The circuit of culture is a theory or framework used in the area of
cultural studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
.
The theory was devised in 1997 by a group of theorists when studying the
Walkman
Walkman, stylised as , is a brand of portable audio players manufactured and marketed by Japanese technology company Sony since 1979. The original Walkman was a portable cassette player and its popularity made "walkman" an unofficial term for p ...
cassette player. The theory suggests that in studying a cultural text or artifact you must look at five aspects: its representation,
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...
, production, consumption and regulation. Du Gay et al. suggest, that "taken together, (these 5 points) complete a sort of circuit...through which any analysis of a cultural text...must pass if it is to be adequately studied."
Gerard Goggin
Professor Gerard Goggin is an Australian media and communications researcher at the University of Sydney. He has produced award-winning research in disability and media policy alongside other contemporary works on digital technology and cultures.
...
openly uses this framework in his book ''Cell Phone Culture: Mobile technology in everyday life'' in order to fully understand the cell phone as a
cultural artifact
A cultural artifact, or cultural artefact (see American and British English spelling differences), is a term used in the social sciences, particularly anthropology, ethnology and sociology for anything created by humans which gives infor ...
. His book is split into four parts: production, consumption, regulation, and representation and identity (through looking at mobile convergences).
[Goggin, Gerard. (2006) ''Cell Phone Culture: Mobile technology in everyday life'' Routledge, New York.]
References
Cultural studies
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