Global Journal of Human-Social Science, A: Arts and Humanities, Volume 22 Issue 8

© 2022 Global Journals Volume XXII Issue VIII Version I 15 ( ) Global Journal of Human Social Science - Year 2022 A Locating Media in Cultural Theories safeguard the purpose and validity of interpretation. This raises the question: How far can this premise be warranted? a) Practice and its other The theory of practice necessitates metaphysical commitments on the part of agents to substantiate the normalized reciprocity between practice and actors. However, as Mauss has suggested, acquired bodily technique can be activated unconsciously, without necessarily affecting the selfhood of a person; internalized physical routines are stored without apparent mediation (such as referential sign), and this explains why an invocation of certain bodily technique may not be accompanied by reflective consciousness. Although observers engage in translatability of knowledge related to the very possibility of practice theory, actors in practice can operate for other motives. In sociology, the problem of deducing unmediated knowledge is resolved by the claim on the evidentiality of institutional reproduction, i.e., habitus, even though the question remains, regardless whether the empirical alibi offered is sufficient to override this fundamental epistemic gap. The difficulty in establishing access to the consequence of practice in subjective terms constitutes a fundamental weakness of practice theory. Although repetitive routine is indispensable for acquisition of bodily techniques, acquisition itself retains relative autonomy from social institutions. The body preserves an internalized technique of some kind, but that does not necessarily mean subjugation of its possessor to a social structure. Thus, insofar as the practice theory retains the phenomenological concern with knowledge and utilizes ethnographic approaches to explore the social, collective significance of practice, it is destined to face a gap between the practice in subjective terms and its social consequences as observed from objective, analytic perspectives. In the classical Marxist criticism, the notion of false consciousness epitomizes the aberration of practice as part of an abstract larger system (in this case labor) from the consciousness of the actors (workers). Marx considers the transcendence of his dichotomy as a primary political goal, yet a similar gap between ethnographical findings and a theory by which to frame the practice poses a considerable challenge to researchers. Writing about the readers of romance novels in the Midwest, USA, Radway presents a complex narrative describing the dual positions of an analyst, first as a researcher committed to ethnographical understanding and second as an analyst pulled by the onus of discovering abstract patterns that the subjects she interviews may not possess. Given the apparent power of the romance’s conservative counter-messages, then, it is tempting to suggest that romantic fiction must be an active agent in the maintenance of the ideological status quo because it ultimately reconciles women to patriarchal society and reintegrates them with its institutions. It appears that it might do so by deflecting and recontaining real protest and by supplying vicariously certain needs that, if presented as demands in the real world, might otherwise lead to the reordering of heterosexual relationships. 11 As mentioned earlier, practice perspectives derive a set of axiomatic insights from phenomenological reflection about the type of knowledge retained in the body, but in its later development, practice has been increasingly embedded in discussion about its collective, social dimension. The example Radway presents is a case of in-depth research on subjectivity based on ethnographic perspectives that lead to a critical illumination of politics hidden in the mundane. Yet, the case is also a contradiction of the theoretical interpretation arising from the field-level sensitivity required of research on literary consumption. A decade after Radway, Hills reported similar attempts to embed practice in social theories, but he argued that they provoke complex relations between researchers and fans of popular media, leading to their mutual marginalization. It is necessary to reflect on the ways in which media and cultural studies closes its semi nar room doors on the figure of the fan as an imagined Other, thereby constructing what is to count as good academic work. Of course, this is only half of the story. It is equally important to consider the place of theorising within fan cultures, and to consider what boundaries are imagined around good fan practices. These boundaries may work to exclude the academic as an imagined other in fan writings and practices, providing the other half of what could be described as a torn social dynamic. Such mutual marginalisation would suggest that fandom and academia are co-produced as exclusive social and cultural positions. The categorical splitting of fan/academic here is not simply a philosophical or theoretical error, but is also produced through the practical logics of self-identified fans and ‘academics’. 12 Citing Cavicchi, who reports fans’ own accounts of becoming a fan, 13 Hills sub sta ntiates the methodological utility of the practice perspective for 11 Janice A. Radway, Reading the Romance; Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature , 1991, University of North California Press, Chapel Hill and London, p .217. 12 Matt Hills, Fan Cultures, Routledge, 2002, p. 2. 13 Cavicchi suggests that the practice of becoming a fan involves a complex transformation of self-identity, often at the level of habitus. “Becoming a Springsteen fan ... entails a radical, enduring change in orientation. It is not simply a matter of acquiring a new taste but is the development of a complex relationship with Bruce Springsteen through his work, a dramatic opening oneself to another experience. While fans often have trouble articulating exactly why they became fans, in their stories they dramatically portray the process of becoming a fan as a journey from one point to another, they indicate that it is a lasting and profound transition from an ‘old’ viewpoint … to a ‘new’ one, filled with energy and insight . ” (Cavicchi 1998: 59, quoted in Hills, ibid., p. 6)