Representation (Cultural Representation and Signifying Practice)

Author: [British] Stuart Hall, edited by Xu Liang and Lu Xinghua, translated by
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-11-01
Features: This book is a textbook on communication studies and sociocultural theory. The authors elaborate on how culture is constructed through representation and signifying practices through an overview of cultural studies theory and five thematic cultural case studies. The symbols used in it are arbitrary, hence there is no corresponding relationship with the external material world. It is an explanatory and meaningful world. All parties involved in the representation process (including producers and consumers) are engaged in the struggle for meaning, but this struggle is carried out through discourse. Meaning cannot be purely personal; rather, it is the result of negotiation and representation operations among all parties. Meaning is always biased and has a priority. A large number of illustrations in this book are the subject of brilliant analysis of this theory.