the interpretation of cultures by clifford geertz summary

Following Geertz's interests in 'religion', 'art' and 'common sense' as cultural systems, we will take a closer look at 'television as a cultural system'.

In this article, building on Clifford Geertz's interpretive anthropology, we attempt to outline the framework for a more hermeneutic-interpretative approach for the study of communication and socio-cultural change. We particularly focused on the German scholar Jürgen Habermas's contributions. But he is also the leading exponent of an orientation. In Servaes (1989b) we briefly discussed definitions of power, ideology, and culture that contribute to this new interpretation of the superstructure. Clifford Geertz, an American anthropologist, is known for his studies of Islam in Indonesia and Morocco and of the peasant economy of Java. Thus this article focuses on these important concepts in view of new sociocultural and anthropological interpretations of their use in intercultural and cross-cultural communication research. Clifford Geertz has been called ‘the most original anthropologist of his generation’ and this reputation rests largely on the huge contributions to the methodology and approaches of anthropological interpretation that he outlined in The Interpretation of Cultures. This is mainly because of the multidimensionality of these concepts. Though most social scientists reckon that the concepts of power, culture and ideology are essential for an understanding of the social reality, the concepts are often not defined and therefore interpreted in different ways. Today's social sciences appear more interested in the impact and effects of aspects of the so-called 'superstructure' of society than in previous times. This 'crisis' also affects the discussion in the scientific field. Such an opening statement hardly surprises anyone any more. The world today is in a state of turmoil.

The interpretation of cultures by clifford geertz summary