Eggo Müller

"Fiske's Politics of Recognition: Reading the Popular Revisited"

In Europe, John Fiske’s (1989) theory of popular culture and his readings of popular texts have been received and are still discussed as a prototypical approach to popular culture opposed to the Frankfurt School’s ‘elitist’ critique of the Culture Industry. Though the differences between Fiske’s account on popular culture and the Frankfurt School’s perspective on the Culture Industry are evident, Fiske has never explicitly positioned himself in opposition to Adorno and Horkheimer’s critique, but has explained his own theoretical project in terms of a critical adaptation and continuation of (neo-) Marxist media and cultural theory (Müller 1993).

This paper reconstructs Fiske’s contribution to the theory and analysis of popular culture in terms of a ‘politics of recognition.’ Referring to Axel Honneth’s social-philosophical reflections on the Struggle for Recognition (1995), the paper argues that Fiske’s theory of popular culture (as outlined in Understanding Popular Culture and Reading the Popular, both 1989) can be understood as a contribution to a discourse theorizing popular culture as a ‘medium’ of recognition. It suggests that Fiske’s writings can be integrated into the Frankfurt School’s third generation’s attempt to come to terms with Adorno/Horkheimer’s shortcomings regarding the social-philosophically foundation of their critique of the Culture Industry. At the same time, Fiske’s theory can ‘cover’ this third generation’s blind spot in discussing the role of media and popular culture in the people’s struggle for recognition. The paper relocates Fiske’s approach within Honneth’s social-philosophical grounded critique of the deficit of recognition for many marginalized social groups and raises the question whether corporate media and popular culture might provide ideologically distorted forms of recognition (Honneth 2007). The paper will focus on Fiske’s (1989) analysis of Quiz and Game Shows to discuss this question in detail. In doing so, the paper reconstructs nuances in Fiske’s analysis of popular culture that are widely overseen in the general reception of Fiskes writings. It will thus unlock Fiske’s theory of popular culture for a reception within the contemporary social-philosophical discourse on the struggle for recognition.