The Cultural Industries

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

Cultural Industries refer to the process of creation, production and distribution of products that is put in an artistic nature.

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

Different types of broadcasting like radio, television, Film, Music, Print and electronic publishing, video games, advertising and web design.

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



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?

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 and is made worse by 2 factors: firstly, limited autonomy granted to symbol creators in the hope that they will create something original and distinctive; secondly, 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.

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 can be whatever you want. It can be turned into a profit and make money out of it but it can also be used to post and share what you want including cultural and artistic expressions. So I'm in the middle with this argument. Especially in this generation, it's harder to appeal to the audience with an artistic expression. 

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

Hesmondhalg proposed a theory that states "throw against the wall and see what sticks". This means big media companies should try releasing as a test to see the output of feedback to see if it will become successful. 

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?

Yes, I do believe that cultural industries reflect on the inequalities and injustices in society. Bigger media companies use the creative minds of our generation to promote products that don't get rewarded enough. While the working class gets the persuasion from their role models to use more money on these products.


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?

The visual-effects industry has suffered due to the bar of quality is raised more then the budget can handle even tho movie's budget keeps going up now. During lockdown it's even harder due being at home makes a lot more harder.

10) What is commodification?

Within a capitalist financial system, commodification is that the transformation of products, services, ideas, nature, personal info or individuals into commodities or objects of trade. A artefact at its most elementary, in line with Arjun Appadurai, is "anything supposed for exchange," or any object of quantity.

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?

Yes. For example, today's news is always flooded with covid-19, Donald Trump, lockdown and Boris Johnson. There is no diversity anymore because it's risky. It's the content that matters now for big media companies.

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.

• Today technology made it easier for more people to access to different content which turns into cultural content.
• Ownership is king. It makes it easier for big companies to spread their content and different types of cultural industries