Dick Hebdige’s work Subculture: The Meaning of Style

Dick Hebdige’s work Subculture: The Meaning of Style has had a great impact within the area of cultural studies as it manages to take the preceding theories of subculture one step further, and to pinpoint the differences between culture and subculture as well as to decipher the â€Å"the hidden messages inscribed on the glossy surfaces of style† (Hebdige, 18). Hebdige follows on the tracks of semiology as theorized before him by Saussure and Roland Barthes and tries to read and interpret the signs and the language of the subcultures that emerged in Great Britain after World War II, such as the punks, the mods or the skinheads.Also, he is inspired to a great extent by Levi-Strauss’s structuralist anthropology. What is really significant about Hebdige’s works though is that he applies the purely theoretical frame that had been constructed by the preceding authors directly to the different styles which appeared as forms of subculture. Thus, he tries to interp ret the outer signs which were displayed by each of the groups, from the punks to the skinheads, and reveal their social and cultural meaning.He uses clothing and hair styles, types of music or dancing and so on, as part of the language of the subcultures, in which the actual social meanings are inscribed. Thus, according to Hebdige although the social classes were said to have disappeared after the Second World War, they were actually simply transformed into ideological divisions from the mainstream. The classes thus formed were subcultures, that is, ‘marginal discourses’ which opposed the general tendency of the anonymous culture existing at that point in time:â€Å"It has become something of a clichà © to talk of the period after the Second World War as one of enormous upheaval in which the traditional patterns of life in Britain were swept aside to be replaced by a new, and superficially less class-ridden system [†¦] Nonetheless [†¦]class refused to disa ppear. The ways in which class was lived, however – the forms in which the experience of class found expression in culture did change dramatically.The advent of the mass media, changes in the constitution of the family, in the organization of school and work, shifts in the relative status of work and leisure, all served to fragment and polarize the working-class community, producing a series of marginal discourses within the broad confines of class experience. †(Hebdige, 54) As Hebdige emphasizes, the subcultural styles formed their own rhetoric by means of a certain way of living and of an ostentatious appearance, as a response to the particular cultural, social, political circumstances of the time.In brief, it can be said that these subcultural styles were a form of protest to the anonymous culture. Although sometimes their rhetoric, as in the case of the punks, was intentionally baffling and consciously aiming at meaninglessness, to the point that it seemed to  "work against the reader and to resist any authoritative interpretation,†(Hebdige, 89) it formed nevertheless a coherent symbolic order in itself.The subcultural groups represent, in Hebdige’s view, responses to the â€Å"contrary mythology of class†, that is, to the way in which class was alternatively proclaimed as gone and then reaffirmed by the media: â€Å"Rather the different styles and the ideologies which structure and determine them represent negotiated responses to a contradictory mythology of class. In this mythology, ‘the withering away of class' is paradoxically countered by an undiluted ‘classfulness', a romantic conception of the traditional whole way of (working-class) life revived twice weekly on television programs like Coronation Street.The mods and skinheads, then, in their different ways, were ‘handling' this mythology as much as the exigencies of their material condition. They were learning to live within or without that a morphous body of images and typifications made available in the mass media in which class is alternately overlooked and overstated, denied and reduced to caricature. †(Hebdige, 55) Thus, Hebdige sees subcultures as homogeneous and coherent forms of rhetoric, which go beyond the merely desire to shock the public opinion.In fact, as he theorizes, all the parts of the systems of symbols that make up a particular style are homologous, and they can be said to be as coherent as a’ whole way of life’: â€Å"In Profane Culture, Willis shows how, contrary to the popular myth which presents subcultures as lawless forms, the internal structure of any particular subculture is characterized by an extreme orderliness: each part is organically related to other parts and it is through the fit between them that the subcultural member makes sense of the world.For instance, it was the homology between an alternative value system (‘Tune in, turn on, drop out’), halluci nogenic drugs and acid rock which made the hippy culture cohere as a ‘whole way of life’ for individual hippies. †(Hebdige, 123) As Hebdige remarks the subcultures were actually strong constructs, which were usually meant as a response to a crisis situation, as is the case of the punks at the end of the 1970’s, whose rhetoric mimicked the chaos of the English social and economical life.The violent and obscene style was in fact a language in itself, in perfect accordance with the way in which swore or spoke: â€Å"There was a homological relation between the trashy cut-up clothes and spiky hair, the pogo and amphetamines, the spitting, the vomiting, the format of the fanzines, the insurrectionary poses and the â€Å"soulless,† frantically driven music. The punks wore clothes which were the sartorial equivalent of swear words, and they swore as they dressed — with calculated effect, lacing obscenities into record notes and publicity releases, i nterviews and love songs.Clothed in chaos, they produced Noise in the calmly orchestrated Crisis of everyday life in the late 1970 s[†¦]†(Hebdige, 125) Hebdige thus highlights the identity of language and style within the subcultural rhetoric. The punks for instance functioned as a current in which the meanings were not even fixed as such, although the general meaning behind the style was that ‘the forbidden is permitted’, as Hebdige comments: â€Å"If we were to write an epitaph for the punk subculture, we could do no better than repeat Poly Styrene's famous dictum: ‘Oh Bondage, Up Yours!’ or somewhat more concisely: the forbidden is permitted, but by the same token, nothing, not even these forbidden signifiers (bondage, safety pins, chains, hair-dye, etc. ) is sacred and fixed. †(Hebdige, 125)The subcultures were thus a way of subverting the anonymous, mainstream currents trough a form of stylistic rhetoric. The main discontents with the contemporary world were thus displayed by means of dress or discordant music for example, aiming at a deconstruction of traditional concepts or cultural facts.The subcultural styles didn’t target necessarily the values of a certain society, as it is usually believed, but rather those notions and cultural patterns that they found as incoherent and contradictory. They were actually an abstract embodiment of the outside chaos, and not a chaotic response to order, or a protest against order. Also, the subcultural streams aimed at emphasizing otherness and difference and their adherents were intentionally posing as aliens to society and wearing masks so as to avoid any categorization or prescribed identity:â€Å"They [the punks] played up their Otherness, ‘happening’ on the world as aliens, inscrutables. Though punk rituals, accents and objects were deliberately used to signify working-classness, the exact origins of individual punks were disguised or symbolically d isfigured by the make-up, masks and aliases which seem to have been used, like Breton's art, as ploys ‘to escape the principle of identity. ’ †(Hebdige,126) Another very important characteristic of the subcultural movements is, as Hebdige notes, the fact that they strived to confuse the usual divisions of race, gender and chronology by combining them in their style.The boundaries between the white and black cultures are progressively erased through the borrowings that the white cultures made from the black ones in their style: â€Å"[†¦] it is on the plane of aesthetics: in dress, dance, music; in the whole rhetoric of style, that we find the dialogue between black and white most subtly and comprehensively recorded [†¦]†(Hebdige, 96) The subcultures proceeded to mix up the separate elements of the mainstream culture, attacking thus the idea of identity and opening the way to difference and otherness:â€Å"Behind punk's favored ‘cut ups†™ lay hints of disorder, of breakdown and category confusion: a desire not only to erode racial and gender boundaries but also to confuse chronological sequence by mixing up details from different periods. †(Hebdige, 128) The important thing to note therefore is that in Hebdige’s theory the subcultures were deviations from the anonymous culture, aiming at decentralizing some of the most rooted concepts and ideas of society, and at establishing a new different order outside the stereotypes of society. All this was done through style, ranging from music to dressing and all the other means of expression.Style works therefore as a system of signs, as a text that must be read to grasp the meaning behind it. Obviously, Hebdige’s work deals with the subcultures in the modern epoch, after the Second World War. Therefore, there have been attempts to take his study further, so as it may capture the way in which subculture is manifested in postmodernism. Although the main subcultures that Hebdige discusses- the punks, the teddy boys, the mods, the skinheads, the Rasta men and so on, lost their force or even disappeared, some subcultural groups still exist today, although their structure seems to be different from that of the modern subcultures.The styles in the contemporary world are, to a great extent, the products of postmodernism and therefore imitate its main tenants, its fragmentation and hybridization. There are no longer entirely compact, coherent or well delimited subcultures like those identified by Hebdige, therefore the concepts he proposed remain mostly valid for the historical period he analyzed in his work. His approach is very enlightening for any cultural studies inquiry but it should be modified or continued so as to comprise the contemporary phenomena.

Student Involvement

Alyssa Moody Tonyia Benton Intermediate English 17 August 2012 Student Involvement The quality assurance of higher education has become recognized, as both necessary and desirable. Academically students can achieve more by having involvement in other activities. Other ways of being involved as a student is becoming a part of the community or playing sports. Although taking part of extra involvement in school activities may be stressful and time consuming it can also give motivation and reasons to strive to do better. Students have increasingly become involved in the improvement and enhancement of their own learning experiences.In today’s society it is now a necessity and desired to have a higher education. The quality assurance of a higher education can not only secure the work force, but stability for yourself and family. Students can better themselves, but can also be a positive role model for others in the community as well. Having student involvement can make a student str ive for a higher education. The academic involvement of students is one of today’s greatest accomplishments. Students strive for higher grades and maintaining a higher GPA.Scholarships and other funding for students are greatly increased with academic excellence. Today's generations are making higher goals for themselves to have perfect attendance and a higher academic education. Academically students are achieving more to the importance of a higher education. The involvement of students also include becoming a part of the community and sports within the school. The student can become a part of the community by simply giving back. A student can be involved in sports within the school and be required to maintain a higher academic grade and a greater attendance.With students giving back to the community and being involved in school sports it can make students work harder academically. In conclusion, although students can take involvement in a higher education, they must also st rive for academic excellence. Students take role in the community and sports, but also have to maintain a certain grade. By participation in extra activities within the school students strive to achieve more and more. Students have increasingly become involved in the improvement and enhancement of their own learning experiences.

Different international Human Resource (HR) professional organisations Essay

Different international Human Resource (HR) professional organisations all over the world - Essay Example According to the research findings a suitable career planning process has been conducted with a purpose to select an appropriate HR Professional Organization in order to take my career in the right path. The career planning process has been studied based on Noe’s model. In the career planning process, when the researcher was in the step of self-assessment and reality check, he has recognised that he is in the ‘Exploration Stage’ of career development where the researcher is keen to seek information about jobs, careers and occupations from co-workers, friends, family members along with the experienced person in the HR field and it can assist me for pursuing the needed education or training. The researcher’s short-term goal is to gain more experience in the field of Human Resource Management in order to be effective and efficient in my near future. Similarly, the paper’s long-term goal, when the researcher enters the ‘Establishment Stage’, to be a leading HR manager in a reputed organisation which would provide me a path to attain sustainable growth. In this study, it was found that all the organisations considered have a few benefits and lacunas as well. However, SHRM can be considered as one of the best organisations for HR Professionals in order to provide opportunities for achievement, encouragement for development, and information about career opportunities. Consequently, the researcher prefers to join The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) as the researcher found that it can assist me in order to achieve my career objectives. Background I am presently working in the Dubai Chamber of Commerce associated with HR department. I primarily look after the HR issues under the supervision of my mentor. My key responsibility is to manage the various HR issues in order to take the organisation in the path of sustainable growth and development. Subsequently, it can be stated that I am in the ‘Exploration St age’ and I intend to grow at sustainable rate in my near future that can be regarded as an ‘Establishment Stage’. This stage can provide me a place in an organisation which can assist me to make my independent contribution for the work. It often endow with a path to establish a desirable lifestyle along with the financial success (Noe, 2010). Self-Assessment and Reality Check Career development is considered as one of the important aspects for an organisation in order to create and sustain a continuous learning environment. It offers a process through which employee’s improvement has been conducted by a series of stages. Each and every stage is dealing with different developmental tasks, relationship and activities. In the same way, I am currently associated with the ‘Exploration Stage’. At this point, it is measured to be important for me to pursue the needed education or training in order to achieve my career objectives and goals (Noe, 2010) . The composition of different generation creates an appropriate workforce for an employee. With this concern there are mainly four different types of generations that are identified in the

Short Stories Summary Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Short Stories Summary - Essay Example Although, when he heard about his brother that he was jailed, this made him fear that some of his students may end up like his brother who indulged in drug abuse to forget about his problems. The narrator does not communicate with his brother for a long time until the death of her daughter. Sonny later replies his brother’s letter, and this makes them be in touch. The narrator recalls how they had differences with his brother when he decided to become a musician. The story shows how at first the two brothers had differences but later the story ends with them understanding and appreciating each other. The story tells us of the problems that the two brothers had and how they were able to tackle them. Thus, the story illustrates how there was anguish and recovery in the Harlem ghetto. It is evident that the narrator was able to handle his problem because of the teaching job that he had. From the story, we see him to be concerned about his students hoping that they would not be th e same as his brother. He also cares for his brother as he was the oldest. This is contrast to his brother who indulged into taking drugs to tackle his problems, which leads him to jail. As Sonny tries to deal with his problems, he tries to find his identity and feel accepted in the society. The narrator does not comprehend why his brother prefers to play piano. In the story, piano represents his problems, and in the end the figure of Sonny playing the piano, indicates how he struggles to deal with his problems. Summary of Paul’s case Acceptance and freedom of expression is two virtues that should be practiced to avoid emotional confinement (Brown 67). According to Willa Cather, in the story Paul’s case he tells of how Paul tries to fight against the social standards in the area where he lives in because he had no freedom to express what he felt. The story tells of a youth who is emotionally confined and how he tries to confront his problems. In school where Paul is, h e is called and faces the school faculty for his misbehavior. Paul is a student who does not follow teacher’s instructions and is less concerned with his studies. He ends up being a rude and comical student. He lived with his father in a quiet place but he wanted to go to New York where he could live the life that he was expecting. Although, he is seen to be careless and does not seem to care about anything, he loves music, theater, and arts. In contrast, Paul’s father wants him to work hard in school and venture into the business world. His father believes that it is only money that matters in people’s lives. This creates a big difference between them and has great influence on Paul’s character. For example, when his father stops him from going to watch movies in the theater drives him to steal money where he is working. He also ran from home and went to New York because he was not given the freedom to enjoy his life. Even though he enjoyed his life shor tly, his decision to leave home made him lose his life. Summary of Revelation In the story of Revelation by Flannery O’Connor’s, the main character feels that everyone is equal before God, regardless of their race and social status. The story starts when Mrs. Turpin goes to see a doctor with her spouse. As she gets in the hospital, she attracts people’

Strategic Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 12

Strategic Management - Essay Example As such there is a greater link between the innovation and firm level strategy that need to be supporting each other at the enterprise wide level. The innovation therefore without a concrete strategy may not be possible for the organizations to achieve in either short term or long term. Apple, one of the leading electronics manufacturing firms in the world started as a Personal computer manufacturer and was completely outclassed by its competitors in almost all segments of the business. However, over the period of time, its innovation strategy has led to it become one of the most innovative firms with a distinguished record for brining in innovative products in the market. This paper will therefore look into the innovation strategy of the Apple and explore as to how Apple was able to achieve the innovation and what are some of the strategies and tools that it used to achieve such position in the market. On April fool day in 1976, Apple Computer was invented by a Collage drop out Steven Wozniak and with his friend Steve Jobs to form a company that can manufacture and market the computer designed and developed by Steven Wozniak. By 1980s Apple was one of the leading manufacturers of the computers offering both the hardware and software in one PC. Apple Computers were considered as the State of the art computers providing both the efficiency and cost effectiveness and were phenomenonal in their ability to perform complex operations with more efficiency as compared to most of its competitors. Apple I, Apple II and Apple III were earlier models of the computers that were manufactured and marketed by the Apple by making more innovations into the overall design and technology of these computers. Thus the history of innovation at Apple is one of its earliest achievements as Apple continued to evolve its products by offering better and more

Target market of wine coolesrs in argentina Essay

Target market of wine coolesrs in argentina - Essay Example They are the teenagers who like to drink such wine coolers so that they can look cool, trendy and hip. It is essentially a style statement that they like to carry with them so that they can be taken as lively and attractive at all times. The focus for the wine cooler business should therefore rest on individuals who like to move ahead with life on the go. They are exploring new things, finding novel pathways and understanding the intricacies related with style and comfort. Within Argentina, the target market would include both male and female drinkers since they are within the teenager category. They like to drink such wine coolers so that they can be considered ‘in’ and trendy more than any other opinion that can be made out of them. The target market therefore is very essential to estimate before the business can be opened up and the people are offered the wine coolers for their purchase. If the primary target market is analyzed and locked upon properly within Argentina, it is always easier to know what the secondary and tertiary target markets would be for the sake of the wine cooler business. Since the wine coolers do not fall essentially under the category of the wine itself, they can be drunk by individuals who are not into hard drinks. This is the reason why people who are not into drinking can be taken as the right target market, and hence all out efforts could be made to sell the wine cooler products towards them (Author Unknown, 2011). The business would then be narrowed down in terms of finding and then sending the wine coolers to the exact target audiences. There would be minimal wastage which is any business’ dream in this day and age. In the past as well, wine coolers have been made at home so the element of starting a new business could be seen as something that can take place at a very low level. The important thing is to know the exact target market so that the wine

History and Contexts of Jeans Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

History and Contexts of Jeans - Assignment Example I had always admired my elder brothers and sister and thought how smart they were in their jeans, which for some reason were always blue or a shade of it; my main attraction to jeans has probably not changed since my pre-teen years. I could get into as much mischief as I wanted and they never really got very dirty, in addition, no matter how many trees and fences I scaled on my knees, they always remained intact. Their universal functionality is remarkable; I can go to class in them, and when I am out for fun either hiking or mountain climbing they come in hardy, perfectly. Besides even when they get dirty, I do not have to rush them into the washing machine, indeed there are people who like them being dirty and its thing with them; so much so that fashion houses have come up with â€Å"dirty jeans† to give the impression of roughness, freedom. For purposes of this reflection assignment, I decided to stay away from these important items of clothing for a week to appreciate the vital role they played in my life; however, I faced a significant challenge. In my closet, I hardly had a single item of clothing that was not Demin or Levis, I had to settle for cotton, and corduroy pants that I only ever wore in case I had to attend very formal gatherings. Therefore, in order to gain a better understanding of my exercise, it would be beneficial to go first over the history and social significance of jeans from a universal point of view for some hindsight. At the peak of the gold rush in California in 1853, 24-year-old German Levi Strauss, a refugee moved from New York to San Francisco with the aim of joining his brother in the dry goods business and opening a branch there. He arrived with a spade pick hammer and a bale of brown sail fabric that was intended to make tents and wagon covers; however, this did not go as he had planned; he identified a niche in the gold mining industry.