Cultural Industries: blog task
Cultural Industries: blog task
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 term ‘cultural industry’ refers to the creation, production, and distribution of products of a cultural or artistic nature. Cultural industries include television and film production, publishing, music, as well as crafts and design.
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 the conditions where large companies, and their political allies, make money. These conditions being: constant demand for new products; minimal regulation outside of general competition law; relative political and economic stability; 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. There are also longstanding social expectations about what art and entertainment should do, and challenging the various institutions of society is one of those expectations.
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?
This is because there is no guarantee that a media product will be successful. In terms of business, they use vertical integration and diversification to spread their risk and maximise profit.
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?
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?
In the debate over creativity vs. commerce in the culture industries, I think both sides matter, but creativity should lead. When profit becomes the main priority, it can limit originality and push artists toward safer, more marketable choices. Still, commercial support can give creators the resources they need—as long as it doesn’t overshadow their artistic vision.
7) How do cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits? (Clue: your work on Industries - Ownership and control will help here)
In order to increase their profits and reduce their costs and risk, media companies use vertical integration, which is when they own a range of businesses in the same chain of production and distribution.
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?
Yes, I agree that the way cultural industries operate often mirrors the inequalities and injustices found in wider society—whether it’s about who gets opportunities, whose voices are valued, or who has the power to make decisions. Many creators, especially those from underrepresented groups, face barriers that limit their visibility and compensation. Due to this, the people who actually create the ideas, stories, and art behind media products deserve to be better rewarded and given more control over their work.
They were being crushed by outside economic sources and the state of the industry was putting artists at risk impacting the creativity of visual effects and the director says it's due to tax incentives. By 2013, visual effects accounted for about a third of the production budgets roughly on the top box office movies but this didn't translate more money for the visual effects artists. The margins just continued to get so tight as they went on through the years leading to bankruptcy.
10) What is commodification?
When Hesmondhalgh evaluates the changing social significance of the cultural industries, he considers commodification. This involves the transforming of objects and services into commodities. At its most
basic level, it involves producing things not only for use, but also for exchange.
Yes, I agree that even though a massive amount of media is produced today, it still doesn’t fully reflect the diversity of people and opinions in society. Many groups remain underrepresented or are shown through narrow stereotypes, which limits how accurately media captures real experiences. More intentional inclusion—both in who creates the content and who appears in it—would help media better mirror the world we live in.
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.
• 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).
• Powerful IT and technology companies now work with cultural industries to understand and produce cultural production & consumption. These companies (e.g. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon) are now as powerful and influential in cultural industries as traditional companies such as News Corporation, Time Warner or Sony.
• Cultural products can now be shared across national borders. This increased the adaptation, reinvention and hybridity of genres and products. It also enables cultures to reaffirm their values, reducing the cultural influence of the USA.
I think these are the 3 most important developments as they reflect the most recent and influential changes in the modern world that we now live in and showcase how mostly technology has changed and impact the world and influence people to use new digital services and platforms in their regular daily lives and also it shows the different ways of convergence and how people can now access the media and products in the cultural industries.
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