David Hesmondhalgh, The Cultural Industries, Introduction, Research Gate, 2012.
Claim: the cultural industries have undergone
remarkable transformation since the early 1980s.
Who deals with: Opposes a view that information technologies have altered the fundamental underlying dynamics of cultural production and consumption.
Method: Uses this opposition to discover "patterns of change and continuity in the cultural industries"(3).
Why important: for general public: because they influence our understanding and knowledge of the world (5)
for cultural theorists: good at management of creativity and knowledge; and economic, social and cultural change they bring.
Relevance to my research: Useful to look at what is "industry" for my research around "industrial engineering". Also cultural industries, as something that influences our understanding of the word, are directly linked to ideology, as a totality of society's ideas.
Which industries looks at: broadcasting, film, music, publishing, video games, advertising, web design.
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Notes:
9 arguments (changes in cultural industry) (3):
- Economic value. Cultural industry companies can no longer be seen as secondary to the ‘real’ economy
- Ownership. Large companies in the sector operate across a number of different cultural industries. They are also connected, due to having similar nature.
- Scale. There are much more medium and small companies and relationships between them and large companies are complex.
- Impact of digitalisation. Easier access to content.
- Impact of digitalisation(2). Cultural production easier than previously transcends national borders; US influence is becoming less prominent.
- Reach. There is greater emphasis on audience research, marketing and addressing ‘niche’ audiences.
- Government policy and regulation. Local urban and social policy changes to proritize cultural activities as means regenrating economies and gaining competitive advantage.
- Growing expenses on advertising.
- Advertising (2). Advertising penetrates areas previously protected from it.
Naysayers: (1) of course there are not only changes, but continuities too (2) describes opinion that internet has triumphed and TV, music and publishing are dying. Users are new creators (denies this by the facts that tell us that those industries are doing as well as previously; but the logic flawed since we cannot uderstand whether we are talking about present or (near) future).
Motivation for his research: Hesmondhalgh refers, firstly, to his experience of growing up as an Irish person in an English town, where he right from his teens learned that the cultural industries had a role in maintaining power relations and distorting people’s understanding of them. Secondly, he is also a fan of popular culture.