Cultural studies: key concepts and contexts

¶ … celebrates the Winter Olympics. There is an ad of page 19 with a hockey goalie guarding a Bank of America open safe. The slogan is "Bank of America does not embrace ambiguity." There are several subliminal messages in this ad that can be deciphered by cultural theories that certain writers have applied to "pop" culture. Not only does this photo promote a false sense of patriotism, capitalizing on the Olympics and the recent 9/11 events, but also it condones the uniformity of banking institutions.

Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno coined the phrase "the culture industry" to describe the processes and products of mass culture. They state that it is uniform, predictable, and, to the trained eye, transparent. In their essay, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment As Mass Deception," Horkheimer and Adorno expound on the elements of the culture industry, and their observations can be applied to the Bank of America ad. This ad perpetrates the "false identity of the general and the particular" by blending the needs of a powerful institution and the common man. This striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm "presents men with a model of their culture." This unfeeling unity in the culture industry is indicative, according to Horkheimer and Adorno, of what will also happen in politics, as is apparent in this ad. It is pure political and social propaganda. While the ad purports to be defending people against possible fraud, the ad in itself is a fraud. Will patriotic Bank of America stop any "Other," whether it they be a con or a terrorist, from invading your account? This has yet to be proven. However, to capitalize on the vulnerability of the masses shows that not only is "its prime service to the customer is to do his schematizing for him," but to maintain power over every aspect of the consumer's life.

In John Storey's "Cultural Theory and Popular Culture," Antonio Gramsci discusses in his article "Hegemony, Intellectuals and the State," how the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in a couple of way. One is as "domination" and "intellectual and moral" leadership. A social group tends to dominate antagonistic groups, which it tends to "liquidate" and it leads allied groups. Currently, not only is the U.S. The dominant world power, but specifically, Anglo-white males. Hockey, which is dominated by anglo males, is cross-referenced with banking, which is also an institution dominated by white males. Basically, what this ad is saying is that anglo-white males will protect the U.S. masses from any outside forces. According to Gramsci, political hegemony is a matter of force and consent, with the force based on the consent of the majority. All American have superficially shown their patriotism by flag-waving and consumerism, so the masses would by into an ad like this in these times.

Structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure, a man who explores the interrelationships between UNITS, also called "surface phenomena," and RULES, which are the way that units can be put together, kind of like a Tinkertoy. According to Saussure, language is a signifying system, a naming process, comprised of the union of sound image and concept, signifier and signified. He begs the questions, " Can ideas exist without language?" He believes, "no." The relation of words and discourse are syntagmatic, linear, and this order governs their meaning. In the slogan, "Bank of America does not embrace ambiguity," it is blatantly stating that it promotes uniformity. What if the slogan had said, "Bank of America embraces ambiguity?" If the picture had been of a hockey player, not associated with the Olympics, and not associated with America, it would have had a truer meaning. The hockey player would still be protecting the capital, but be a nameless figure. Isn't a hockey player rather ambiguous anyway? Back to the original slogan, how can Bank of America not embrace ambiguity with a hockey player as its symbol of protection? Doesn't the mask connotate hidden identity? Obviously the ad is playing off of the need American's have to glorify themselves, not only in the Olympics, but socially and politically.

Barthe has similar definitions to Saussare's for signifiers and signified, but he believes the signifiers definitively establish positive meaning and fill the vacuum of a pure, meaningless series of words. There are no facts in themselves, they must have meanings attached. Clearly, the Bank of America ad has plenty of meaning attached: patriotism, capitalism, adherence, etc. This ad does not even need a slogan to convey what it is trying to get across. The images are strong and colloquial enough for the average person to get the gist.