A goad for everyone else

The article tries to depict central strands of a Media Cultural Studies that combines various contemporary approaches to the study of the media. Different from previous, mostly disciplinary projects, it calls for an approach that is rooted in social theory, covers a wide range of conjunctures between culturalist and critical viewpoints and aims for a better understanding of the social power of the media. A retrospective look at the pioneering works of the British Cultural Studies tradition helps to delineate such a holistic, theoretical, methodological, and epistemological endeavour and finds the writings of — in this case — Williams and Hall as particularly helpful in formulating topical questions for today’s media theory.