Joke Hermes

Watch this keynote on youtube. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7.

Affiliation

Hogeschool Inholland / University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Keynote lecture: Cultural studies and critical literacies: beyond street cred and cynicism

Media literacy has long lost its High Cultural connotation. It is closely connected with the cultural citizenship project in cultural studies in the 90s and the 2000s. How then can it be that the two traditions have not engaged more closely or directly? Why would cultural studies leave this discussion to media and communications researchers? In this talk I aim to reconstruct two recent trends in cultural studies: the turn towards issues of citizenship and the turn to production studies and questions of governmentality. While power relations, social inequality and empowerment have always been high on the cultural studies agenda, the 1990s and 2000s show a distinct disenchantment with (overly) optimistic scenarios. While popular culture ceased to be an area of contention under neo-liberal rule, there was less need to defend popular taste or texts. Although media literacy appeared to be a good candidate for the research agenda, this did not happen. Smaller qualitative audience research projects suggest that it may not have been (nor will be) easy to come to strong definitions of literacy. While early cultural studies showed us the mechanisms of street creditbility in youth culture projects, audience reactions today suggest that cynicism rather than literacy have been the outcome of the new 'media savviness' that viewers take credit for. How to (re)define the notion of literacy to make it work for cultural studies today in a way that is both critical and empowering?

In addition to her keynote lecture, Joke Hermes will also organize a seminar entitled: Caught! When 'their' literacy is not yours - audience research as a troublesome practice.