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Cultural Industries: blog task

 Cultural Industries: blog task



The term ‘cultural industry’ refers to the creation, production, and distribution of products of a cultural or artistic nature.

Hesmondhalgh identifies that the societies in which the cultural industries are highly profitable usually are ones that support the conditions where larger companies, and their political allies, make money. 

Some media products offer ideologies that challenge capitalism and inequalities in race & gender. This is because cultural industry companies have to continuously compete with each other. These companies want to appeal to and satisfy the desires of the profane and rebellious. 

Hesmondhalgh identifies the problems regarding the cultural industries, these include:
  • Risky business 
  • Creativity vs commerce 
  • High production costs and low reproduction costs 
  • Semi-public goods; the need to create scarcity

Cultural industries is considered as a risky business. One of the main reasons is that some cultural industry companies are reliant on other cultural industry companies to make audiences aware of their existence of a new product that they are providing. This means that they do not have full control on the publicity that a product will receive. 

In regards to the creativity versus commerce debate, I believe that the media should focus maintain on the form of artistic expressions. It is obvious that every form of media that is published will gain some sort of profit (unless it is disclosed as nonprofit). However, i do not believe that profit should be the only incentive for a person to produce media. The desire to produce a product should derive from a longing to express yourself. 

Cultural industry companies minimise their risks and maximise their profits by owning more than one company. Owning more than one company will increase their source of income whilst also ensuring that if one company fails, they wil have another to fall back on. 

I agree that the way cultural industries operate reflects the inequalities of wider society. It is ofte seen that content creator do not always get the rewards that they deserve for their work and often therewards and credit is given to another factor of the creation.      

The vissual effects industry has suffered despite the huge budgets for most Hollywood movies. This is because the visual effects side of production does not get enough credit as they deserve. Visual effect companies are being effected by bankruptcy. Western homer states that hundred of visual effect artis were protesting outside the oscars award ceremony, stating that their industry was being crushed by outside economic and political forces.

The term commodification names the process whereby things, services, ideas, and people are transformed into objects for sale in a capitalist economic system

I agree with the argument that media texts fail to reflect the diversity of people or opinion in wider society. I believe that the media doesn’t often expose audiences to other ideologies and view points that are held within the wider society. Media tends to push mainstream ideologies on audiences. However, there are a few media texts that explore view points that may be considered as controversial and/or different. 

Hesmondhalgh identifies reasons that cultural industries have changed, this includes:
  • Ownership & organisation of cultural industries are now much broader. This mean that the largest companies now operate across a range of cultural industries; TV, publishing and film. This changed cultural industries as it gives these bigger companies control over a majority of the population. It also allows them to accumulate a large profit. It also limits the opportunities for smaller companies 
  •  Digitalisation, the internet and mobile phones have multiplied the ways audience can gain access to cultural content. This has changed cultural industries as it gives companies a new way to share their content as well as profiting off it. It also allows some companies a chance to gain more exposure. 
  • 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. This also displays how much power big companies have. 

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