COMM 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 99: Funhouse, Economic Determinism, Louis Althusser

• School: U of M
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMM 101
• Professor: Shazia Iftkhar

Document Summary

Magni es, distorts, and exaggerates some features of society while ignoring or minimizing others. Why representation matters: real-life material consequences, part of a politics of representation (set of social restrictions and power embedded in them, construct reality, shapes social understanding, behavior, policy, and law. Stereotype: representation of a type of person without ne detail; widely circulated ideas or assumptions about particular groups; suggest that features of group determine groups situation; makes a value judgement (generally negative) Generalization: general statement made by inference from speci c cases. Marx: (economic determinism) ruling class has power, and uses it against the working class: power is held and works hierarchically. Gramsci: different social groups struggle for power, for ideological consensus/hegemony: ideology = this is just common sense!". Althusser: two forms of power - rsa"s and isa"s: ideological state apparatuses (isa"s) persuade people and are less costly (school, family, religion) Foucault: power operates through discourse: discourse produces meaning, behaviors, material things.