Assignment 205
Hello Learners . This blog is part of an Assignment of paper Cultural Studies. Let's discuss it.
Personal Details:
Introduction
Power, Knowledge, and Media: A Foucauldian Framework
Constructing Identity: From Essence to Discourse
Media, Globalization, and the Cultural Economy of Power
Community Media: Counter-Discourses and Decolonial Resistance
Digital Media and the Youth: Between Empowerment and Commodification
Representation, Hegemony, and the Politics of Visibility
Contemporary Cultural Practices: Negotiation in the Third Space
In the contemporary world, cultural identity no longer emerges from geography or tradition alone; it is continually mediated, reconstructed, and contested through media discourses. Power and media are intimately connected in this process. Media determines whose voices dominate, which identities are made visible, and how communities understand themselves and others. The postcolonial subject, caught between global flows and local traditions, must navigate this terrain where representation becomes a political act.
This paper analyzes the interrelationship between power, media, and cultural identity by combining theoretical insights from Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, and Benedict Anderson, along with Rocky Prasetyo Jati’s field-based study “Cultural Identity and Community Media: Empowering the Cultural Community.” It argues that media is both a technology of power and a space of resistance—a dual force that simultaneously enforces hegemonic ideologies and provides communities with tools to redefine themselves. Through this dialectic, the formation of cultural identity becomes a process of negotiation, not preservation, shaped by the politics of visibility, discourse, and technological access.
1. Power, Knowledge, and Media: A Foucauldian Framework
To analyze the role of media, one must first understand the nature of power as described by Michel Foucault. Power is not simply hierarchical domination; it circulates through discourse, shaping what can be said, known, and imagined. Media, therefore, functions as a discursive apparatus that constructs social reality through images, language, and narrative structures.
In the postcolonial context, this power is particularly significant. Mainstream media—driven by capitalist, Westernized structures—often constructs identities of the “Other” through selective representation. These representations perpetuate hegemonic power relations, aligning with Edward Said’s notion of Orientalism, where the East is portrayed as exotic, static, and inferior. Thus, the media does not merely reflect reality; it produces ideology by normalizing particular visions of modernity and marginalizing subaltern identities.
Jati’s (2022) ethnographic research in Java demonstrates this mechanism on a local level. Traditional Javanese cultural expressions, once viewed as vibrant, are now reframed through national or corporate media as folkloric “heritage,” detached from their social function. Such framing reflects Foucauldian power/knowledge dynamics, where knowledge (here, representation) becomes a mode of control. The power of media lies not in coercion but in its ability to define cultural legitimacy.
2. Constructing Identity: From Essence to Discourse
Stuart Hall revolutionized the understanding of cultural identity by arguing that it is not an essence but a positioning. Identities are constructed within discourse; they are products of historical, political, and social contexts. Hall (1990) notes that identity is always “a matter of becoming as well as being.” This means that the process of identification is inherently unstable—open to reinterpretation, influenced by power relations, and continuously mediated through cultural production.
Media, in this context, becomes the key site where these identities are negotiated. The images, sounds, and stories broadcast through television, film, or social media constitute the semiotic space where communities see themselves and are seen by others. Benedict Anderson’s (1983) concept of the “imagined community” complements Hall’s theory by showing how collective belonging is created through shared symbols and narratives. Today, digital media extends this imagination globally, producing new communities that transcend geography but are often stratified by digital access and algorithmic bias.
The synthesis of Hall and Anderson’s ideas clarifies that media constructs identity through selective imagination—deciding which traditions are modern, which languages are “mainstream,” and which aesthetics are commercially viable. This construction is never neutral; it reflects who holds discursive power.
3. Media, Globalization, and the Cultural Economy of Power
In the age of globalization, media industries have become powerful economic and ideological institutions. Global mass media, particularly Western platforms like Netflix, YouTube, and Instagram, propagate cultural products that shape global sensibilities and values. This results in what scholars call cultural imperialism—the dominance of one culture’s worldview over others through media narratives and consumption patterns.
For postcolonial societies, this poses a double challenge. On one hand, the global media market offers visibility and connectivity; on the other, it risks homogenizing cultural difference. Local traditions become marketable commodities, reduced to aesthetic symbols rather than lived practices. For example, indigenous dances or festivals are rebranded for tourism, stripped of their ritual meaning but amplified for entertainment value.
Jati (2022) critiques this process in Indonesia, observing how “community identity” is often replaced by “cultural branding.” Such commodification reflects the intersection of neoliberalism and cultural production, where identity becomes a product for consumption rather than a lived expression of community. Power thus operates subtly through economic integration—not by erasing culture, but by commercializing it.
4. Community Media: Counter-Discourses and Decolonial Resistance
Against this backdrop, community media emerges as an alternative model of representation. As Jati’s research shows, community-based media collectives such as the Bali Buja Art Association and Galuh Prambanan TV use social media platforms to reclaim narrative autonomy. These collectives produce videos, interviews, and performances that articulate indigenous cultural knowledge and transmit it to both local and global audiences.
This form of media production can be understood through Foucault’s concept of counter-discourse—where marginalized subjects challenge dominant representations by creating new spaces of meaning. By documenting rituals, music, and storytelling from within the community, these platforms disrupt top-down models of representation.
What makes this resistance powerful is not just its visibility but its epistemological intervention. It challenges who gets to define culture and whose version of history is legitimized. In other words, community media decolonizes representation by allowing subaltern voices to articulate their own realities rather than being “spoken for.” This process also reflects Gayatri Spivak’s question, “Can the subaltern speak?”—to which community media responds affirmatively: yes, if they control the means of media production.
5. Digital Media and the Youth: Between Empowerment and Commodification
One of the most dynamic aspects of Jati’s study is the role of youth as cultural mediators. The younger generation, fluent in both local traditions and digital technology, functions as a bridge between the ancestral and the modern. Through YouTube channels, Instagram reels, and TikTok videos, they perform local dances, narrate folktales, and reinterpret myths for digital audiences.
From an analytical standpoint, this is a paradoxical process. On one side, it represents empowerment—young people taking agency to reimagine their identity in a global space. On the other side, it risks commodifying culture through performative representation tailored for algorithmic visibility. Cultural expression, thus, becomes trapped in the logic of digital capitalism: visibility equals value.
Here, Foucault’s notion of biopower becomes relevant. The body, the voice, and the performance of culture become sites of regulation through digital surveillance and algorithmic curation. While community media resists external dominance, it must still operate within systems controlled by global tech corporations. Hence, even acts of resistance are subject to technological power structures that dictate visibility and engagement.
6. Representation, Hegemony, and the Politics of Visibility
Cultural identity is not merely about what exists but about what is seen. Representation is therefore a political act, as Stuart Hall (1997) reminds us. The media determines not only how cultures are shown but whether they are shown at all. This creates a politics of visibility, where inclusion or exclusion shapes social reality.
Mainstream representation tends to flatten diversity into stereotypes—tribal, traditional, backward, or exotic—thereby reaffirming hegemonic hierarchies. Community media, by contrast, attempts to restore narrative depth. Yet even here, the battle is not simply about being visible but about controlling the terms of visibility.
True empowerment, therefore, requires epistemic resistance—not just appearing on screen but defining the language, aesthetics, and context of that appearance. As Jati’s work shows, when cultural communities narrate themselves, they reconfigure media from a tool of domination into a tool of self-definition.
7. Contemporary Cultural Practices: Negotiation in the Third Space
In today’s interconnected world, cultural identity unfolds within what Homi Bhabha calls the “Third Space”—a space of hybridity and negotiation where identities are continuously reinterpreted. Digital platforms have amplified this hybridity, enabling transnational collaborations and exchanges.
For example, diaspora communities use media to maintain connections with their homeland, while local artists collaborate with global audiences through hybrid forms of music, language, and art. Such practices demonstrate that cultural identity is not lost in globalization; it evolves through it. However, these hybrid identities are always shaped by power asymmetries—who has access to technology, visibility, and discourse.
Thus, media becomes both a battlefield and a bridge: it can homogenize through capitalist structures, yet also pluralize through community creativity. The tension between these forces defines the contemporary condition of culture.
Conclusion
The relationship between power, media, and cultural identity is neither linear nor purely oppositional. Media is not simply a vehicle of domination nor purely a means of liberation—it is a contested terrain, where power is exercised, resisted, and redefined. Through theoretical perspectives from Foucault, Hall, and Anderson, and empirical insights from Jati’s study, it becomes clear that the shaping of identity is a discursive, political, and technological process.
Community media represents an act of decolonial resistance, reclaiming narrative agency for marginalized groups. Yet this resistance operates within the global circuits of power—markets, platforms, and ideologies—that continue to shape cultural visibility. The challenge for contemporary society is to sustain a critical media consciousness, ensuring that empowerment does not turn into commodification.
Ultimately, cultural identity today is not inherited but performed, negotiated, and mediated. Power and media, far from being external forces, are embedded within this performance—constantly redefining who we are and how we imagine ourselves in the world.
- Works Cited
- Adila, Avita Rahma, et al. “The Role of Mass Media in Shaping People’s Cultural Identity.” International Journal of Progressive Sciences and Technologies, vol. 35, no. 2, 2022, pp. 559–565.
- Ahmed, Mohammed, Agboola Miracle, and Mabere Mark. “The Impact of Media on Shaping Global Cultural Narratives in the Digital Age.” Journal of Social Studies, vol. 6, no. 7, May 2020, pp. 12–18. University of Ibadan, ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/391675369_The_impact_of_media_on_shaping_global_cultural_narratives_in_the_digital_age_AUTHOR
- Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.
- Foucault, Michel. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977. Pantheon Books, 1980.
- Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora.” Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, edited by Jonathan Rutherford, Lawrence & Wishart, 1990, pp. 222–237.
- Said, Edward W. Orientalism. Vintage Books, 1978.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Nelson and Grossberg, Macmillan, 1988.
Wheatley, Mary Christine. “Media Representation and Cultural Identity.” Premier Journal of Social Science Review, vol. 24, 2024, pp. 1–15. Premier Science Publications, https://premierscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/pjss-24-370.pdf.
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment