Cultural industries

Go to our Media Factsheet archive and open Factsheet 168: David Hesmondhalgh’s ‘The Cultural Industries’. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or you can access it online here using your Greenford Google login.
Read the Factsheet and complete the following questions/tasks:

1) What does the term 'Cultural Industries' actually refer to?

The creation, production, and distribution of products of a cultural or artistic nature.

2) What does Hesmondhalgh identify regarding the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable?

Hesmondhalgh identifies that the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable tend to be societies that support conditions where large companies, and their political allies, make money. These conditions being: demand for new products, minimal regulation outside of general competition law, relative political and economic stability and workforces that are willing to work hard.

3) Why do some media products offer ideologies that challenge capitalism or inequalities in society?

This happens because the cultural industry companies need to continuously compete with each other to secure audience members. As such, companies outdo each other to try and satisfy audience desires for the shocking, profane or rebellious.

4) Look at page 2 of the factsheet. What are the problems that Hesmondhalgh identifies with regards to the cultural industries?

• Risky business
• Creativity versus commerce
• High production costs and low reproduction costs
• Semi-public goods; the need to create scarcity

5) Why are so many cultural industries a 'risky business' for the companies involved?

Many cultural industries are a risky business as they rely on the existence of a new product or the use they get from that product. Companies cannot control the publicity their product will receive as it simply cannot be predicted.

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?

I think that you won't make a profit off a media product if it isn't artistic because nobody will be interested in watching something that is boring. You can't have profit without having an artistic aspect to media products. 

7) How do cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits? (Clue: your work on Industries - Ownership and control will help here)

Through vertical and horizontal integration by formatting their cultural products. They do this through the use of stars, genres and serials.

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?

I do agree that the way cultural industry companies operate reflect the inequalities and injustices of society as smaller media companies struggle to gain an audience while larger companies which focus mainly on making a profit rather than spreading their creativity can make money much easier. I do think that the creative minds behind media products should be better rewarded because they're the reason companies are able to make money, by making it enjoyable for the audience.

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 company going through a bankruptcy and several hundred visual effects artists had protested outside the Oscars, claiming their industry was being crushed by outside economic and political forces

10) What is commodification?

The process in which something becomes an object that can be marketed and sold.

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 do agree that there are a number of media texts being created and they fail to reflect diversity of people. This could be because of the ignorance of producers where they follow society and their discrimination towards people, stereotypes on different people.

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.

He suggests that cultural industries have changes more multiple reasons. For example, digitalisation. The internet and mobile phones have multiplied the ways audience can gain access to cultural content. This has made small scale production much easier for millions of people (think self-representation + prosumers). He also suggests that there is a huge increase in the amount companies spend on advertising which has helped to fuel the growth of the cultural industries.