Cultural Industries: blog tasks
1) What does the term 'Cultural Industries' actually refer to?
The term Cultural Industry refers to the creation, production or distribution of a cultural or artistic nature.
2) What does Hesmondhalgh identify regarding the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable?
Hesmondhalgh believes that Cultural Industries are highly profitable in societies that support conditions which are best suited for large companies and political allies to make money. These conditions tend to be audiences that want a constant demand for products, minimal regulation outside of the general competitor laws, relative political and economic stability and a hardworking workforce.
3) Why do some media products offer ideologies that challenge capitalism or inequalities in society?
Some media products go against the typically supported ideologies of capitalist societies and or inequalities mainly due to the fact these media industries need to continuously compete against each other in order to secure audience member.
4) Look at page 2 of the factsheet. What are the problems that Hesmondhalgh identifies with regards to the cultural industries?
Hesmondhalgh said that there are four main problems:
• it's a risky business
• the creativity versus commerce
• it's high production costs and low reproduction costs
• the semi-public goods; the need to create scarcity
5) Why are so many cultural industries a 'risky business' for the companies involved?
Audiences use and interpret these different cultural commodities in different and sometimes and volatile ways, mainly to show that they are different to regular people. There is also limited autonomy given to symbol creators in hopes of creating new and original content. Another major reason as to why the cultural industries are risky business is because the cultural industry company is reliant on other cultural industry companies to make audiences aware of the existence of a new product or of the uses and pleasure that they
might get from experiencing the product.
6) What is your opinion on the creativity v commerce debate? Should the media be all about profit or are media products a form of artistic expression that play an important role in society?
The media should always be about creativity and it should always be about how media creators, the media provides a perfect platform for freedom of speech and for the freedom of creativity. Making the media entirely commercial would make the media regular and indifferent as that form of media has the risk of making less money than well-known movies that provide well understood and well-received ideologies.
7) How do cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits? (Clue: your work on Industries - Ownership and control will help here)
Cultural Industries minimise risk and maximise their profits by mostly using various forms of integration, mainly by horizontal and vertical integration. Horizontal integration is when a business buys another business within the same sector in order to minimise competition for the audience (an example of this would be when Disney bought 21st century fox). Another form of integration would be vertical integration, this would be when a business buys different forms of the production, distribution etc. For a media conglomerate this would be when a media producer buys a dvd company to distribute their films.
8) Do you agree that the way the cultural industries operate reflects the inequalities and injustices of wider society? Should the content creators, the creative minds behind media products, be better rewarded for their work?
Many cultural industries find it difficult to distribute their products to a wider audience mainly due to the fact that these forms of media are generally only available to the rich or people that belong to the elite class, this alone shows inequality. Not only this but the fact that he creative minds behind these cultural products do not receive their deserved recognition is disappointing as its these people that have the creativity to produce this work. Without these directors/creators the audience would not have their content.
9) Listen and read the transcript to the opening 9 minutes of the Freakonomics podcast - No Hollywood Ending for the Visual-Effects Industry. Why has the visual effects industry suffered despite the huge budgets for most Hollywood movies?
The visual effects industry are having difficulties due to two main reasons:
Political forces
and financial difficulties
10) What is commodification?
Commodification is the process of changing products and or services for exchanging
11) Do you agree with the argument that while there are a huge number of media texts created, they fail to reflect the diversity of people or opinion in wider society?
I don't believe that there is a huge amount of media texts that fail to reflect diversity or opinion of a wider society, but I will say that there is a substantial amount of media texts. This mainly due to the fact that there has to be more mainstream media texts that reflect mainstream ideologies in hopes ot make more profit in order to be able to produce more cultural media texts.
12) How does Hesmondhalgh suggest the cultural industries have changed? Identify the three most significant developments and explain why you think they are the most important.
Availability:
Cultural products can now be shared across national borders. This allows there to be more hybrid genres which helps to decrease the cultural influence of america.
Digitisation:
The digitisation of the media helps millions of people view the content of small time cultural industries.
Advertisement:
There has been a crazy amount of advertisement used to help increase the popularity of cultural products
The term Cultural Industry refers to the creation, production or distribution of a cultural or artistic nature.
2) What does Hesmondhalgh identify regarding the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable?
Hesmondhalgh believes that Cultural Industries are highly profitable in societies that support conditions which are best suited for large companies and political allies to make money. These conditions tend to be audiences that want a constant demand for products, minimal regulation outside of the general competitor laws, relative political and economic stability and a hardworking workforce.
3) Why do some media products offer ideologies that challenge capitalism or inequalities in society?
Some media products go against the typically supported ideologies of capitalist societies and or inequalities mainly due to the fact these media industries need to continuously compete against each other in order to secure audience member.
4) Look at page 2 of the factsheet. What are the problems that Hesmondhalgh identifies with regards to the cultural industries?
Hesmondhalgh said that there are four main problems:
• it's a risky business
• the creativity versus commerce
• it's high production costs and low reproduction costs
• the semi-public goods; the need to create scarcity
5) Why are so many cultural industries a 'risky business' for the companies involved?
Audiences use and interpret these different cultural commodities in different and sometimes and volatile ways, mainly to show that they are different to regular people. There is also limited autonomy given to symbol creators in hopes of creating new and original content. Another major reason as to why the cultural industries are risky business is because the cultural industry company is reliant on other cultural industry companies to make audiences aware of the existence of a new product or of the uses and pleasure that they
might get from experiencing the product.
6) What is your opinion on the creativity v commerce debate? Should the media be all about profit or are media products a form of artistic expression that play an important role in society?
The media should always be about creativity and it should always be about how media creators, the media provides a perfect platform for freedom of speech and for the freedom of creativity. Making the media entirely commercial would make the media regular and indifferent as that form of media has the risk of making less money than well-known movies that provide well understood and well-received ideologies.
7) How do cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits? (Clue: your work on Industries - Ownership and control will help here)
Cultural Industries minimise risk and maximise their profits by mostly using various forms of integration, mainly by horizontal and vertical integration. Horizontal integration is when a business buys another business within the same sector in order to minimise competition for the audience (an example of this would be when Disney bought 21st century fox). Another form of integration would be vertical integration, this would be when a business buys different forms of the production, distribution etc. For a media conglomerate this would be when a media producer buys a dvd company to distribute their films.
8) Do you agree that the way the cultural industries operate reflects the inequalities and injustices of wider society? Should the content creators, the creative minds behind media products, be better rewarded for their work?
Many cultural industries find it difficult to distribute their products to a wider audience mainly due to the fact that these forms of media are generally only available to the rich or people that belong to the elite class, this alone shows inequality. Not only this but the fact that he creative minds behind these cultural products do not receive their deserved recognition is disappointing as its these people that have the creativity to produce this work. Without these directors/creators the audience would not have their content.
9) Listen and read the transcript to the opening 9 minutes of the Freakonomics podcast - No Hollywood Ending for the Visual-Effects Industry. Why has the visual effects industry suffered despite the huge budgets for most Hollywood movies?
The visual effects industry are having difficulties due to two main reasons:
Political forces
and financial difficulties
10) What is commodification?
Commodification is the process of changing products and or services for exchanging
11) Do you agree with the argument that while there are a huge number of media texts created, they fail to reflect the diversity of people or opinion in wider society?
I don't believe that there is a huge amount of media texts that fail to reflect diversity or opinion of a wider society, but I will say that there is a substantial amount of media texts. This mainly due to the fact that there has to be more mainstream media texts that reflect mainstream ideologies in hopes ot make more profit in order to be able to produce more cultural media texts.
12) How does Hesmondhalgh suggest the cultural industries have changed? Identify the three most significant developments and explain why you think they are the most important.
Availability:
Cultural products can now be shared across national borders. This allows there to be more hybrid genres which helps to decrease the cultural influence of america.
Digitisation:
The digitisation of the media helps millions of people view the content of small time cultural industries.
Advertisement:
There has been a crazy amount of advertisement used to help increase the popularity of cultural products
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