The Cultural Industries

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

The creation, production, and distribution of products of a cultural or artistic nature. Cultural industries include television and film production, publishing, music, as well as crafts and design.

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

They are highly profitable to countries that are highly developed such as the UK or the US. They are normally dominated by huge conglomerates like Fox or Sky.

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

It strikes the people that live in those actual environments to challenge and question the state of their own society. This separates the active consumer from the passive.

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?

The logo might be a problem as they want to create something innovative but they also want to avoid offence. The cultural industry is infamous for making things that people don't need but necessarily get interested in. With other industries, the audience knows what to expect by using star power or 'authorship function'. The risk of failure is minimised by predictable formats.


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 able to express certain qualities of artistic value but if you are a conglomerate like Disney and you want to make a lot of profit which could result in a new Marvel movie being made as it is a comfortable format and the fanbase is extremely loyal. In another sense, Media should not limit the way and quantity of artistic value - expressive creativity. These are sectors like Art House film or niche topics such as Top gear magazine. 

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

Conglomerates make their money through their subsidiaries as they are more likely to get profit if they have many companies making money.They are often involved in creating media products such as film, TV and print. 
They purchase their subsidiaries through vertical integration where a bigger company buys a smaller company that does a similar thing to them such as produce print or film.
They reduce risks by using the smaller companies that are experienced in this field to produce the product as they can minimise the risk if that product failing.


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 feel that the people who make the money should get paid more. It has a feeling of whoever does more work should get paid higher amounts. I don't think that the creative minds are getting paid as much as they should and that if it's the artistic value that is the main selling factor, the creative people should get a significant wad of cash. 

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?

Shows that the Oscars view visual effects as a method that WAS good. The VFX artists were protested that their industry was being crushed by outside political and economical forces. Lots of companies were bankrupt. VFX was struggling to keep its head above the water. VFX was becoming more of a valuable trait but the amount that they were getting paid was a lot less than the revenue they were generating. 

10) What is commodification? 

This is when you make things that will sell. This is the transformation of products in order to become commodities. Commodification spreads the idea that owning something or holding property of something gives you the right to exclude others.

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?

Some media texts display a very small view or stereotypical view of minorities in society and this could be based on economic or environmental challenges. I agree that there should be more texts which represent not only of diverse society as a whole, but by zooming into specific and representative members of the public.
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.

Digitalisation, Powerful tech companies and cultural products can be shared internationally.

Technology plays an immensely vital part in our lives and we, as the cultural industries, choose t take advantage of our dependence in things like social media and the internet as they are more likely to sell. The cultural industries are competing with huge tech companies which have more expert knowledge than their more outdated rivals.