Cultural Studies, Common Sense and Communications

This article addresses the ways in which cultural studies has transformed the premises of the study of communication over the last 30 years. It focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of cultural studies and offers a critique of contemporary attempts to replace the kind of grounded theory produce by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in Birmingham with an abstract sociology of an undifferentiated ‘globalised’ universe. It goes on to critique tendencies towards technological determinism, media-centrism EurAmcentism and cultural presentism in the field.