Cultural Industries

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

Cultural industry refers to the various businesses that produce, distribute, market or sell products that belong categorically in creative arts.

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

Societies that support the conditions where large companies, and their political allies, make money.

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?

Risk derives from the fact that audiences use cultural commodities in highly volatile and unpredictable ways – often in order to express the view that they are different from other people.

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?

It should be a mix of both as media products are obviously designed to make money to provide income for its creators and to use the money gained to invest in future media productions however obviously they need to be a form of artistic expression to get people interested in the media product in the first place.

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

They diversify into different media brands buy buying subsidiaries so if one part of their business fails, they are still afloat.

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 the content creators should earn more as they do most of the world

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?

Taxes

10) What is commodification?

Commodification describes the process by which something without an economic value gains economic value that can replace other social values.

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?

Yes because people who write media texts are in a very privileged position

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.

Cultural industries are no longer seen as second to the ‘real’ economy. Some are actually vast global businesses.

Ownership and organisation of cultural industries is now much broader - the largest cultural companies now operate across a range of cultural industries (for example, TV, publishing and film).

These large conglomerates are now connected in complex ways however there are also many small and medium sized companies who create cultural products. These companies are becoming increasingly connected with other medium and large cultural industries.