1. Williams takes great pains to define the notion of "determination":

Why is "determinism" an issue when we are analysing popular culture?

2. Base (primary economic activities) & Superstructure (a unitary "area" within which all cultural and ideological activities could be placed) are key terms in Marxist theory. See p 408. What do these terms mean? Why might they be relevant to a study of popular culture?

2a Define "ideology"! Look it up in your dictionary.

3. Willliams insists that the relation between economic forces (base) and cultural activities is a complex one. He suggests that understandings which focus on how culture "reproduces" or "reflects" the economic base are not adequate to the complexities of how culture works. He suggests that the idea of "mediation" is more useful. Look up "mediation" in your dictionary. What does it mean? Can we generalize from its basic meaning to see why this might be a more sophisticated explanation of how culture works. What are the limitations of seeing culture as a simple mirroring or reflection of the economic? (see p 408-9)

4. Williams insists that the metaphor of "the base" as static and fixed is not adequate to the "more active, more complicated and more contradictory" understanding of social forces as "a process and not a state." Why is it important to think about the relation between economic forces and culture as a process?

5. The concept of "hegemony" provides Williams with a way to think about why society is difficult to change. He notes that the Italian writer Gramsci offers hegemony as a term which "supposes the existence of something which...is lived at such a depth, which saturates the society to such an extent, and which, as Gramsci put it, even constitutes the substance and limit of common sense for most people under its sway" (p412). Common sense ideas which you could define as "hegemonic" include the idea of women as "naturally" maternal and the notion of men as "naturally" violent. Can you think of other social concepts which we accept as "common sense" while leaving unexamined how they came to be considered as the rule?

6. Hegemony "is the central, effective and dominant system of meanings and values, which are not merely abstract but which are organized and lived. That is why hegemony is not to be understood at the level of mere opinion or mere manipulation. It is a whole body of practices and expectations; our assignments of energy, our ordinary understanding of the nature of [wo]man and of [her/]his world. It is a set of meanings and values which as they are experienced as practices appear as reciprocally confirming. It thus constitutes a sense of reality for most people in society (p414). What does he mean by "reciprocally confirming"? How does hegemony work if it is mere manipulation?

7. Williams notes that "modes of incorporation are of great social significance" (p414). What does he mean by this? What is a "selective tradition"? How is it established?

8. Education, the family, and the organization of work (p414) are cited as factors which work to establish hegemony and our ideological understandings of our world. Think about how this might work. How might we think about a course called "Popular Culture/Feminist Culture" in relation to hegemony?

9. Williams insists once again that he is not talking about "the past, the dry husks of ideology which we can easily discard." He insists that "alternative meanings and values...even some alternative senses of the world...can be accommodated and tolerated within a particular effective and dominant culture." Can you think of alternative ideas of women which are incorporated into the dominant culture and emptied of their political and social force?

10. Williams invents the concepts of "residual and emergent cultures." Why? What are they?

11. What is the difference between "residual-incorporated and residual not incorporated, and between emergent-incorporated and emergent not incorporated" culture? Can you think of examples that have to do with the representation of women in contemporary popular culture?

12. What is the "simple theoretical distinction between alternative and oppositional" culture? Can you think of examples of each in relation to contemporary popular culture?

13. Why would we turn to Marxist criticism for one of the most carefully articulated notions of popular culture?

14. Williams looks at the different ways Soviet communism and western capitalism relate to cultural activity (p418). Think about how the Soviet Union dealt with alternative culture proposed by writers. Think about how in Western capitalism alternative and oppositional culture is dealt with by "market forces."

15. The Alberta government is currently proposing that cultural funding be tied to something called "community standards." Consider how these might work to affirm or deny different cultural practices.

16. Williams claims that "A society is not fully available for analysis until each of its practices [including culture] is included...[and that] we cannot separate literature and art from other kinds of social practice, in such a way as to make them subject to quite special and distinct laws." What are the implications of these ideas?

17. Why must the dominant culture always change? How does it change?