MCS.200 Critical Cultural Theory PART II 2022 EXAMINATIONS

发布时间：2024-05-29

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2022 EXAMINATIONS

PART II

MCS.200: Critical Cultural Theory

Section A

1. Look at this screenshot below of the results for the hashtag #makeuptransformation on TikTok (screenshot taken 04/02/2022). Analyse the hashtag in relation to ideas of surveillance, beauty, and ‘the gaze’

2. Drawing on theories of media representation, identity, and vision and looking as central

aspects of creating meaning in contemporary media culture, critically analyse the image below of the front cover of British Vogue (issue February 2022) (Image credit: From Rafael Pavarotti/British Vogue).

3. Below are daytime and night-time photographs of the Venetian Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, USA. Critically assess how these images illustrate key features and concepts of postmodernism.

Section B

1. Following Couldry (2004) and Dövelinget al (2018), why is practice (as a theoretical category) productive for the analysis of contemporary mediations?

2. Stadler and O’Shaughnessy (2005: 188) describe ‘culture jamming’ as ‘aform of

media activism that subverts and reworks the intended meaning of existing media texts’ . Using examples of your choice, analyse the role of ‘culture jamming’ in subverting dominant ideologies.

3. What is ‘the myth of meritocracy’ (Littler, 2019)? How do media representations of elite individuals/groups use this ideology to normalise elite wealth? Use examples and critical theory in your answer.

4. ‘ Notions such as “following your passion” … naturalise cultural work as involving long hours of unpaid or under-compensated hope labour’ (Mackenzie and McKinlay, 2021: 1845). Using examples, critically discuss this statement and how work and labour in the digital cultural industries are inscribed in capitalist structures and inequalities.

5. Monique Franklin (2019: 43) writes that ‘claiming an identity is considered … the

most obvious form of representation, and failure to identify is framed as an evasion by the producers.’ Do you agree? Use examples and relevant theories to explain your answer.

6. Michel Foucault once claimed that today ‘we live in a society of surveillance not spectacle.’ Do you agree with him? Explain your answer.