We gotta get out of this place Book

Some of my notes from Culture Studies class:

Grossberg (1992) recognizes the significance and power of popular culture as an active and defining force in shaping identity. His reflections bring into attention the question of what, but specifically, how cultural norms and practices, when mixed together, construct and shape up identities. His analysis speculates the historical, but also the social, economic and political dimensions that provide the space and access for the cultural formulations to have place in the ground and play an active role in our day-to-day lives. In this respect, cultural references and influences become incorporated within the social structures.

It is worth mentioning here that the cultural formations are not to be under-estimated, for they become identity: Identity, in that respect, is not limited to nationalism: it includes other things such as the love of rock music and how the involvement and investment in that love ultimately becomes identity: the love of rock, in that sense, defines a person - it is a formation of identity. Grossberg's take on this matter asserts that identities are shaped out of that very personal investment carried out through practices and rituals within social connections.

The important element to consider again, in Grossberg's view, is how the popular becomes popular: There are many elements when considering this question, and Grossberg observes different elements that draw people towards developing taste. Those elements include passion, escapism, and fun, but he also determines that taste involves, first and foremost, the sense itself: the direct sense, prior to the interpretation and the analysis of it [this brings to the mind the lyrics of Pink Floyd: "All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be."] The investment and personal involvement in the sensed things in life; those that are emotionally felt and sensed, guide our "mattering maps" (Grossberg, 1992, p. 80). Those maps soon start to have a life of their own, shared by a group of people, directing them to function as based on those senses that they had been immersed in. It is through those mattering maps - the things that get regarded as worthy, important, felt, seen, and deemed as important - that take us towards constructing identities.