Brian Saludes Bantugan

Power in Meanings: Political Economy, Cultural Studies, and Mainstream Care Work Films Brian Saludes Bantugan

I present a lens through which the production and consumption of care work films may be better understood from two major critical schools of thought. In a review of the most relevant literatures available on critical paradigms in media analysis, branding and marketing, popular culture, migration, and global labor and film market developments, I propose a middle ground between political economy and cultural studies. In this perspective, meaning (the focus of cultural studies) drives the struggle for power (the object of political economy) in the production and consumption of care work films (or any other genre or brand of films whose content and processes are shaped by the meaning creation of newly emerging and continuously increasing global identities) - hence, the book?s title - Power in Meanings. This approach is a bridge that is rarely built, but is critical, if not groundbreaking, in creating the dialogue between the seemingly un-negotiating schools of critical Marxism and postmodernism in the context of media studies.