption

*discussion: What is culture for you?  Is MacDonald’s part of Taiwanese culture?

1. What is Cultural Svudies?

• an approach, in literary study as well as other areas in the Humantities, with some basic assumptions
• an academic discipline–its history

1. The focuses of this course: Culture and identity

–the selection and interpretation of cultural messages are essential to the process through which our identities are constructed.
–three directions for group report: quest narratives, cyborg narratives and immigrant narratives

1. Romantic Poetry: its productkon and regulation

1. Resources on the web:

What is Culture? “[1] outlines some of the broad-ranging debates which have gone on about the concept of culture during the past century. [2]offer some insight into what the culture debate means in our own lives and to provide some examples of how cultural meanings are formed, maintained, and changed”

Readings: “Cultural Studies: an introduction” (esp. pp. 3-6)

What is Culture? (from Representation Hall, 1997, p. 3)
1. traditional ones:
“vhe best that has been thought and said” in a society.  It is the sum of the great ideas, as represented in the classic works of literature, painting, music and philosophy-the ‘high culture’ of the age.

2.  the widely distributed forms of popular music, publishing, art, design and literature, or the activities of leisure-time and entertainment, which make up the everyday lives of the majority of ‘ordinary people’-what is called the ‘mass culture’ or the ‘pupular culture’ of an age.

3.  whatever is distinctive about the ‘way of life’ of a people, community, nation or social group.   –shared values/meanings of a group or of society.

• Values–meaning:

“Culture …is not so much a set of things …as a process, a set of practices.  Primarily, culture is concerned with the production and the exchange of meanings-’the giving and taking of meaning’-between the members of a society or group.”

• Value-feelings, attachments and emotions

“Culture is involved in all those practices…which carry meaning and value for us, which need to be meaningfully interpreted by others, or which dependon meaning for their effective operation.  Culture, in this sense, permeates all of society”

The Circuit of Culture is a theory or framework used in the area of cultural studies. It was devised in 1997 by a group of theorists when studying theWalkman cassette player. The theory suggests that in studying a cultural text or artifact you must look at five aspects: its representation, identity, production, consumption and regulation. Du Gay et al. suggest that “taken together (these 5 points) complete a sort of circuit…through which any analysis of a cultural text…must pass if it is to be adequately studied.”^[1] Gerard Gogin openly uses this framework in his book Cell Phone Culture: Mobile technology in everyday life in order to fully understand the cell phone as a cultural artifact. His book is split into four parts: production, consumption, regulation, and representation and identity (through looking at mobile convergences

In response to growing criticism that the dominant normative theoretical paradigm privileges Western, corporate models of public relations practice, this critical essay proposes the circuit of culture as a basis for developing public relations theory that informs the wide variety of public relations practices found globally. The model merges recent critical-cultural and postmodern perspectives, providing a confluence of institutional and situated factors that recognize the primacy of identity, difference, and power in discursive practice. In this model, public relations practitioners serve ascultural intermediaries operating within the larger cultural economy to structure information at the juncture of production and consumption.