J103-Reading Analysis-5/10: Notes on Deconstructing the Popular; 17th Oct 2006

In this reading, Stuart Hall formerly marks out the arguments that he intends to cover in the following paragraphs and pages. He points out that there are problems with the fundamental definitions used when describing not only the history of popular culture, but also history in general. He intends to make the points against definitions of periodisation and even the terms ‘popular’ and ‘culture’ themselves.
The best thing about this essay is that it puts everything into perspective first; i.e. the larger issues are dealt with first. Hall starts by dealing with our obsession with defining historical periods of time with unbreakable, sharp edges. Essentially, he argues against the idea that with a changing of Royal Family, for example, you get a total re-imagining of social structures and culture. Instead he suggests “there is more or less a continuous struggle over the culture of working people”. With this and the subsequent passage he is saying that people change social structures and culture in their own time and within a framework that doesn’t really change: the people in power are still in power and the workers are still toiling. It is all about “containment and resistance”.
Having worked in Britain for all of his adult life I think he may use the traditions and histories of the British class system and it’s influence on society too much. I think that this limits its compatibility with other countries and cultures around the world. This is not to say that other countries could learn a great deal about our history and culture, but the emphasis should be on the word ‘our’. This brings into sharp relief the mistakes that we as a nation and European culture in general has made during the Imperialism of the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This is because although the essay is about the history of struggles against oppression by the ruling peoples upon the working classes, he pays little respect to the generally unsuccessful outcomes, or the instances of true reforms that occurred through War and Revolution.
As Hall moves into the twentieth century, he starts to ‘unravel’ the complexities associated with the reformation of the popular press in the middle of the nineteenth century. He cites the adaptation that the previously radical and marginalised working class presses went through as the main reason for renewed vigour in the correction of social imbalance. The main reason why I take issue with this, is that I believe that major, multinational conflict has had the biggest effect on the way the twentieth and twenty-first century has changed our outlook on social and cultural structure. The press played their part, to be sure, but I think that what they report on should and generally is the most important factor within our history.
I agree with Hall when he implores us to “radically” look at “the period of what we might call the ‘social imperialist’ crisis.” We strongly need “to examine closely popular culture in a period which begins to resemble our own”. We needed to know more about the social changes that have occurred since the middle of the nineteenth century and I think that since Hall wrote this in 1981 this has been something that has changed a great deal since then. Television and the Internet now play a positive role in divulging what was previously unknown about that period to the masses.
As a British Afro-Caribbean man, Stuart Hall illustrates an interesting perspective, which I think adds a great deal to the nucleus of the debate about popular culture and its changing face throughout history. My disagreements with this essay are personal. I simply don’t agree with the credit given to the change in the methods of broadcast over major conflicts and other momentous events, in the effect that they have had on our popular culture. I believe that equal importance should be given, especially when we look back over the past 150 years and the changes that have occurred.