Hebdige - Courtney Sparling

I found this reading to be really interesting and found it to touch base on a lot of aspects of culture that I never noticed or took the time to think about. I especially liked how Hebdige started off using an Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word culture. 

The definition just showed me how ambiguous the word really is. So many things can fall under the categorization of being culturally connected or associated. Because of this, cultural studies (before CMC of course) used to be a very difficult field to study and let alone discuss! There are so many ways that people looked at culture and defined it. The two most conflicting ways to look at culture could be asked by the question, is cultural studies based on the standard of excellence or as a "whole way of life"?

I think this quote was one of the best in the reading that helped me to understand the theory:

"All human societies reproduce themselves in this way through the process of "naturalization". It is through this process - a kind if inevitable reflex of all social life- that particular sets of social relations, particular ways of organizing the world appear to us as if they were universal and timeless."

Aspects of life and culture that we create are reflected from the dominant. This does not apply or cover all of the social classes. Culture is created for us and makes us think that we create it by establishing the "norm" for EVERYONE.

I liked the example of Punks that Hebdige used to explain culture, subcultures, and hegemony. Most people view punks as lower class and the delinquents of society. But, as Hebdige noted, "Style in particular provokes a double repsonse: it is alternately celebrated (in the fashion page) and ridiculed or reviled (in those articles which define subcultures as social problems).

Above we can see "Punk" models on the fashion runway. Below we see "Punks" as problems on the streets.