Cultural Industries

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

The creation, production and distribution of products of an artistic or cultural nature including Television and film and also music.

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

Societies that support the conditions for large companies and their political allies to make money.

- Lots of demand for new products

- Minimal regulation 

- political and economic stability

- Workers that work hard

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

Cultural industry companies have to constantly compete with each other in order to draw in audiences and so they try and satisfy audiences desires for the shocking, profane or rebellious. There are also social expectations about what art and entertainment should do. 

4) Look at page 2 of the fact sheet. 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?

The 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.

Risk stems from consumption, limited autonomy given to symbol creators that are then expected to create something original and distinctive the 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. Companies cannot

completely control the publicity a product will receive, as judgments and reactions of audiences, critics and journalists

etc. cannot accurately be predicted.

Cultural industries can be highly profitable in spite of the high levels of risk but profits are much more difficult for smaller and independent companies to make.

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?

I think that media should be almost half and half when it comes to artistic expression and profit as media should be something to express social change, expression, moral and philosophical exploration for the audiences gratification while I also say profit needs to be made as to also be able to produce more of that product to appease the audiences expectations for either a sequel or for more artistic gratification.

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

Cultural industries make sure to minimise risk by making sure no to stray far from genre expectations as to keep a loyal audience that expects what that specific producer might make as a product while also making sure to use Specific actors or directors as stars in order to attract audiences from those celebrities fanbases.

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?

I do believe that content creators and creative minds should be rewarded as without them the product would have turned out much differently from the original vision of a product and can be the main reason for a product succeeding and becoming popular or being obscure and underdeveloped and so these creators should be payed much more in order to reflect their impact on the industry and product . I would say that cultural industries do operate in a way that reflects these inequalities as the actors get payed much more for their work than the producers or directors even though without them there would be no film or product for the actors to act in. However it can be argued that without the actors, the audiences that would come with them would possible not choose to consume that product. But to counteract this point there are examples of star directors like Christopher Nolan who bring a wide audience due to him as a director and not the actors themselves.

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?

Throughout the early days of VFX there had been an emphasis on getting it done and although sometimes the budget would come up to be around a third of the entire budget of the film by the mid to late 2000s, fixed contracts with the film companies by the VFX studios meant that even though a film may be grossing very well the studios would not make any money and may actually start losing money.

10) What is commodification? 

Commodification is turning everything into something that can be bought or sold for example Disney sells merchandise from toys and cups to shirts and more while also making their different films into rides at their amusement park, Disney Land. 

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 somewhat agree with this as because there are so many media texts that are created almost daily there should be a large variety of diversity but I believe that it should be understood that a lot of media products will not be able to clearly and honestly make texts for every opinion and every type of person as not everyone can be appeased and represented in a way that fits and resonates with everyone.

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.

• No longer seen as second rate for the economy and are vast global businesses
• Larger exchange of cultural goods and services across borders
• Cultural industries work across a range of industries rather than specialising in one
• Large conglomerates connected in complex ways
• Digitalisation, allows for different ways of accessing media
• Powerful IT and Tech companies now work with CI to understand and produce cultural production and consumption
• Greater emphasis on marketing and research
• Traditions of public ownership and regulation dismantled
• Companies spend much more on advertising now
• More products across a range of different genres

1.Digitalisation

2.Exchange of cultural goods globally

3.CI's Work across a range of industries

Digitalisation is important as the world has become much more reliant on the internet, social media and phones in general to consume their media as its much easier to access and gain information much quicker than legacy media which may be seen by some as outdated or politically swayed on certain matters and so people much prefer to make their own opinions through their own research and so cultural industries have shifted to accommodate these changes to moving to digital.

Exchanging of cultural goods is important as it provides evidence for globalisation and the fact that the world is becoming ever more connected especially when it comes to the cultural industries as there is untapped potential for audiences across the world such as K-Dramas, Bollywood films or even anime which has garnered popular interest from western audiences due to being so different from what they usually expect from media while the same can be said for other audiences that take in western media for the first time which allows these industries to grow their loyal fanbases to be worldwide and unrestricted by borders.

The fact that Cultural industries now work across a range of industries rather than just being specialised into one like film or news allows for greater amounts audiences for their media products as if a consumer does not particularly enjoy the news for example, they can find gratification from enjoying the films that the industries provides, like film 4, and so with this greater range, companies are not limited to a specific audience.