MIGRAIN: The Cultural Industries

Cultural Industries: blog task

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive 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

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.- Factsheet

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

Hesmondhalgh points out that societies with profitable cultural industries (e.g. USA, UK) tend to be dominated by large companies, have minimal government regulation and significant inequality between rich and poor.

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

They offer these ideologies to seem less biased and show that they are diverse and appeal to the mass.

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?

Cultural industries can be highly profitable in spite of high levels of risk, but it may be difficult to achieve high levels of profit for independent or individual companies. This is because 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?

Media should be made out of creativity as the product you are creating will ultimately be better as you have put your unique thoughts and ideas which should gain a better profit for its unique and because of how genuine it is. 

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

promote your media product as you will increase its exposure meaning more people will see it giving you a higher chance of increasing sales.

-vertical integration
-horizontal integration
-diversification

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?

There is a lot of inequality and people should be better rewarded for their work as a lot of time and money goes into creating 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?

Financial and political reasons are why the visual effects industry is suffering.

10) What is commodification? 

The action or process of treating something like a mere commodity.

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 disagree, as there are plenty of books about diversity and the wider society however they may simply have failed to get the recognition they deserve.

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 have increasingly become globalised (as a result of digital media, new technologies and interconnectivity. As such, there is a greater exchange of cultural goods and services across countries and different cultures.