Horizontal Power, Vertical Weakness: Enhancing the “Circuit of Culture”

Imagined as a way to account for a broader conceptualization of meaning, the “circuit of culture” encourages scholars to consider the contribution of sometimes overlapping cultural processes, such as production, consumption, regulation, representation, and identity. In this article, the author considers the way the circuit prompts him to think “horizontally” in his research. But he argues that the circuit can be augmented and improved by the recognition of deeper, “vertical” dimensions of meaning. For instance, would it be possible to account for the researcher's own cultural processes in her/his reports? What about those of the audience members for these reports? The author presents an example of this approach with the interpretation of a Smokey Bear advertisement. He concludes that such efforts to pull together these elements will be rewarded with more powerful, nuanced statements of the process of meaning. Notes 1This model has been utilized in a variety of fields and topic areas, including advertising (CitationSoar, 2000), film and television studies (CitationAcosta-Alzuru, 2003; CitationDean & Jones, 2003; CitationLevine, 2001), human geography (CitationSquire, 1993, Citation1994a, Citation1994b), men's magazines (CitationBenwell, 2003, Citation2005), the music industry (CitationFraley, 2003; CitationTaylor, Demont-Heinrich, Broadfoot, Dodge & Jian, 2002), public relations (CitationCurtin & Gaither, 2005, Citation2006; CitationTerry, 2005), science journalism (CitationBurgess, 1990; CitationWilcox, 2003), and tourism (CitationNorton, 1996). 2Ideally, a researcher (or team of researchers) would be somewhat coordinated (or at least aware) in the execution of other studies of a particular topic that address other moments of the circuit. For instance, in my own work, in addition to studying the Smokey Bear campaign, I am examining another example of representation—collecting and analyzing mainstream journalistic texts (television and newspaper) about the topic of wildland fire in Northeastern Colorado. I am also working with colleagues on a study looking at efforts on the part of a consortium of governmental agencies to encourage landowners and local organizations to prepare their properties in ways that ease the threat of catastrophic wildland fire. This study gives us the opportunity to say something about the extent of the articulation of discourses related to “production” (i.e., institutional communication on the part of the consortium) and “consumption” (i.e., what the public and organizations are doing with that communication). My colleagues and I are also currently researching the history and contemporary status of wildland fire “regulation,” in both a formal administrative policy sense (e.g., the U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964; see CitationPyne, 1982), as well as the less formal local norms of those who live and recreate in fire-prone regions (e.g., statements from forest dwellers who say they yell at anyone they see tossing a lit cigarette out a car window). And finally, we are researching, interpreting, and writing about the expressed “identities” of a small group of people living and recreating in and around a national forest in Northeastern Colorado. By working our way around the circuit of culture, in each stage adding more context to our research topics, we intend to be able to make much more powerful interpretations. For instance, we gain a sense of the wider cultural processes in relation to which (or rather, in articulation to which) discourses such as those related to the Smokey Bear campaign have played a role in the direct meanings of wildland fire, and the more general meanings of nature. A shared theme emerging from these studies is an ongoing dialectic between discourses of human control over the natural world (patriarchal, utilitarian), and discourses of human co-existence with nature (feminist, Gaian). These interpretations, in conjunction with shared information about ourselves as researchers, will assist the audiences for our research reports in reaching their own interpretations. Godfrey, R. (1995). The life and times of Smokey Bear: A critical study of America's oldest public service advertising campaign from an historical and theoretical communication research perspective. Unpublished master's thesis, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York.